Nordic Saint

Your memory is obviously playing tricks with you again then because Watford finished 2nd just once while Liverpool won the league 8 times between 1980 and 1990. Even with all the money they currently have, I doubt that Man City will ever be that dominant. In the last 5 years, 4 different teams have been champions and 4 different teams have finished runners-up.

Nowadays, the top 6 is different nearly every year, as is the top team. In those days it was nearly always Liverpool. Instead of Ipswich, Derby and Forest we have had Leicester, Everton, Newcastle and Spurs. With the exception of the almost ever-present Man United and Liverpool, The top teams are always changing and always will do. It is true, however, that whichever club has the owner spending the most money on it will be up there but owners are constantly changing too. Man City currently have the wealthiest one. Before it was Chelsea. At one time it was Blackburn. In the future it will be other clubs.

This is the main reason Les has kept his job until now. He has not only managed to convince many of our more gullible fans, through the skilful use of strategically placed 'leaks' to the media, that the Club really wanted to keep the players it has cashed in on but even got many of our fans to say good riddance when and even before he has sold them. That is why he has been so valuable to Kat: https://www.express.co.uk/sport/football/944667/Liverpool-Southampton-Saints-fans-Van-Dijk-Lallana-Mane-Pochettino-Colin-Mafham

To be fair, Les probably had little to do with any of them, good or bad. The people chiefly responsible were our heads of recruitment, Paul Mitchell then Ross Wilson. Les just makes sure he gets his mug in the club's PR photos of the new signings and is, of course, the man responsible for selling the players. He's having a bit more difficulty finding buyers for Wilson's recruits as they aren't very good.

Chelsea's 12th man will be playing on Saturday: https://www.football.london/chelsea-fc/fixtures-results/southampton-vs-chelsea-referee-dean-14515088

We never lost 3 consecutive league games under Pellegrino. So it will be a new low for the season if we lose this one. With our lack of a central defence, we're going to need to score at least 2 goals and with Austin back there is a chance of that whereas without him there would have been none.

Very true. Brighton have gone from 2,000 average home gates in 1998 to 30,000 average gates in 2018, largely thanks to investment from their owner, Tony Bloom. Bournemouth could easily emulate that with enough investment from ambitious owners.

The ones who made no effort to force Les Reed to retire and never complained about the sale of all our best players and lack of adequate replacements, you mean? Because they'd be the only ones you could really apportion any blame to for our current demise.

Without the points won by Jay Rodriguez's goals, Puel's Saints would have finished 17th, and he had van Dijk and Fonte for a lot of games that season too. As the squad has continued to be stripped of all talent, there really isn't much left for any manager. With our current squad, I doubt we'd be any higher than we are now with Puel in charge. Even Pellegrino could have got Leicester up to 9th this season with players as good as Schmeichel, Mahrez and Vardy. Remember, when he still had van Dijk here, we were up to 11th in December this season.

It's his 10th goal so far this season.

His winning and equalizing goals still won us 5 points last season, without which we'd have finished 9 places lower in the league. Imagine what a difference they'd have made this season compared to Carrillo and Long.

Jay Rodriguez has just scored his 10th goal this season to put West Brom ahead. I'm not saying he's great but he's a hell of a lot better than any striker we've got in our squad, with the possible exception of Austin on the rare occasions he can play, and at £12m, an absolute bargain compared to the £19m we paid for Guido Carrillo. It's another example of the shambles our transfer policy has been in the last couple of years, during which our club's board has both weakened the squad and squandered money. If we could have bought Rodriguez instead of Carrillo in January, we'd have had a better chance of staying up and yes I know West Brom are getting relegated but Rodriguez has been one of the few bright spots for them this season and might well have scored 15+ goals in a better team.

Les Reed has been like a cuckoo in the nest who has got rid of anybody at the club who was doing a good job: managers, coaches, scouts, players and staff alike, and brought in inferior replacements who were more acquiescent to him. And everybody he gets rid of has negative 'leaks' about him released to the media. In Dodd's case it was that he was "lazy" when thr truth was he was doing a great job. https://www.theguardian.com/football/2014/may/20/luke-shaw-gutted-southampton-sack-academy-coached

Les Reed = the Arthur Daley of the football world. Paul Mitchell found the players and Old Les flogged them. Now, that Ross Wilson is only finding him duds there is nothing left for him to sell, so Old Les is moving on. It's been rumoured that he has been contacting clubs, including West Ham, letting them know he was available for months. This is the first time he has managed to get himself on a shortlist. Let's hope they are stupid enough to take him. Good riddance.

Yes, they do. They include our first season back in the Premier League. Cortese did incredibly well to build the new Academy and buy the new players yet manage to keep our loss in our first year back in the Premier League down to just £7m. I doubt that any other newly promoted team has managed its finances as well.. As an investment banker, Cortese was very shrewd with money, and Markus Liebherr's initial incvestment of . As an investment banker, Cortese was very shrewd with money, and Markus Liebherr's initial incvestment of £12m to buy the club was turned into quarter of a billion pounds for Kat: a phenomenal return. Kat must be incredibly grateful to Cortese for helping her so much money. Swiss Ramble @SwissRamble #SaintsFC made a £7m loss in their first season after promotion to the Premier League in 2012/13, but since then they have delivered £91m of profits in the last four years. Between 2005/06 and 2011/12, they reported losses (smallish) in the Championship and League One.

Les Reed's name should be ringing round Anfield tonight after all he's done for them. To think, just 2 seasons ago, we finished above Liverpool but Les kept chipping away, selling them Mane and van Dijk, to help make them the team they are today. What other DOF would be generous enough to sell so many of his best players to one rival club? He'll be wearing a smug smile tonight, thinking to himself, 'Liverpool owe it all to me." His only regret must be that we've got nobody left good enough to sell them.

Unless fans make their feelings known, loudly and clearly, there is a real danger that Les Reed and Ross Wilson will be in charge of the next transfer window and that could spell more disaster. The Gaos should be here for at least one of the remaining games and they will see our other matches on TV. We need to let them know how we feel about the way the club is being run, at the end of every defeat, with a simple chant of.... #LesReedOut

1. Selling your main goal scorers and/or getting injuries to them 2. Hiring 2 or 3 cr@p managers in quick succession 1+2 = Relegation The seeds of our current demise were sown when we sold our top scorers, Mane and Pelle, and compounded by the increasingly long injury spells for Austin. The fact we had van Dijk and Fonte at the back, however, meant that we could scrape draws and an occasional 1-0 victory. Before we hired Sturrock, Wigley and Redknapp; now it's Puel, Pellegrino and Hughes.

That 2005 squad was much better than our current squad though: Niemi, Le Saux, Lundekvam, Svensson, Phillips, Crouch, Pahars and even Beattie until January, when we sold him to Everton, with just a fcouple of weak links in defence whereas our current squad is full of weak links in both defence and attack.

Many a true word spoke in jest. He was our best player this season and featured in our best run of form, from September to December, including the victories against West Brom and Everton and the draws with Newcastle, Bighton, Bournemoth and Arsenal. We have missed him badly. Had he stayed, we'd probably have stayed up.

Spot on. The money failed, has-been managers like Hughes and Pardew get for getting clubs relegated is ridiculous.

The problem is they both have a proven recent record of failure. Why clubs keep hiring managers like Hughes and Pardew, God only knows. They are clearly the worst managers in the league. There are plenty of better up and coming managers outside the Premier League, like Paul Cook, with a recent record of success, as well as many others in top leagues around Europe, like Ralph Hasenhüttl and Javier Calleja. Look at where Sean Dyche came from. Experience shows it is best to steer clear of managers whose careers are on a downward trajectory.

They signed Arnautović for £20 million, we signed Carrillo for £19 million. It puts our owners and directors in perspective, doesn't it, and shows just how badly our club is being run.

We've left it too late for this season. Reed should have been forced to retire on his 65th birthday last year. But, it's not too late to save our club from a further relegation next season. We need to let the Gaos know that we want Reed out before he can do any further damage. Sadly, we've left it too late to get back the man who was mainly responsible for our success, our former head of recruitment, Paul Mitchell, as he has was given a job by RB Leipzig in Janaury- so we'll have to watch them, rather than us, snapping up some of the best young talented players, managers and coaches in Europe and having the most successful spell in their history. #LesReedOut

What you'll get from managers like Hughes and Pardew is depressingly predictable.