Smirking_Saint

It’ll be difficult, in fact the Championship looks like it could be as competitive as I ever remember it next year but from what I hear around the club the motivation is to attempt to spring back on the first attempt, so I don’t necessarily expect any firesales or cost cutting to an extent yet SR aren’t Venky’s… I think Rasmus was pushed into a position that he didn’t fit and was probably arrogant enough to think he could achieve what he needed but with a club that had very little joined up thinking we got what we got really The old guard wanted the ‘SFC playbook’, SR followed their metrics and we had a window that tried to appease both but achieved very little What we need now, is whats coming, a clear out and a club that is following a single vision, now whether that ‘vision’ is correct or not we will see but at the very least it will be consistent

Im not entirely sure why you keep mentioning Venky’s as a parallel to our ownership model really, other than attempting to find another set of owners you deem irresponsible. Venky’s bought Blackburn in 2011 (?) and from memory have done very little other than put money in to keep them afloat, they were almost more akin to Gao then SR, rarely funding player recruitment but attempting to keep their investment in the black where possible. SR have made terrible decisions but I don’t think there is anything but an intention to do right by Southampton FC, their first full year has been a disaster, partly due to the state of decay we were in under the Gao years but agreed certainly because of, what the thought were meaningful decisions that ended up executed badly My understanding is Rasmus has already stood back and we are in the process of remodeling the backroom staff to enable us to move forward, not exactly how I would assume owners with a lack of conviction would act Again I’m not saying SR have done well this year, clearly they have not, but we could very well have worse owners

My honest assessment is that without Ralph we would have got relegated sooner, we are/were a pretty terrible team that somehow managed to punch above our weight enough, at times, to stave off relegation for the previous two years… added to the fact that we were lucky previously that there were enough terrible teams below us… this year we were the worst of the bunch IF he was given a viable striker and Lavia stayed fit long enough then I think our fortunes would have been different but equally I think if we had sacked and replaced effectively early enough then we’d been ok too Our faults weren’t sacking Ralph, they were the constant club upheaval at all levels of the club from players to senior positions

I’m not really sure he’d lost the players tbh, it just went a little stale under him after some injuries and a tough set of fixtures Vieira is a progressive manager that tends to favour a 433 system and tries to play with a bit of attacking flair, in fact it started to go wrong when he tried to flip more defensive. We could do an awful lot worse than Vieira imo

As an outside of the box and potentially slightly ambitious appointment, at least for a championship club, Giovanni Van Bronkhorst Young talented manager that, imo was rather harshly sacked from Rangers recently but a lot of Feyenoords recent success was likely built off the good work he did there in his time in charge Plays a possession based 433, did very well in the Europa league and got the best out of Aribo, tactically very astute We could do a lot worse edit - I think he was potentially at City for a bit so will probably know Wilcox too

Pretty much yeah

Fedel and Ross I couldn’t care less about but Lang was a decent player

In all fairness wasn’t that the guy that said we’d definitely definitely be getting a new manager ?

What… 1 ?

Or stephens tbh

I’m not really sure its all that patronising, but he does have a point that there are quite a few posters on here that like to flap around without actually looking at things objectively. SR are committed to the long term viability of Southampton FC and this new multi club model they are attempting to build, whether you think all ‘owners’ have long term visions or not is largely irrelevant to the point Manji is looking to make Do I think SR are bad owners ? No, but I do think they’ve madd some very very poor decisions that, all things considered are obviously their fault but to an extent can be attributed to the fact that their incoming senior recruitment’s left them in the shit. The backroom definitely needed a refresh, in many areas, they had a divided boardroom and a number of senior heads of departments that weren’t pulling in the same direction but SRs attempted transitions have been handled poorly. My hope is that we can now move forward with the backroom/senior refresh out of the season and move into the championship with a club undivided and ready to tackle the next step in this football clubs future We have an owner that is committed, wealthy and driven to see us succeed. I do believe that Rasmus could potentially be an asset but he needs to be checked by those that have significant experience in the English game. And so, I do think, we are well placed, under these owners, to be able to bounce back, we are certainly in a better position now then we would have been under Gao IMO

Metrics….. 😩

This is fucking tedious mate

It seems like it all went to ratshit, which, things generally do when you get a significant regime change.. I seem to remember we had similar periods under Reed/Krueger That said, SR should have shown proper leadership and despite a significant spend one of their major failures was allowing for a slip in standards under their watch

Tbf it seemed like you’re just nitpicking and trying to prove some form of point when everyone, including yourself knew exactly what it meant after sitting through the shitshow of Jones and Selles

Exactly this, it might not to be to everyones liking and they may take a bit of time getting things right but we need joined up thinking, we just simply didn’t have that with two factions with differing ideas Sweep out the old and move forward with joined up thinking

Technically he does now…..

I don’t think Rasmus is going to be as close to the core running of the club either thankfully… not exactly sure what Kraft offers either though But the removal of Semmens should be a huge bonus

Good

I mean, the majority of teams now prioritise a clever use if the loan system because, despite Ankersons insistence that they are close, there generally is a rather large gulf of class between Championship and Prem I do think we will be left with a significantly decent core, I suppose it will depend on the resolve of SR by either getting top money OR retaining some of our brighter players, but it generally makes more sense to sprinkle some good loans around that core, that are able to drive us to the prem rather than to try to buy players that would possibly need replacing on promotion anyway

We’ll see where we are, tbh the club was a bit of a mess when they got here Im not really convinced it was all that stable IMO they need to clear the decks and get a DoF in that is good at what he does, Ankerson isn’t really going anywhere but I do think he is getting pushed back upstairs to a more senior SR overall role These guys, as far as I’m aware, are pretty motivated in taking us back up, which is a start… for instance a relegation under Gao would have been far more disastrous All that being said though, the major decisions this year have been calamitous, we need to reign in the ‘against the grain’ decisions are start making some sensible, stable signings/recruitments

This is how I read it tbh… I know we’re all angry, we all know its a fucking shambles, internally they know its a shambles Those words were the closest we’ll ever come to an apology.. what we need to see now is improvements and things learnt

I don’t really understand what possible thing they can announce to be honest ? Intention to keep best players ? Surely its a hiding to nothing, they’ll end up with egg on their face when hands are forced Intention to fund a promotion push ? Surely inflates prices for potential targets IMO the best thing they can do is offer reduced ST prices off the bat, release a statement saying they have learnt from mistakes and are committed to driving us forward and regrouping Whatever it is… it’ll be a mess imo

Jesus wept

We did spend millons on him, and we are a team that fannies around with the ball