Mltburger

6 out 10 Low score that could rise to 8 when a few unknowns prove their worth. Perhaps we were spoilt when we were last promoted, but l am judging the squad on who is going to be good enough to remain should we get promoted. I know am settling a high bar, but the clubs that manage to hold on in the Premiership are the ones who didn't need to make 8/9 new singings on promotion. So to get an 8, Holgate and Hardwood Belli's need to be an upgrade on Stephens and Bednarek who we know are not premier level. Manning is nothing special but ok for this level. Laris, who knows if he is any good! Not convinced Baz is good enough. So in defence Walker Peters is the only bit of known quality. Midfield looks good. Charles and Downes could be Prem level, and time will tell if Smallbone can also be good enough. Alcaraz has real potential to be a star in the making with the right coaching. Upfront Adams and Armstrong are ok at this level but have been proven to be not Prem level. Not convinced Mara will come good. Stewart is unknown, but you don't get to 27 and no big clubs have shown an interest means he may be ok for this level but is nothing special. Same feeling I had when we took a punt on tall Paul, you don't get to 28 and managed to slip under the radar. The difference between promotion and mid table will depend on our wingers scoring goals. Fraser looks to be good, but still sitting on the fence with Edozie and Kamaldeen. If the latter two along with the emerging SAA come good then 6 out of 10 could be an 8/9 but there too many unknowns at the moment to confidently say we have had a good transfer window. I am not getting carried away until we see how we are come start of November.

Selling good players and replacing them with players that are not as good has been a problem over the last 4/5 years. Quality has dipped year on year, to the point that our own perspective of what is a good or bad player has plummeted with it. Yoshida exemplifies it perfectly, fans ranted and feared the worst whenever he had to stand in for Van Dyke or Fonte, fast forward a year and fans were hoping he got picked as the alternatives were even worse! Now we are debating the merits of Jack Stephens for the Championship when a few years previously he was 4th choice and only worth risking for a cup game against lower opposition. Poor recruitment is not just confined to Sports Republic either, Danny Ings aside, we have not bought a single player since Van Dyke who we have manged to sale for more than we paid!! So much for the buy cheap and sale high model, the majority of the players bought, we couldn't even give away (Lemina, Boufal, Hoedt, Clasie, Martina,Pied,Carrillo,Gardos,Valery,Gunn). The current crop of recruits may buck the trend, but previous poor recruitment has not been down to one owner or manager. Saints need a top to bottom review of the entire scouting network as our recruitment has been shocking. A club of our size and resources simply cannot afford to make so many mistakes in recruitment. Mistakes that have finally caught up with us.

The best statement of fans discontent for this diabolical season is for everyone to leave the stadium on 85 minutes for the final game. Parading to a stadium with no Saints fans is a more powerful statement than just booing. Embarrassing for you the club and players and might just give them a taste of the embarrassment fans have had to endure for pretty much the entire season.

Has any club appointed 4 managers in a season?

I bought 5 tickets for Lincoln game, but when it was rearranged, one of us couldn't make it, but I only got a refund of £15, not £16.50 I paid!! It wasn't Saints fualt the move, but it certainly was not mine, and it really annoys me that I am out of pocket through no fault of mine. Bought concert tickets through Ticketmaster before and even they give a full refund including the booking fee. Given Saints current form, they need paying customers more than I need to watch the rubbish they are currently serving up. Cheese your customers off at you peril.

All our managers since Puel in 2016/2017 have all come under fire. And I have some sympathy (some less than others) with them because they have at their disposal a declining standard of player. In 7 years the only 2 players we have sold for more than we paid are Van Dyke & Ings. 7 years = 2 players. Our recent recruits MAY buck that trend, but when you consider most of the players we have bought have been worse than the ones they have replaced you can see why we are in or around the relegation zone. Some of the players we bought, we couldn't even give away! And this is going to be the same problem should Ralph be replaced. On Sunday, many talked how Moyes was able to change the game with some tactical subs. But was it a smart tactical change, or was it West Ham just had better players to come off the bench? Our starting 11 does not fill me with much hope, let alone what we have from the bench. Many got excited at the start of the season because we signed some players from Man City, but they were young, and if they were that promising, they would not have been sold in the first place. We have paid a heavy price over the last 6- 7 years of a policy to buy young talent. I understand the rationale that as a small club we can't buy big, but there has to be a balance, blending promising youngsters with some experience. Unfortunately it is a gamble hoping to spot potential and we have paid the price of making so many wrong choices. Our lack of attacking options has existed since we sold Mane and Pelle, other than 1 season of Ings, every manger has had a very limited choice of attacking options from which to chose. Even when Lavia and Tino return, we may be a little more competitive, but they are not going to chip in many goals. Come January we are in a bit of a vicious circle, because we need a goal scorer (as do many at our level) but if you were a decent striker and you have many offers, why chose a club in relegation! Which is why I am rather indifferent whether Ralph stays or goes, mainly because like every manager since Puel, none of them have managed to improve the players (other than Ralphs brief early spell) simply because they are all rather average (as is evidenced by only 2 players sold at a profit).

I would not disagree with anything Sat86 posted, pretty much spot on. For me JWP is a bit of an enigma, brilliant free kicks, fantastic work rate, but there is still frustration in open play his first instinct is to play the safe ball. Of course, we all have opinions, and we can speculate whether a player is top/middle/bottom or championship level. For me the acid test is not what I, or arm chair fans think, but what do the professionals think? Who would poach our players should we get relegated. For all the commentators’ plaudits, until Aston Villa bid £25 million, not a single club has publicly made a bid for JWP in all the time he has been at Saints. And no club has made any bids for the rest of the squad. Our local pub runs a quiz where the last set of 10 questions will get double points for a correct answer, but 1 wrong answer and you get nothing, so you only answer those questions you are confident of getting correct. In that vein, which players would DEFINETLY interest premiership clubs, JWP, KWP and some might take a punt on Livramento. The bottom half clubs might fancy Romeu, Stuart Armstrong, maybe a punt on Salisu, but equally I can see most of the squad going down with the club.

What I find worrying is that Ings may well be more injury prone compared to others in the squad, BUT he was still our top scorer, which does not say much for the rest!!! So if he does leave where are the goals coming from?

I'd be really concerned if Vestergaard left. He is not the greatest defender we have ever had but he is probably better than Bednarek. Considering WBA are the only other team to have conceded more goals than us, letting our "better" defender leave and hoping Salisu can step up is a recipe for disaster. As for Bertrand, he is similar to Shane Long in fans letting hearts rule the head. At the time it looked a good idea to give Shane a two year extension, if not for his goals then for his work rate. However come the start of the season it quickly became obvious he had just gone the wrong side of his sell by date. We MIGHT get another season out of Bertrand, but to offer him a 2/3 year contract may prove to be too long. We need to buy a left back who will become first choice, not a back up option. And there lies the gamble, he most likely will be looking at a 2/3 year extension, but do Saints commit to a big wage when he may only warrant it for a season? I have real concerns for this transfer window, we may lose good players for fees that will not be enough to fund decent replacements. Given the number of goals we have conceded it is clear we need strengthening and that is without losing existing players. Over the last 5 years due to poor recruitment the standard of squad has steadily declined. Bednarek was behind Yoshida (and many fans didn't think much of him), Romeo and JWP were mainly used as subs. Have they all improved? Or the the alternatives we bought to replace them turned out to be even worse!

We have the same core of players going back to Puels time who are by instinct too cautious in mentality. And I don't think it is something that can be coached out of a player either. Sure you can improve players, but it is hard to alter a players DNA. In particular Romeo, Remond, Bednarek and Ward-Prowse have been in and out of favour over the last 4 years and when all 4 play together they are not quick enough by instinct to get the ball moving forward. (I know fans have differing opinions as to their relative merits, but the single most telling fact, is that no other club have ever showed any serious interest in buying them to my knowledge). It must be so frustrating for our forwards, as all too often by the time we have a chance to break an opposition attack up, by the time we get the ball to our forwards, even the opposition's most knackered striker has had time to stroll back and get in formation. Sadly we don't really have anyone over the last 4 years like Jack Grealish or Saint Maximin who are able to retain the ball and draw defenders around them. Our business model is reliant on being able to sell a player or two for decent money every other year to keep things ticking over. Sadly over the last few years we have bought too many duff players which has broken the cycle. Which means nothing much will change for at least another two years unless the current crop of youngster come good, or we find a hidden gem that no one else has spotted. Or we try a different combination. From what I have seen of Diallio he at least has the instinct to attack, so finding a way of combining him in midfield with Romeo and Ward Prose MIGHT work.

There are many reasons why a team can lose, and as valid as many posts are, I still cannot accept that any team should concede 9 goals. Gao may not be ideal, but there are plenty worse. Blackburn, Coventry, Pomey, Birmingham (Carson Young), the list goes on. There is rightly a lot of focus on poor VAR decisions. But even had VAR gone on our way, we would have still have lost 8 - 1! Our transfers were less than ideal, but even teams in the conference league facing premiership sides in the FA cup do not concede 9 goals. When we went down to 10 men, But Ramsey was the only junior member, the rest of the team were senior players who have played and won games together. When Arsenal went down to 10 men, their keeper hardly had a save to make when we played them. Many times Saints have played against 10 men, we won some, drew some, even lost some. Like most on here I am fuming at VAR, I wish we had a stronger squad, and a billionaire owner who grew up in Southampton and spent their last penny on the team. However, whilst acknowledging our current problems, that should not detract from the fact no professional team should LOSE 9 - 0!

There are two sides to all arguments, we have currently a very average squad as a result of 3 poor summer transfer windows. However, as bad as we have been at spoting talent of late, outside of the top 6, so has everyone else. Just look at last season where every team outside the top 6 at some point flirted with the relagation zone. I'm not defending Les, but given every other teams transfer dealings, whose teams recruitment team would we poach who have consistently unearthed talent! Unless you have the spending power of the top 6, who can buy proven talent, everyone else is in the same boat of having to take a punt. Outside of the top 6 the quality is pretty much the same (Everton may have spent their way out of the dross), which was Saints saving grace last year. There are not many players that stand out, outside of the top 6. My fear for Saints in the long term (and for many outside the top six) is newer fans of those clubs getting dis-illusioned, with gates tailing off. Even in the years with Tiss when we spent every season in the bottom half there was still a feeling that on our day we could beat the top 6 teams. This year it feels a forgone conclusion. This disillusionment was amply demonstrated at the semi finals where we failed to sale large blocks of seats. We were led to believe that the motivation for selling the club by Kate was she felt that she couldn't take the club to the next level. Sadly our new owners have shown little ambition beyond ticking over. Of course we could contrast this against the many basket case owners who have ruined their clubs and be thankful that we have some stability. There are two main issues as I see it though, the first is the model we have is too spot, nurture and sell to fund the next seasons players. Given our current squad, I'm not sure how many players we have whose value is on the rise. The fact we had to loan players as no one wants them makes me fear for future transfer windows as the squad still needs better players, but how will we fund this with no assets worth selling. My second observation with our new ownership is there seems to be little drive from the top. It feels like they are just ticking over. Contrast Ralph's upbeat talk 3 years ago, with recent talk of us being a small club (we would assume with the owners approval). I would like to think if I had £200 million to spare, I would be a bit more involved. This is just a personal view, but at the moment Saints feels like a London flat, bought by overseas investors, who leave it vacant, believing they don't need to do anything as the value will just rise. If we manage to avoid the drop, next summer will test our new owners, with few players, if any worth selling, how will we refresh an average squad. Think Newcastle, Aston Village.

There

Sadly we have slipped down the pecking order in terms of selling ourselves to players as a club on the rise. In terms of spending power regarding paying wages and transfer fees, there is not such a marked difference between all the clubs outside the top six. Saints succeed in attracting players like VVD, Wanyama & Mane etc. by presenting ourselves as a club on the rise, stating we wanted to compete in Europe, to push the top 6. In short the whole vibe was positive, there was ambition, it felt genuinely like we were on the rise. You could see why players were keen to sign for us. Contrast that vision only 3 years ago to Krugers recent comments, "we are a small club, an average club". If you were a player looking for a move and 2/3 clubs were all offering similar wages, where's the ambition, the vision from those running the club that would persuade a player too choose us over any of the other clubs outside the top six! Kruger went on to state that he wanted us to return to "the Southampton Way" which many interrupted as allowing players a big move on after a couple of years. To be honest, any player if good enough, would get a big move, you don't need to join Saints to achieve that ambition. If a player believes themselves good enough, then they want to be at a club that will give them the stage to showcase their talent and a team that has players to help them thrive. Sadly at the moment I can't see anything unique that Saints are offering that marks us out from the rest of the pack. In Krugers last interview, when pressed about Gaus plans for Saints and why we have heard nothing from him, Kruger stated it was his job to represent the chairman and to be the public face, therefore the concern is those comments would have presumably come with the approval of the chairman. To be the public face of a company and to present such an underwhelming vision does nothing to inspire the fan, potential signings and as importantly, existing player's. .

Given that we have hopefully escaped relegation in one of the poorest seasons when all bar the top six along with Burnley have at some point flirted with relagation, it still amazes me that some claim our squad isn't that Bad! For the last 3 seasons we have lowered our expectations, accepting last season squad player, as this season first team regular. When we had Schneiderlin and Wanyama, Romeu was considered a squad player, now he's our main midfielder. When we had Fonte and Van Dyke, the crowd would wince if Yoshida came on, now we prey he's fit enough to play. We've lowered our bar so many times, we have forgotten where it should be. I'm not claiming we should be expecting top 6 players, but we shouldn't be accepting players that wouldn't look out of place in a Brighton or Huddersfield team either. Sometimes we are too nice, always giving a player the benefit of the doubt for far too long because they had one good game, ignoring the many indifferent ones. Redman and Ward Prowse have had several managers and still cannot get a regular starting place, yet some still think they can come good. Similarly Targett has had one decent season in the Championship, but wasn't good enough for the Premiership, yet now some think he can replace Bertrand. I'm not saying they are awful, but what standard are we aiming for? They may do a job in a quality team, but playing too many "ok" players will put us in the same situation next season. This attitude of "making do" has ultimately been our undoing. And if we are to sack Reed, then it is for this reason rather than his transfer dealings. Sometimes we need a little context, because as poor as our recent transfer dealings have been, what other club outside the top six over the last 3/4 seasons have recruited well? This season many clubs have spent the same, if not more than Saints, yet all have been in the relagation zone, and many have recruited poor managers, sometimes more than once! Reeds crime, like many fans has been "making do" hoping that what we have left when we sell, will come good. We did it with Fonte, we did it when lost Pelle, Mane and JRod, keeping our fingers crossed that we could get away with what was left. If we don't want a repeat of last season, we need to accept when a player is not of sufficient quality and act in a timely manner instead of waiting too long. Also there is nothing wrong with buying potential, but we must recognise it will only work if they are blended with proven quality. Get the mix wrong and your asking for trouble.