Utd's is presumably downgraded from 1st because of the question mark over Rojo and Shaw's lack of fitness, but Falcao edges it over Mangala. Costa is what puts Chelsea in the lead, though, and he may win the league for them. They would have won it last season if they'd had a striker of his calibre.
I feel the same way as Rich. Any report that puts ManU up in second place as having done good and sensible business needs its validity questioned. ManU have started to address their problems only. And that's after shelling out £145M. They can't defend, they don't create and they can't score. Now they may be able to create and score. But they still won't be able to defend anything like as well as they should if they want a top 4 position at the end of the season. World class players midfielders and strikers are fantastic, but they tend to be iffy defenders. I'm still not expecting an Old Trafford success story. They'll have to spend more vast sums to buy progress in January 2015
Kreuger should be judged on what he has been brought in to do. Develop the commercial side of the Club. He has never claimed to be a football man and probably only makes club-prepared statements on football when forced to do so by Media fronted attempts to destroy our Club. With the explosion of interest in football in North America and his worldwide sporting contacts it might well be that securing the services of Ron Kreuger will turn out to be one of the most savvy moves by the Board yet. By all means judge the guy but judge him fairly on what he was brought into to do rather than what you would prefer him to do.
But he's taking the interviews about the sporting side of the club, so I'm afraid your assertion doesn't hold sway.
Hang on, who's judging the guy..? I'm merely stating what I don't like about his delivery, that's all. I'm very much not alone in that, so why pick on my post alone..? There are posters on this forum who defintiely think he's a waste of space, and I'm not one of those. I'm completely open about the task he has been set to act upon. I hope very much that he can pull a few corporate strings out there, and get Saints out into the growing markets. It was something that NC was definitely poor at, or had not addressed properly yet.
Well I can judge the board now; under cry difficult circumstances (chairman, manager and top 5 players leaving) they have fulfilled certain promises. We have a manager who seems to be hitting the mark for me and have invested a lot of that money back into the team. Of course we don't know how well they'll do as United who spent £150m don't know how they'll do, but I am very pleased with the outcome. I won't judge us against last season, this season. We air a new squad and a new manager. Right now, I'm proud to be a saints fan.
Sorry mate I wasn't picking on you or anyone else for that matter. I just put it as a reply to the last Kreuger post to give it some context. I know that we all want what's best for the Club and probably all have out own take on what that involves. All I'm saying is that if anyone out there is judging Kreuger on his football "smarts" they are gonna be disappointed.
I think we all have to agree that both Kreuger and Koeman came at a most difficult time for the Fans and the club. Kreuger asked the fans to judge his and Katrina's statements of intent after the 1st September. I am sure we all would agree after the shock from some of our players intentions and actions and the slowness of information from within the club about the upheaval. Is it any wonder that a large number of fans both on here and elsewhere, found it difficult to take the board seriously. Especially with statements like "we are not a selling club" then within hours announcing the departure of the fans favourite players. At last they made a stand and refused at least one players demands and started to keep the fans a little more informed of their intentions and desires. Well for me, after their initial mistakes, they began to do and say the right things. So yes Mr Kreuger you have done what you and the board promised and you have began to get the fans on board "the bus". You have won the first big battle....now begins the real war! So it's over to you Mr Koeman to master the battle field and to inspire the men and do your bit as the next Judgement day is likely to be yours, probably around January. This fan is happy for now.........
Excellent post. The criticism was justified at the time, and I still feel the club could have handled the exodus ten times better, but it's actions since have been great.
Les did apologise about the lack of early information, but said it was difficult to let out information at a time that the club was in negotiations. They had decided to let some players go, but you can't let that info out to the buying club. In the end, we got top dollar. Some could argue Chambers was too cheap, but that was his release clause. They also felt some responsibility to Rickie not to stand in his way of a good move (especially when his time with us would be limited). Never let Ralph speak in public might be a good mantra...though strange that it is necessary when he is considered a public speaker . I have no idea how good Ralph is at his job...time will tell I suppose.
I actually think the best interview, and the one that showed the most leadership this summer - was Ralph when he was on Sky, BBC and talkSPORT on the same day.
So do I. I think the problem is that people listened / read what Ralph and Les Said then seemed to make their own translations of it like they never said we weren't going to sell anyone. They simply said we don't need to sell and a lot of fans then chinese whispered it onto the net as a broken promise when we did sell. On the Lambert transfer if anyone believes they 'felt some responsibility to Rickie not to stand in his way' they are believing the romance. He was sold because the board were OK with it and not for some 'romantic notion'. £4m for an ageing player they had already been trying to replace and were sure they could. The 'not stand in his way' is just PR to soften any moaning from the fans. The others (Lallana, Lovren) I'm pretty sure they asked themselves if they could improve in that position at a profit and the answer in their eyes was obviously yes. At the moment it looks like they were right on both counts. With Shaw and Chambers their hands were tied due to the clauses. So I think the board have done a stellar job. They've replaced an ageing striker and made themselves look good in the process. They've replaced 2 top rated players with what may well be improvements. You can't criticise the Chambers/Shaw deals. When Kruger speaks he does use loads of buzzwords and management speak but so what. If he didn't and said things matter of fact like Les does then people still don't listen to what they've actually said and come out with 'They said they weren't selling anyone and they have'.
THIS....Koeman has been our best and key signing in what as been a turbulent window. And I also have more respect and affinity for RK than I ever did for MP. Go to quite a few away games and he never ONCE acknowledged the away support, wouldn't of hurt him. Never sang that Pochettino song again when he totally blanked the away support at Fulham, watched him from dugout, across pitch in front of us to tunnel, not even a cursory glance. I
Been very quiet since and not sure you're maybe giving Ralph more credit than warranted, maybe Les deserves more credit even though he appears to be demonised by the majority of our big time departures (though I couldn't give a flying f**k about any of them now). I'm in the Fran camp...I have no idea how good Ralph is at his job.
I remember saying last season on here that Adkins was like someone else's cool dad that you would happily spend the night chatting in the pub with while Pochettino seemed to me to be a very boring and moody person personality wise.
Would he be that talkative? Shouldn't judge a book by it's cover and all that but David strikes me as being the quiet shy one in the corner (much like myself offline)
