The Premier League Thread

Just saw this and made me think of this argument:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/43804196

"Everton send survey to fans asking to rate manager"

 

I think, with all things considered, the fan base has been incredibly tolerant.
This season has been abysmal, and we have barely made a noise. The odd angry person shouting, a few chants away at Fulham... mostly just sold out support and giving the team a chance.

 

Not last season.

 

I agree that the fans probably had a part to play in sacking Puel, but again I remember a lot of people on here who weren't exactly anti Puel were very "oh well he has gone" and not overly fussed he had left. I don't think you can lay the Pellegrino appointment in any way at the fans door, they didn't choose him and just because some of the fans were adamant that Puel had to go doesn't make them responsible for the guy the board chose to appoint.

But in general I think we agree, but that is football. There will always be fans who will be pissed off if their teams lose a game. There will always be fans who call for something to happen that you may or may not agree with. Saints fans aren't unique. Every club will have fans who boo, find "scapegoats" and bitch and moan about everything. It is part and parcel (is that the phrase? looks wrong ) of football and just part of the life of a fan.

 

Would also add that you mention selling our matches, you mean like Sunday?

 

Whilst I don't think that some fans gave Puel a fair enough shot at the job, he wasn't the right man for the job with the tools he was given. Much like Pellegrino wasn't and which ever way you look at it that makes the board culpable.

You could even make an argument that those fans calling him clueless and not being good enough after our first game were actually incredibly insightful. Or just ****ers, yeah probably the latter.

 

I was on about last season (and wrote that). How good were our fans then?

 

I haven’t laid any blame on the fans for the appointment of MP2, other than it was a consequence of a Puel getting sacked and in that the fans did play some part. The point being that those fans should have perhaps been more careful with what they wished for. You’ve twisted my words a little there.

 

It was this that sounds to me like blaming the fans to an extent. They wished for Puel to leave, not Pellegrino to be appointed. Sacking Puel I still don't think was the wrong decision even after the season we have had without him. Appointing Pellegrino was absolutely the wrong decision, if I could go back and make changes I think I would do a lot the same again, the boards problem was a lot of the time they made what probably was the right decision, but only got half right. Like selling J-Rod as an example that came up recently. Selling him was the right decision I think, but not buying anyone to replace him was the wrong decision.

 

Oh come on Saintmagic, I’ve not said the fans are at fault for MP2 being appointed. You’ve joined far too many dots.

 

Some of our fans have - like the club itself, in my opinion - got too far ahead of themselves in recent years. Thinking that we'd made it, thinking that we were now better than the rest, thinking that we have a divine right to be in the top eight. As I allude to, I think that is partly because of what the club have said in recent years (up until Ralph's 'small club' speech), and from that perspective I can somewhat understand those fans. Fans believe what a football club tell them? Shock horror. Yes they may have been naïve, but it's hardly the crime of century. That said though, it doesn't excuse those fans. Some have got too ahead of themselves, and whether we stay up or go down, hopefully they have had a reality check.

But equally, some other fans have been resting on their laurels far too much (again, like the club). Coming across as almost relaxed about the club not replacing Mane and Pelle. Willing to wait and see how certain things go, to give it a season. The PL is cut-throat. This isn't America, where relegation zone doesn't exist. You need to be on it all the time. It is perfectly acceptable to highlight a possible issue at the very start, regardless of the fact that our track record up until that point might be blemish-free. So hopefully a reality check hits home here too: if you do just sit back, nodding your head and admiring what's around you, you very quickly get swallowed up. Just ignoring the odd small crack can very quickly lead to a massive hole developing. What you get is 8th to relegated.

In some ways, these are two sides of same coin. People taking our successful recent past, and using it in the wrong way. Some think we should now be the best of the rest (we're not). Others think it's OK to give leeway (it's not).

Ultimately, there is very little in it between the side outside the top six. Just look at this season: two top ten sides from last season are probably going down, no promoted side is seemingly going down, and a side who almost got relegated last season are probably qualifying for Europe. None of us have "made it", we are very similar. And therefore decisions on, and in particular off, the pitch each and every season are huge.

 

The annoying thing is, that when Jose has a hissy fit and drops 7 players, the team looks better than the one that lost to West Brom!

 

so, Man Utd go a goal up at Bournemouth and are now quite happy to play around for 60 mins. Liverpool are the only team that deserve to be anywhere near the Champions League no matter how much it galls me to say

 

Saw a thing with Stuart Pearce and Ian Wright about who would get relegated . Wright summed it up for me when he said Southampton appear to be sleep walking into relegation .

 

Saw a thing with Stuart Pearce and Ian Wright

_____________

When, because if it was in the last 12 weeks I wouldn't bother payer either of the Nortradamus's.
#Sherlock #nofuckingshit

 

2-0 Lukaku

 

No, but you did say they deserved the appointment of Pellegrino.

No one deserved that, you cruel, cruel man!

Although, recruitment/sales is a massive factor regardless of manager. Yoshida was 4th choice not so long ago, now he’s our best CB by far. Says it all.

 

banned!

https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/43823492

 

I’m not sure I said they deserved the appointment of Pellegrino. I think you’ll find I said some fans deserves where we are now...

It is amazing how words in black and white get repeated differently.

Edit: to be precise...

“I am actually beginning to think where we are now is what some of our fans deserved to get hit with”

 

I thought Ian Wright spoke well .

Not sure if it was BT or Sky , it was one of those short clips on YouTube .