http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/...ier-league-claude-puel-les-reed-a8003496.html A review of Pellegrino's start with Saints....saying that despite Les Reed's claim that he embraces the Southampton Way, he appears to be very much like Puel. Many comments will strike chords with some of you, though suggestions that players like Forster are dropped doesn't explain who we play in their place.
When the article starts with "centre back Jeremy Pied" it does make me worry for the rest of it, but I will continue!
Interesting sound bites, for me .... toothless wingers - yep lack of ingenuity in the middle - yep continuing struggles of Redmond, who threw a minor tantrum when withdrawn in the second-half - never saw / heard that? is that true? Tadic, who is still being played out of position on the right - someone's listening to us then! Forster’s erratic form has bled over into the new campaign - can't argue with that Bertrand is going through the motions - not quite sure on that but he certainly looks rather disinterested a lot of the time Romeu has made a poor start to the new campaign - certainly not up to last years sterling form - think he's struggling to adapt to having ML with him Lemina, has shown flashes of real promise, but Pellegrino seems reticent to letting him off the leash and frequently waved him back into his withdrawn position from the touchline on Sunday - did anyone see it that way ?
Bit of a clickbaity, "Arrgh angry" article, but certainly some truth in there. It reads as if they were short of stories, so had a journalist trawl the football forums to dig one out. I'm in a bit of a quandry as I think MP2 is a very decent man (like Puel) but hasn't had the chance to work out this league and this club yet (like Puel). I very much hope he comes good given time, but as I've said previously, I'm unconvinced. I think he might be too nice. I wanted to see someone come into the club who said "right, this is how my team plays, and this is how we play", rather than the impression of feeling one's way into a solution.
Sadly not. Doesn't need him though - many of the best managers around today do exactly that - from Mourinho to MP1, via Marco Silva etc.
Indeed, which is why I’m always a little sceptical when people say “give him time” of a manager. You could see the difference Poch made from game one and Koeman also hit the ground running. I seem to remember a time when we laughed at clubs who said their new manager needed time. It’s also the second article I’ve read recently (the first is here) that raises a point I mentioned a few weeks ago - the number of crosses we put in despite lacking a Lambert/Pelle type. Austin is the only one of our strikers that comes close to suiting that style of play and he’s not getting on the pitch much.
Interestingly that's part of the reason that I don't particularly rate Koeman. I never felt like he had his own dominant way of playing. He was more a "feel your way in" type manager, but with an excellent core of players. He also lucked into the formation that got us out of a major fix because of Pelle's injury. I'm not saying managers can't have success doing things that way, but it goes back to the whole idea of having an identity. Think what you like about someone like Big Sam, but you know how his teams are going to play. That's his and then their identity. Similar to Pulis. Then at the other end you have MP1, Mourinho, Ferguson etc (and possibly even the likes of Silva. We shall see). It's where Wenger has gone wrong. He's lost his, and as a result, Arsenal's identity, and his players don't trust him to impose that again. He no longer has the force of personality to do that (I don't think). It's where my concern comes from - I don't think MP2 has an identity to impose on the team, and hence (if you read my post match comments) I've been constantly raising the question of "I don't see what the identity of the team is". It goes back to the manager, which is why I don't agree with Beefy's posts of "you can't keep blaming the manager" (and I agree with Beef on most things, just not this). We need a manager to come in and impose an identity and way of playing on this squad, which is definitely talented (though short of a couple of players, as we know). That's as much the fault of Les Reed and the board, as they've appointed a couple of managers recently that I don't think have that force of personality. Disclaimer - ALL OF THIS COULD BE COMPLETELY WRONG AND UTTER BULL.
Thought the article was well researched given most of the dross l have to read in the papers these days. The comment regarding Pied was obviously wrong, but the rest seemed to have been researched rather than regurgitated through false news through the internet. Clearly has not been checking up on Charlies pork pie binges however...
You know that feeling when you know something **** happened back down the line, but whatever you do you can't seem to escape it so every new decision you make just compounds the problem? And to add to the frustration you can't quite work out what it was that went wrong or how you could have avoided it. That's where I see us at the moment. Should we have offered Koeman lots of money to stay? He's shown at Everton he hasn't always got the Midas touch (incidentally, I do think EFC should stick with him as he's still a good manager). Should we have had a big clear out in the summer, as we seem to be in a position of having lots of OK players, while our very good ones are maybe not producing? Go back, should Poch have had his family held as hostages until he'd signed a new contract? He's shown himself to be a very good coach, but would he have fancied Saints minus Lambert, Lallana et al? It's probably cumulative. Taking over last season was always going to be a tough call, and Puel certainly did not get the rub of the green. One of our players only had to make a cup of tea to end up with a six to eight week layoff. Not to mention the club's misfortune that enabled Man Utd to steal the EFL cup. Maybe he did lose the dressing room, but do we have evidence that MP2 has gained it? Steve Claridge seemed sceptical when I heard some of his comments on Sunday. The thing is, the important thing to do in a situation like this is to have a moratorium on snap decisions, go back to first principles and work a way through. Kicking MP2 into touch would be a panic measure that would see us spiral downwards.
Yes, that's a better, much more incisive & critical (constructive) read. Thanks. Edit: You should post the read as some might miss.
With the run of fixtures we have coming up if we fail to get 4 or 6 points from our next 2 games then Pellegrino is going to be under serious pressure/gone by January I think. That is just the way of modern football.
When I say give him time I mean give him a couple of transfer windows to bring in players to suit his style. When koeman joined we immediately brought in Tadic somebody who likes to put in crosses and Pelle, a player to get on the end of them. So he immediately imposed his style, Puel joined late and didnt get a chance to bring in his own players and ended up using redmond (brought before he joined)as a striker... then he brought Gabbiadini he suited his style more and made an immidate impact. He was never able to bring in a midfielder suited to playing through the middle though so we ended up with midfielders/wingers suited for wing play and strikers suited for playing through the middle. And now Pellegrino has come in with the same issue. I'm not sure what his preferred style is but I'm sure he didnt have a good chance to evaluate his squad so he could bring in players. Give him a chance to either get a proper AM for central play or a target man for crosses or w/e else he feels he needs and then judge him.
Koeman’s identity isn’t as distinct as, say, Poch but he has a rough one. He likes to keep it tight at the back, play with a big man up front and use at least one winger to get crosses into him. He also isn’t afraid to play long balls at times. His sides tend to score a lot of headed goals (which I think is where the loss of Lukaku has really hurt Everton this season). He inherited a team in turmoil here but was also strong enough to identify players that he wanted - for example, black box or no black box, he wanted Pelle and Tadic. I completely agree about Puel and Pellegrino lacking an identity. I’ve said before I sometimes sit watching our games and just can’t see what we’re trying to do. Under Poch and Koeman you could see what the plan was even when it wasn’t working.
Yeah, maybe I'm being a bit over-critical of Koeman in that assessment. I think he has a strong personality more than he has a strong identity in his play though. That papers over some of the gaps.
Pellegrino was around the same point in the summer as Koeman. He had a very similar amount of time to request players. Lots of time to watch videos of our matches last season (probably training sessions too), assess the wealth of player data we keep and so on. So far his style appears to be very similar to Puel’s so just watching our games last season and seeing what was missing should have given him a good idea of what was needed.
