saint1977

Wouldn't be first choice but worth a go until the end of the season. At least knows the club, has some respect for it - Pellegrino seems to have none. Has handled some relatively high profile players as well.

Couldn't have put it better. Add that to last year's January transfer window centre back debacle, leaving only 3 strikers for EL/PL in Summer 2016 and the debacle of the last 2 managers, including sacking one manager who was dull but looks like Johann Cryuff compared with this joker, who has to be on a par with Ian Branfoot as Saints worst ever manager. If you are a very senior figure within any high profile company, the sack is always going to be the result. Trouble is, with the Gaos' lack of knowledge of UK Football, who else might they bring in? They have to try something majorly different though, even if today's result puts us odds on favourite for relegation. We'll be bottom anyway if we stay as we are, as we were in 04/05, having wasted a string of winnable home games with Rupert's moronic Wigley experiment. Reed, Pellegrino, Watson, Eric Black, Ross Wilson all need to go this evening - self-serving and doing SFC huge harm. Need a night of the long knives, Kelvin and Nigel can hold the fort but first we need a Director of Football/Head of Transfers before we have a new manager. Gary Rowett probably won't leave Derby so soon but we need someone who understands English football and preferably how SFC fans expect to see us play - high tempo, high energy, on the deck.

Good goal which I've seen on Westcountry News but the sending off was something else! Not quite the Oscar Gobern kung fu at Bournemouth but very close and about 10 red cards, not just one. Mass brawl followed as well. Recall him - a few of our big time Charlies need the 'Hartson/Berkovic' treatment as well..

I was thinking that. Had a couple of chances to break on Brighton first half and put ourselves in situations to create chances and checked back. I know the team isn't the quickest, and Sims is quick (and injured) but it does look like a plan.

Yep, I would agree as well. It's as boring as watching Branfoot's teams from March onwards and playing Boufal out wide was lunacy, felt a bit sorry for the player. Tadic also looks lost in that formation and style of play, look at how much more effective he is for Serbia. Wouldn't fancy being Gabbiadini and trying to exist off starvation rations, and play is so pathetically slow that by the time anyone tries to find him, if they bother, he's got 3 defenders on him. We do have good players and they are being forced into a corporate straitjacket. I would look fed up and bored, and then if I was the skipper I'd say 'come on lads, we're a high tempo team. Let's do what we do best' and stuff the manager if he was out of his depth. Normally I agree with K Billy (on the MP Thread) but not this time. Yes, our options up front are limited but even then, Gabbi and Long could produce more than they are with midfielders pushing on beyond them and breaking opposition lines. Higher tempo and mixing up our deliveries would also encourage the movement that Gabbiadini thrived on initially. Puel lost the plot and went back to Barclays Walking Football, having cracked it for a few games with higher tempo stuff, and now MP doesn't seem to be able to rip up the corporate template either, which makes me wonder if he is actually in charge or not. To all of the people saying we shouldn't have sacked Puel (not you GLT), I would say: 1) Were SFC any better Aug-Dec or March-May last term? We all know the answer and it isn't yes... 2) Puel has had ONE game at Leicester. Even he won't implement Walking Football straight away and maybe he's learned from being foolishly inflexible at SFC? Heck, even Sturrock won his opening game 2-0 v Liverpool.

MP without a doubt. I think midway last season Puel reached a compromise about playing more high tempo and EFL final, Watford and Spurs away were the exciting results. Then Claude got stuck in a rut. Davis needs to call a meeting with Les Reed and tell him with all the players that we are going back to playing high tempo, it's what Southampton players and fans want. That's what we are doing, and will be making clear in our interviews. Either your puppets get with the programme or go. VVD has shown the negative side of player power, let's benefit from it from a fans perspective for once.

I agree but need to turn crowd apathy into more direct dissent at MP and Reed. Booing of Boufal substitution was right and proper but would have liked a chorus of 'you don't know what you're doing' with it. Let's take off our only creative player why not. Les Reed bar one chant at West Ham game last season has escaped flak - time to change that.

So we should too with the squad we've got. A better manager than MP or Puel would do much better and at least we'd be much better to watch. Reed needs retiring for his sake and ours. Did a great job but we all have a shelf life.

I'm not even inspired by those tbh. Can speak better English - or some - than Puel but that's about it. MP's interviews via interpreter weren't interesting either but his style of football reflected a strong personality on the pitch. Puel's style reflected the slow, dour nature and I'm to even sure what MP's style is at all or if Les Reed isn't really in charge. Gao needs to make more work for Reed on the academy/infrastructure side and get a stronger manager in for Jan who has a profile, personality and style of his own. If Les won't do that than retirement beckons.

Agree with your second statement but you know full well your first statement is a filthy untruth and I'm a mug for biting on such blatant Glasgow-type trolling. Puel could have stuck with the high tempo football of the EFL Cup Final period but chose to go back to Barclays Walking Football and now this latest joker is carrying it on. I'd rather have Nigel than either of them tbh. Shadows of him, Poch or Koeman. Apart from Forster and Tadic, individual displays weren't that bad but tactics were shocking, could have scored another two or three first half but clearly plan to hold on like a League 2 side at Man City, at a promoted team in a local game FFS. Players need to revolt from Reed and MP, play high tempo football in spite of them. MP can pick team and subs and that should be the limit of his responsibilities.

Saw that. As for the disgraceful behaviour by the Conservative whip yesterday, May should have sacked him and another example of why she is under so much pressure within the party. Would have set some ground rules with her Brexit fringe, starting with the Foreign Office, and helped the normal members of the party. Respect people's views on Brexit overall but some of her ministers and MPs are living in dreamland, whilst May and Hammond are trying to sort out an arrangement that works for UK jobs, which the nutcases, including the tabloids, have forgotten about in their xenophobic frenzy.

I agree with some of that and not other sections. I do wish him luck at Leicester and he seemed like a decent chap who had done well in France on the whole. I had reservations at the beginning about his reputation for negative football and was vindicated. Leicester's owners back their managers better in the market so he might acquire that Ben Afra type player (on Ben Arfa himself) that makes his team more exciting. I do agree that Les did him over royally in both transfer windows but Claude didn't help himself, as MP isn't, by not using the media to get key purchases or loans in positions he needed them. I didn't see a gun to his head when he made the crazy 'Redmond/Henry' comments which along with Reed's comments on our midfield options are amongst the most deluded I've heard. Style of play will be interesting, although I agree Boufal probably saved MP's neck on Sat teatime and he has not been an improvement. What I never understood is we started dull and then either side of the Cup Final played the best stuff since MoPo, which meant he was being forgiven for the tactical debacle v HBS. If we'd stayed in that style, Puel would probably still be here. Only he will know why we reverted back to stinking St Mary's out. Maybe he's evolved and realises what's needed in the EPL is a higher tempo? Conversation with Reed in the summer suggested not but did Claude ask for better, faster midfield and forward options and Les refused? We'll never know.

I thought both VVD and Bertrand were better, suspected VVD's first two displays were rust rather than anything else but his conduct means he is unlikely to get the benefit of the doubt. Ryan was overlapping at last and unlucky with the FK. Cedric needs some one-to-one work on crossing and his delivery. He can put some good crosses in at times but inconsistent. Funnily enough, although he was an awful RB, Martina's crossing was his strong suit. Cedric is doing more than enough by contrast to hold down a place but it is beyond belief that he was being touted for Chelsea in the summer. No chance, not unless his distribution improves 1000%. Still Giggs had to crack this issue, his final ball early on for Man U let him down frequently, so Cedric is not alone.

Great post about Boufal. If MLT was at SFC now as an 18 year old, he'd struggle to make the bench under the current regime - crazy but true. To see goals like that now and again are a joy and what we spend the money on watching football for. I'd build a side around him, Gabbiadini (the other player we have who can do the unpredictable - if his team-mates can ever pick up on it) and Lemina and the rest can work around them. I missed the Watson thing though - was he getting frustrated with Fraser messing up even the tiny amount he had to on Sat?

Can't understand why Hoedt wasn't selected. VDD's contributions here and at Stoke were awful, rust taken into account, and his pathetic public utterances in between. Hoedt, Yoshi with Stephens as back up. VVD can stink out the U21s. Fraction of Morgan's fibre as a player and human being.

/ We were very lucky with Newcastle giving a stupid penalty away when we weren't going to score in a month of Sundays but after Gabi converted the penalty nicely, you'd expect a barrage on the Newcastle goal wouldn't you? Instead, apart from Elliott's lucky flap at Ryan's cross, about the only time the lazy toe rag overlapped all game, we gave their keeper nothing to do. In fact, Davis's smart clearance off the line is the only reason we even got a point. Pellegrino out. Reed out. Wilson out. Eric out. Watson out.

Thirded. Reed lapped up the limelight when things were going well - and was a bit ungracious towards Ronald, even though I'm not a fan of the latter especially. Funnily enough with the doo doo hitting the fan, it's all gone quiet over there. Time to turn our ire on Les and keep it there. Gao could get a quick win with the fans and bring in a new Head of Transfers - Les would probably walk and save a pay off. That's assuming Gao has an interest of course.

That I do agree with you on. Although I'd say he lacks a bit of bite and ability to use the media for leverage as Claude did - Redmond as a striker/current automatic selection is a good example of where they are similar. Reed will just carrying on appointing 'yes men' so get to the root of the problem and hire a new DoF.

He wouldn't, that's called revisionism. It's akin to saying Sturrock was taking us forward, he clearly wasn't but the problem was made even worse by appointing Wigley and then the failed desperation of Harry. What's the common theme between two failed appointments, very slow ones at that, and three shocking transfer windows - Les Reed.

Does seem that way! Although it might have helped him avoid a booking today. Friend should be refereeing in the Conference for a while after that hideous error in not booking Yedlin twice. Must have caught the incompetent bug from Les.

Good post

Or get to the root of the problem and rid of Reed and his hangers on - might at least have the decisive January we so badly need.

Another one I'd clear out - Pellegrino, Reed, Wilson, Black and Watson. Let's bring in some people who give a toss and are willing to have their ideas challenged.

Rightly so, and he's well qualified to comment. Lazy from Fraser, should be a corner at the worst. McCarthy can't be any worse Another genius decision from Reed - poor season and cost us the cup, yet gets a new 5 year deal with money we badly needed in the window. Drop Fraser and sack Reed.

BTW - what is up with Romeu this season? Shadow of last season and looks top heavy to me, needs to be fitter. Lemina doing two players jobs.