Gordon Mockles

Please don’t rub salt in the wound because if Newcastle get a Sheikh from the house of Al Nehayan (one of the ruling families of the UAE), it would sting slightly as it would just serve as a reminder at how the epitome of Ralph K’s blunderous reign was leaving us lumbered with Gao. Ralph K & Kat have definitely sold us out, sold us cold turkey...while drinking too much Sake celebrating Chinese New Year no doubt. ;o) I couldn’t ever understand much of what Ralph Krueger said in sentences as most was incomprehensible and I can’t think of a single positive contribution of note he made. Correct me if I’m wrong. I never fully understood what he did in his role but what the papers & club wanted to tell us was that he was appointed to find us investment. He was subsequently, rarely at St Mary’s but getting paid loads for doing it. Good work when you can get it. As I read, his chief role was to find us a new owner and if that was his main role, then he certainly seems to have failed monumentally which is almost amusing if it wasn’t so painful for us as Saints fans because the guy was a complete charlatan in my view. The new Clive Woodward. Not needed in football and an expensive luxury when money could’ve gone towards the football coaching set up. Good luck to Newcastle. Mike Ashley to Geordies is like Gao Jisheng to me. I’m a big advocate for #GaoOut and this joker is on his very very last chance with me & my fellow fan friends. This pre-season is do or die judgement time. Too many lies and too much misinformation. Too much carrot dangling. As Mike Skinner would say, actions speak louder than words. This Gao character is clearly a disrespectful and disingenuous charlatan, possibly more intent on expanding his property empire & port trade links with China, possibly using the club for leverage, rather than investing, developing & improving the football club. Particularly the first team which is, essentially, the heart of the club. Or the feet. Or.... well, they’re bloody important. Much more important than focusing on purely strategy and marketing???!!! Focus on the sport!! Focus on achieving success. Focus on finding us an owner like this emirate contingent (although that was Ralph K’s job so no wonder we are where we are). Part of this epilogue is trying to tempt fate. You slate someone to the hills and then they finally put money in (as Kat Liebherr & the chuckle bros board promised from the outset) & the family transform our club & set the direction back from reverse into forwards motion but that’s not gonna happen is it but I really want to have egg on my face and be proved wrong. Is it my imagination or have our club consistently, in recent years, squandered millions, top money, for a bunch of jokers that fall way short of the quality mark? This is not just players, this is across-the-board from ground level coaching to scouting to 1st team to Board and Chairmen, culminating in the most destructive decision of them all, selling us out & lumbering us with a poor owner. Gao failed the contentious, PL fit and proper persons criteria so maybe the board should have heeded that warning. In true Saints style, we don’t tend to learn from mistakes. Instead, we penny pinch, asset strip and take even more liberties and get even more complacent as I’m sure we will do this season despite disingenuous media reporting (or PR spin indirectly from the club, who knows?!) I truly hope I am wrong & we start to see some wise acquisitions who aren’t bargain basement signings or negligible risks just making up the numbers as seems to happen under our current regime. The smart money would suggest, we’ve had 2 consecutive seasons with poor managers, numerous minimal (& poor) transfer windows (signing no-one or wasting money on a string of duds who replaced the more successful exiting players so our quality have progressively deteriorated) and we’ve got away with it but we finally got lucky and brought in a very good manager who could possibly be the one in a decade manager so what are the club doing to secure his position and keep him at the club for the foreseeable future? Are they backing Ralph? Are they giving Ralph a sensible transfer kitty to sign a few (not lots) desperately needed players (BUT of quality) which will cost a little more than the staple 6-15 million we seems to operate in, when we did sign players? Are we going to act swiftly and decisively in the transfer market or just prevaricate & dangle the carrot right up until the transfer deadline to ensure season ticket sales don’t suffer? Likely generated via indirect club rumours which appear calculated & regularly appear on newspaper websites and social media agencies? We rarely make the actual newspapers anymore. I would hope the club would back the manager who was, as we initially understood from press reports, promised the time and money to build his own squad once the dust had settled after yet another relegation battle. Then the club January transfer window intentions changed and Ralph was told he had to clear out players before signing anyone which the club unduly did. We signed no-one. Then the club cited players were too expensive in January and gave an array of feeble excuses indirectly via the Echo hacks. Saints would do more preseason when players are a more sensible price and we have the time to rebuild properly. I imagined these were disingenuous words and nothing would happen but I didn’t think the club would do it for a third window in a row because they would know the fans would lose patience and possibly revolt and no one would dangle the carrot and take the pee that much. Who in the club has such bad judgement that they have wasted millions of our precious club budget on people who must be charlatans wanting to get an easy pay day? Is it all Kat? She’s been very sheepish since. They did well and got lucky with Ralph H but Gao (We have no chairman to blame, no director of football or anyone really on the sporting side) doesn’t seem to be backing him in any form of a transfer kitty if he even talks to the staff. I have a horrid we have a mute, disinterested owner leaving the clueless staff, whom they keep reducing in numbers & quality, to run the show. The lunatics are running the asylum. We have found a gem in Ralph H and the club don’t appear to appreciate that and don’t appear to want to invest and don’t appear to want to be doing anything to keep this man at our club. I’m speculating of course because I haven’t a clue. Our owner doesn’t appear to hold enough respect for us as fans to even address us. This is generally the behaviour of someone without good intentions because when you have bad intentions, you never tend to say anything because of backlash. Well, you can only sit quietly and mute for so long and get away with it and you cannot go back on your prevaricating transfer intentions for a third successive window. We cleared out the squad and moved many players on and sold our best assets long ago and we now have some loans back but we are threadbare. Now is when we rebuild as you repeatedly intimated so why has it not started yet? Lies. Constant lies. Carrot dangling as it is known. I digress. If this Newcastle takeover story is true, then Newcastle could be very lucky indeed and the Geordies may finally have their dream of being rid of Mike Ashley. My current dream is being rid of Gao. Sheikh Khaled bin Zayed Al Nehayan is the cousin of Man City’s Sheikh Mansour. Mansour hasn’t done too badly for Citeh, eh? And we are lumbered with this mute, seemingly tight fisted, disingenuous, Chinese charlatan. Great. Thanks Kat! Good work. The reality is hard to say to a family that saved us but facts are facts and she’s undone much of her father & Cortese’s good work, patiently build up over many years (and the 3 consistent seasons of relative success for a small [now relegation fodder] club) in 3 short years. We continue to not learn from our mistakes. I wish Ralph well when he has the sense to move on to an ambitious PL club that at least provide some transfer backing accompanied by some sporting structure, transparency to staff and fans and, ultimately, honour, respect & integrity. I am confident he will enjoy success and become a highly sought-after asset in years to come. We will be back in the Championship where we belong under the level of control and management we operate. If you get any second thoughts Sheikh Khaled bin Zayed Al Nehayan, can you offer to buy out Gao Jisheng? Please! #WeBrieflyMarched #Weneedanoverhaul #Backupyourbullsh*t #GaoOut

I think this post is a little over sensationalised but has some interesting points but you, on Coles, have a very good point. Now that’s a blast from the past and he really was a good goalkeeping coach. We miss him.

To be fair (Mary Whitehouse), Wallington Saint is succinct and factually accurate.

You beat me to it. I just happened to see it by chance on the elections which God knows why I have on. Let’s just hope he is better at negotiating trade deals for our country that he is at negotiating transfer deals with Tottenham Hotspur football club. A man that wrote off the world record football transfer fee sell on clause to sign a useless bunch of youth team rejects that he had the monumental arrogance to think he could coach into becoming world class players. Like Spurs hadn’t seen this very well hidden talent. At least I’m totally over what he did Lol To reiterate, writing off Gareth Bale’s sell on clause, to sign a youth team, reserve keeper in the name of Tommy Forecast (Fourpast). Good luck negotiating on our behalf in Europe, Rupert. I think this sums up everything that is wrong with our country when hard working, decent people of integrity struggle to find work and this man seems to land on his feet, leaving a path of destruction behind him for others to clear up. I guess that’s just the cold reality of business. I did find it amusing that he had to crawl out from under his stone and slip off to the West Midlands to campaign, knowing he is too hated down in the south to even show his face. The complete c*** The best thing RL did was bankrupt us so we could ‘finally’ get shot of the parasitic twunt! #Letswriteofftheworldrecordfootballtransfersellonclauseforaterribleyouthteamrejectgoalkeeper #GaoOut #BrexitMeansBrexit

It’s actually not. Owning the local football club gives you good leverage with the council for real estate. Especially for riverside land or areas near the docks which could, say, be developed as a super casino or some other leisure facility benefitting from the cruise liner proximity. I have always believed Gao has little interest in the club & sport, but much interest in real estate. That’s his background. He bought the club to expand his empire. The new theories about developing trade routes into the country from China is also interesting & not to be readily dismissed but we have been trading via the port for decades so that is nothing new. Developing a football club and whatever land they propose in their plans of redevelopment and bringing in Chinese investment to the city will be highly regarded by the local council and they will be falling over themselves to acquire investment in the city. Who wouldn’t?! Usually the council f*** everything up by thinking that Southampton is Monaco & the most highly sought-after city in the world and go all Theresa May in negotiating and get greedy & unrealistic & most sensible people run a mile.

Have you been watching too many Carlsberg adverts on YouTube ?! ???? Carlsberg don’t do SOUTHAMPTON FC pre-seasons, but if they did.......

Do you honestly think Gao has done anything to suggest that is in his character? The Chinese do not like to spend money, they like to make money. I admire your optimism but it is misplaced and unrealistic. We are just leverage for Gao expanding his property empire in the west.

According to the OS. That’s the club that has not revealed the value of the deal so their words mean nothing and they’ve gone back on their word in the transfer window three times so I wouldn’t believe a word that comes out the mouth of this prevaricating club. It’s a non-existent company so a start up and it apparently ties in with the development of the youth overseas which they are trying to set up in China. Nothing wrong with that but they also need to look at priorities. There’s no point developing decent players or prospects if they haven’t got a decent league to play in. It will be refreshing if they actually invested in the first team squad which is the most critical element yet they seem to do everything but that and they’ve ridden their luck two or three times but they won’t survive again if they keep shutting their eyes & crossing their fingers and hoping for the best and behaving incompetently and with this level of complacency. We lost Pochettino & Koeman due to boardroom arrogance & stupidity. Let’s hope this sponsorship puts money into the club and and Gao finally invests in the first team. I won’t hold my breath. This mute & disingenuous owner has not done a subtle thing to breed confidence. The opposite. Under his tenure he has not spoken to the fans and the club have constantly lied. Is that the way we intend to proceed? I just hope the sponsorship it’s not related to Gao as I currently have no faith in this charlatan. Prove me wrong and I will change my tune but so far, he’s done absolutely nothing of merit other than removing Ralph K and Les ‘sp*nk all the funds’ Reed. I’m assuming the appointment of Ralph Hasenhütl was done by the footballing board. We desperately need guidance and a director of football as our current board, like our squad, are woefully short of footballing and competitive prowess for this level of football.

I'd be interested to see Boufal under Ralph but, despite 2 of the managers being woeful, one not being so popular, they can't all be wrong. They are also supported and given info. from coaching staff and Ralph H made clear that he wanted team players from the outset and I don't think Boufal has the capacity - judging from afar - to adapt to that mindset. Perhaps I am wrong. I feel it's a typical case of that skilful & talented player wrapped in cotton wool and told he's brilliant from a school kid and it goes to their head. Those types are often not a team player therefore they don't actually improve the team due to their dogmatic need to play for themselves rather than the team. Purely an opinion based on scraps of info. so I can't accurately say that's fair but I am judging by the club's treatment of him and reading between the lines and the fact he was packed out on loan.

Very true. The club consistently lie to the fans to mask their lack of ambition which you can’t really hide anymore and they did exactly the same with Promes. If you remember he appeared in a friendly last day of the transfer window so we never had any serious intention of signing him (nor any alternative targets). I doubt we will do much judging by the echo articles fed by the club’s PR agenda which are clearly conditioning the fans for more disappointment which contradicted the articles saying we would need to clear out players before bringing in new. Well we have cleared out a number of players are not made a single signing so that says it all for the club. Quite frankly, I’m bored with it all and the deceitful way the club treat the fans. Gao needs to go. Kat too. It’s back to the low ambition days of obscurity having undone all the good work and spirit we built up in our rise through the divisions. We have sold off all our talent and I’m just bored of the new Southampton way & how the club is now run on the cheap. We have an entirely inept board whom know nothing about football and an owner who has little interest in anything other than expanding his business empire. A typical Chinese businessman. Our previous years of good fortune are well and truly dead & we won’t improve until our board & chairman are replaced. #WeMarchBackwards. #GaoOut

It’s like a vajazzle for men. Like a Posh Pep Prince Alberto! Saints should move for Victor Wanyama & wasn’t there talk ages back we were after Joao Mario? I wonder if we’re still after Lookman because we certainly aren’t moving swiftly. All I see is a lot of lipservice and disinformative media leaks.

He was awful last night. He’s got no pace, he can’t head the ball and he can’t hold the ball up or take people on. He looked totally out of his depth. A low-level championship forward at best. He wasn’t quite as bad as Elynoussi or Ramsay and has anyone taught Armstrong ball control? If we don’t strengthen in this window, Gao needs to go. Clearly has no good intentions or he would’ve stayed them. Buoycott him out along with Kat & Ralph K and get sensible investment and reinvest that plethora of television money or sold player cash. I think the fans would prefer money being spent on the squad rather than a property portfolio

Time to start making the GAO OUT banners. I can’t believe fans pay for tickets when we have a majority owner that hasn’t even the courtesy to address his paying fanbase. Reprehensible arrogance. GAOS OUT. KAT & RALPH TOO.

Brilliant! You’ve gotta love Kami. It’s the confused exptession that gets me.

You’ve got to love a Chris Kamara faux pas... I thought everyone had missed this in the Palace Saints match.

Just seen this old thread and I really rated Juanmi so was bugged when we shipped him out. When I consider Redmond was a replacement, even more annoying as nothing of the same class. We need to upgrade players, not the opposite but I guess that's why we fought relegation and Redmond fell out of favour as time went on.

Yes, but after the injury crocked time we suffered (and value lost) with Jay-Rod, Austin, Svensson and Delgado, least we have learnt. Now we are supposed to be interested in Danny Ings. A player beset with injury. Constant knee problems resulting in hardly any game time at Liverpool. That seems a low cost, jigh risk gamble that can end being a costly waste in that you're paying wages to a player than never features. Like Mayuka, Ramirez, Osvaldo, Forren, Gardos, Filip Duricic, Bednarek (he's played a few games now), Caceres, ....etc. but for different reasons. They weren't overly injured but didn't appear good enough or to have the right temperament so scouting may need some extra diligence post losing Mitchell to Spurs. We lost a lot of staff and players to Spurs and Liverpool and look at how their performances and league position have improved whereas we lost a LOT of quality and look where we ended up. We had a great hit ratio in recent years and sold all them and now seem to be homing in on too many duffs. I think the latest signing, Moi (too tricky to spell surname) will do well. Good signing.

What, like the serious interest Saints showed in Promes and the strong intention we had to land him despite him starting a friendly that day and the club denouncing our interest early in the morning (tyre kickers) and the club having no tangible back-ups lined up?! They wanted money upfront, something we should have been able to achieve if we were serious about fighting relegation and bolstering a key area which has been neglected for seasons and we have seen the results. Instead, we took a massive, low ambition gamble. Shock!! I don't see that ethos changing under this new owner. I wish Kat had never sold us out to this joker. The Promes saga looked to me like a total smoke screen generated by Les (or cohorts) to appease the fans as though we were trying to sign when the intentions are clear, with both the club and Spartak knowing we weren't serious. Hence the players playing in a pointless friendly.

This was all a clear smoke screen. Never any intention to land him. Just to appear we were trying. Hence no back up and to spin out the clock. A common tactic of Les, first leak to Jeremy Wilson.....

Even if he did come, it would only be a very brief stop. Usual stepping stone thing. Agents must surely tout Saints to players in this way. Least everyone else now realizes Saints' place in the league of things, as it says on the website/below…… http://futbolgrad.com/quincy-promes-southampton/ Southampton would be a perfect in-between step for Promes Southampton are considered a prime destination for talented players wanting to make an in-between step to one of the big European sides. A well-run club the Saints have developed countless stars for other clubs and most recently sold Virgil van Dijk to Liverpool for a record-breaking €80 million—making him the most expensive defender in the history of the game. Quincy Promes has been Spartak Moscow’s best player the last 18 months. Van Dijk is, of course, a teammate of Promes at the Dutch national team and there is no doubt that the two have talked about the Saints when it comes to Promes’ next career step. At the same time, Quincy Promes has also been linked with several other clubs in recent years including van Dijk’s recent club Liverpool, as well as Bayern München and Borussia Dortmund. With the transfer window clocking in on its final 24 hours Southampton and Quincy Promes have to make some hard decisions. Will the Saints meet Spartak’s demands and pay the full £30 million to make Promes Southampton’s record signing? Will Promes leave Spartak now and join the Saints? We will find out as the clock is ticking towards the final showdown. NOPE!!!

Wasn't Pep a fan of Redmond according to his on pitch ranting after our match....errrr, encouragement? Give Citeh Redmond, paves the way for us signing Mahrez!! LOL

I agree. Something rotten in the core of the club and since Cortese left, we have been on a steady decline with Les at the helm. Not helped by Ralph's p*ss poor PR. I don't believe the huge exodus of our best players leaving is down to money alone. We will, of course, never get to hear it but the lies and prevaricating tripe from the club is generic and insulting to our intelligence. We have had an attacking and goal scoring problem since Mané and Pelle left seasons ago and nothing has been done. Weak managerial appointments The club are fully at fault and need a revamp from board level.

I haven't been on here for ages. I see it's not changed much. Scrolling through pages and pages of bickering dominating the content of the small morsels of transfer news. Never mind. Conversely to the rumour I posted about a new manager right at the end of the window so we won't be able to make any signings (which I don't want to be true), it's worth considering that Jeremy Wilson is Reed's leak at the Daily Telegraph so I have done a full u-turn and have a lot more belief in this rumour now. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2018/01/20/mauricio-pellegrino-focus-southampton-long-term/ I know it's not transfer related but I thought the team did well Sunday. The fans not so well. Booing Tadic when he had an usually good game and booing that manager for subs? Come on! Cos the fans have inside knowledge of a player's fitness/health/fatigue or a hard endurance midfield position and style like Lemina plays doesn't take its toll. He may have just run himself out and signalled or fitness may have been suffering as he was out of the squad for a while with injury. There are things wrong with the club and something intrinsic and an endemic problem from board level throughout that isn't quite right but don't become mindless and boo everything. Tactics were good Sunday but it may be a sad case of too little too late. I'm not a fan of MP but still. Good performance.

I’m ever the optimist and hopeful that Theo was a red herring to distract the league from our actual transfer movements in Quincy Promes as he’s sounding like the exact type of player we have been crying out for since losing our pace and power and goals from midfield (Mané) and replacing it with……ambling Redmond and pinpoint accurate Hojbjerg *grunt*. Then further losing our target men and goals (Lambert and Pelle) and replacing with them with decent forwards (Austin and Gabbiadini) but no target men. Not helped by playing isolated strikers that aren't strikers (Long) although Gabbiadini is class but gets left in no-mans-land then is stupidly dropped for not scoring. WOW! Bizarre logic. No shock our goals dried up when you consider that and this was a problem evident way before this season so we have the club and Les to blame for that horrendous oversight. Complacent is the term. Our board largely remain silent. Poor and lacking respect imho. I saw we had been looking at Quincy Promes which is exactly what we need so I won’t hold too much hope for the simple fact that agents are steering players away from Saints due to our current state and the rot coming from within. We are perceived as a mess that players be best to avoid and I'm inclined to agree when you consider how the club has been mismanaged and the direction we are headed. The stats don't lie, it's mainly the board and politicians. However, I heard we have looked at Andy Carroll according to a journalist friend and Moussa Dembélé. I’m hoping the Carillo rumour is just that, a rumour or another smoke screen. Not what we need but more like our current ambitions. Picking up the dross. Conversely to that info., I had heard that Pellegrino was to be sacked but not until the end of the window which will allow to the club to not release transfer funds due to not having enough time despite having sat on their hands throughout the whole of January which does tie in with the lack of activity but I’m also well aware some rumours can be invented to tie in with such a status. If we do sign, it’ll likely be some obscure European name for 15-20 million as is our price range. Not ideal in a self imposed relegation scrap. We will hopefully not waste our precious money on loan fees for loans we never use or odd transfers that are not to standard. We have squandered so much of the big fees received on poor quality players that have barely, if at all, played. Mayuka, Osvaldo, Gaston, Forren, Elia, Djuricic, Caulker, Caceres, Clasie (ok, he played but didn’t really succeed), Redmond, Hojbjerg, Gardos, etc. Add those fees up against game time, doesn't look good. I appreciate you can't win them all and every club has failures. 2015/16 was a better period for signings. I’m hoping we sign Quincy Promes and another attacking threat since that alone (combined with some wiser management) would transform our current train wreck of a season. The tools are there (and that’s not reference to Tadic! LOL). They just need to be utilised and managed and inspired with strong leadership and continuity. Not an ever changing starting line up from a confused man with little belief, confidence or coherent strategy whom is clearly out of his depth. The tricky part, due to the club's sheer incompetence, will be attracting players and managers in.

Good point and how I've been feeling. We have declined since Cortese left and whilst he wasn't the nicest of blokes, he ran a tight ship. Seems the comments and concerns he made about the club when departing were accurate. Les Reed is endemic to the failings of the club in recent years and some changes need to happen or the club will be back to the days of feeder club, lacking ambition, lacking stock, manager and chairmen merri-go-round futility. Les has too much power and needs to be under more scrutiny. Ralph is simply irritating. Just another Tony Blair. Except much worse at public speaking. Just saying what the fans ought to hear and naively hoping we will see through their prevaricating, universally reasoned club statement while their actions show how little interest they really have in football and ambition. Incidentally, how much has Gao said? Feels like he's picked up the club easily thanks to Katharina Liebherr and has more interest in the surrounding area and business interests. How much has he invested in the club, does anyone know? He may have put money in but not heard much and I'm sure PR Ralph would bang the drum if he had. The tedious sycophant.