verlaine1979

But presumably you see that there's a difference between choosing to take profit/money out of the club, and being obliged to in order to not default on a loan of a few hundred million?

But they saw the value in taking the brand global! I imagine whichever pompey fan fed the media that line is still laughing at how eager people were to believe that one of the founders of Microsoft believed Saints to be a sleeping giant ready for the global stage...

Isn't that coincidentally what ML is widely reported to have paid for the club originally?

It seems pretty clear that KL is selling in order to liquidate an asset that has unexpectedly turned into likely the single most valuable item in her estate. With that in mind, I suspect that the talk about finding a buyer with the money to push the club on is 100% appeasement and spin, as there's nothing to indicate that Lander have anything other than debt to bring to the table. I'm sure that if KL could've found a buyer who'd pay what she wants and has the resources to push the club on, she'd have happily sold to them, but it definitely looks like when choosing between risking the long-term stability of the club and doubling her cash net worth, she's understandably chosen the cash.

But he wasn't sacked because the club performed poorly - just a clash of managerial styles. Dortmund did well in the year's CL, won the German cup and qualified for next year's CL. He needs to prove himself about as much as Mourinho needed to prove himself after being sacked by Chelsea, albeit Tuchel is one rung lower than him on the managerial ladder, and so would be more likely to pick up a Roma/Napoli/Schalke/Spurs/Arsenal type position when it inevitably opens up within the next year.

Presumably, having signed a six year contract, VVD would be walking away from quite a large amount of money in annual loyalty bonuses etc if he handed in a transfer request.

Blimey, when you sum it up like that... abject.

We're linked with him because he's out of a job, and a lot of fans assume that jobs in the premier league are automatically the most desirable in world football outside of managing Bayern, Barca or Real. I'd love him to come here, but if he ends up taking the saints job, he ought to fire his agent - you don't cash in your chips from a top ten club in Europe to manage a middle ranking premier league team that hasn't won anything in four decades.

Interesting - now the Times are asserting that her inheritance was in the order of £300m, with Saints accounting for 2/3 of that. No wonder we never went out and tried to buy Robinho on deadline day...

He's taken a year out before waiting for the right job to come up. I doubt he's short of cash, so waiting would make a lot more sense that taking whatever's available and potentially damaging his stock at a smaller club.

Honestly, do you really believe that the statistical model for 'expected goals' is accurate enough to account for the myriad variables at work in every moment of a football match?

It's pretty common practice in Spain. Barcelona seem to put them in on pretty much all of their youth player sales, and Real had one on Morata that enabled them to take him back off Juve after 2 years for only for only €10 more than Juve paid.

Even when Koeman was doing well he never had the hype Tuchel has as a manager. I think Koeman wanted to leave last summer because he knew that a less successful season at Saints (for whatever reason, recruitment, league competitiveness or just plain bad luck) would erode his standing and career progression. Tuchel would probably look at us the same way - a couple of seasons of duking it out for a Europa League place with saints isn't exactly going to burnish his reputation beyond where it is now, while getting caught in any downward trajectory we're on as a club would actively undermine his credibility. Frankly, we'd be a very stupid place for him to cash in his Dortmund career chips right now.

If Arsenal had decided to get rid of Wenger this summer, Tuchel would already be on the list. Going to somewhere like Saints in the interim would actually be far more of a risk to his career than sitting on his hands for 12 months and waiting to see which of the big clubs need a new manager next season. He did his audition at Mainz years ago, he's not going to do it again.

Yup - he was happy to be unemployed for a year waiting for the right job after Mainz. He's obviously from the Theresa May school of job negotiation - no deal is better than a bad deal.

Funny, its as if you imagine there's no connection at all between the quality of football played and the probability of getting good results.

Tuchel was perfectly happy to sit around for a year waiting for the Dortmund job to come up after he left Mainz, wasn't he? Regardless of the circumstances of his departure at Dortmund (which seem to have nothing to do with his performance as coach), he's regarded as one of the most promising young managers in world football. If he was even thinking of coming to an 8th-placed PL team with big question marks over future expenditure, he'd need his head examined.

Honestly, what's the point of harping on about not getting beaten by Liverpool when we got absolutely spanked by Man City, Spurs, Chelsea, Arsenal & Everton at various points of the season. Is there now a special award for going unbeaten against Jurgen Klopp?

Do we have some sort of ethical stance against trying to poach managers from other teams? We only seem to be interested in the ones who are already out of work whenever we have a vacancy, which probably isn't the best way to go about finding the right candidate. Let's just identify the next German hipster coach off the production line and blind them with TV money.

Indeed. Cedric's crosses in particular seem to be more often overhit than not, and have a wafting, looping trajectory rather than being flat. As for the OP, I'm not sure how any of the stats he's quoted prove that we don't have a creativity problem unless the fullback booming it in against a packed defense is what passes for creativity these days.

Nope, nobody is saying that at all. If we'd achieved 8th but with a few more wins (lets say another 4, as Everton finished 15 points ahead of us) I suspect 99% of fans would be content with the season even though we'd dropped league places. As it is, we only finished 6 points off 17th, and closer to relegation than overhauling the nearest team above us. We struggled for goals all season, and the fact that we never found ourselves caught in the relegation dog fight is probably more to do with the fortuitous timing of when we got our wins than any brilliant strategy on our part. There were times last season when I was frustrated with Koeman's over-reliance on the fullbacks in attack, but this season crossing seemed to be our only attacking tactic and yet we had even fewer players trying to get into the penalty area. Passing was slow, both in terms of decision-making and the speed with which we actually play the ball, and off the ball movement basically consisted of players edging towards the goal while trying to maintain eye contact with the ball at all times, regardless of whether this meant an opponent was in the way. I feel like I spent 57 hours of my life this season watching the ball being slowly recycled out wide before Cedric boomed one in for an easy clearance.

Our idea of movement generally seems to be trying to maintain eye contact with the ball at all times, while slowly backing towards the opposition penalty area.

Suggested a couple of times as a potential Mane replacement last summer. Not a popular choice with the Davo-brigade.

Honestly, this is such BS. More often than not, when Boufal loses the ball he ends up racing after it and putting in a fairly rash challenge to try get it back. I'm sure you observed one incident that conforms to your narrative of him as a lazy foreign flair player, but at least try to have a little consistency in how you apply your frustration. After all, its not as if our current captain doesn't lose the ball constantly, and trotting after it ten yards behind the play is functionally the same as 'wandering around'.

Crazy. You expect her to essentially hand over about £100m in value to the new owners out of sentimentality?