Lallana's Left Peg

No idea if the source is sound or not, but:

So is this the well briefed story that the poster said last week was going to happen this week or do we think it is the real deal? I notice the BBC is now saying Liverpool is only his preferred destination "if" he leaves. Without a fee agreed between the clubs I suspect this will run for a little bit.

You also need the player to be happy to stay. Given we're a club who recruits players on the premise we won't stand in the way if a better offer comes along, and he can both play at a higher level and earn much more money, I'd question his sanity if he wants to stay. If he wanted to stay then I agree with all that you have said.

With Coleman injured long term, a Europa League campaign and Holgate the only right-back they have then I can see why it makes sense for them to sign Martina. He can fill in when needed and won't expect to play much, and the management team there know him. He 'did a job' for us and whilst he was a very limited footballer he seemed a good professional. Good luck to him.

A peculiar situation where if Puel keeps his job he could be considered lucky and if he loses his job it could be considered unlucky. There are a lot of mitigate circumstances this season that he could point to in order to be given another season. Some of them include recruitment, injuries and the fixture schedule. He didn't miss all those chances and penalties (not that if we had taken them we would have finished higher in the table!). He will say despite that he has delivered an 8th place finish and a cup final. And not hesitated to give chances to young players. On the other hand the charges against him seem considerable. Has he really got the most out of what he has had available? Has his rotation at the start of the season been justified with performances in the last third? Has he tactically evolved to address the issues we saw in the first month of the season? And, most importantly, are the players in the squad behind him? It's tough. And I do wonder what Les Reed is thinking. If Reed is privately expecting some high profile players to leave then would it make sense to keep Puel from a continuity perspective? Or would it better to get a new Manager in and appease certain individuals? So I think it comes down to this: 1. Could we get someone on paper who is better than Puel? 2. If we did how does this impact our prospects of keeping our better players? Therefore it's nothing to do with performances this season, it's all about the future and what sort of Manager we can get and what the players think. Anything else is just noise I think.

He's lost some players and he's lost the crowd now. No matter whether you think he deserves another season or not there isn't any circumstance or scenario in which he can stay is there?

Game over. Puel gone.

I can't work out if we are just really unlucky in the final third or if it happens so much there is something more to it. Like the way we play creates chances but never puts someone in the right position to finish them. Or we're just a bit rubbish. But we can't be rubbish to create so many chances. My head hurts.

It's quite a specific metric to measure, I'd quite like to see total minutes given to Academy graduates (regardless of age) still at the club and total minutes of Academy graduates even if they are no longer at your club.

If you are not allowed to boo how can you express your feelings to the Manager over what he is doing? You can't do it in silence or cheering.

He wouldn't have said that if we won - he's patronising us.

Good performance, terrible result. Only one team interested in that and we still couldn't score. Don't feel like the balance in the final third is right regardless of personnel. Not sure if it is tactics or the players themselves just not being compatible.

This touches on the salient points for me. In many respects there are a lot of mitigating circumstances this season which make it hard to know whether or not he's been good or bad. But there is the lingering thought in the back of the mind that makes you wonder whether he really would have done better without those mitigating circumstances, and that's what leads you to think he's not the right man. I think what it will come down to - rightly or wrongly - is what the players think. If senior players don't like him then that's that - he's gone.

Wasn't really tested. A few mistakes distribution wise but recovered well. Get the impression he'd pick up a lot of cards over the course of the season but his style is so aggressive you'd have to accept that. Biggest complement is that he coasted through the game which is usually the sign of a good player. But then again it was only Boro.

I can only judge that performance once I hear what Klopp thought of how we played. Anyone heard from him?

Well, that team is different.

There is much to like about Shane Long but when the team is not creating many chances his wastefulness really does undermine his outstanding qualities elsewhere.

My general feeling is that I think he deserves to stay another season but if he left I wouldn't be too bothered. Reasons he deserves to stay: 1. Key players not adequately replaced (Mane, Fonte) 2. Lots of players underperforming for reasons out of his control 3. Individual mistakes that he cannot be accountable for 4. Has not hesitated in giving youth a chance and that is key for our club Reasons he deserves to go: 1. Lots of players underperforming for reasons in his control 2. Some players do not appear to enjoy playing under him and we all know what that means when push comes to shove 3. Our rotation policy was justified by saying we would be fresher / better in the last part of the season - we've by and large been rubbish 4. As the course of the season has wore on we've not seen much in the way of tactical nous or development and earlier in the season we were told 2 games a week prevented this as it was all about recovery and prepare As I say, logically he deserves another season but if the club can do better they should. I wouldn't be a fan of sacking him without having someone lined up.

I am very surprised at that given how other loanees have been treated during their spell away. That would suggest to me that something is up. Any ideas?

They continually monitor everyone they loan out. Sometimes in person, but always by video if not. Sam, like all other players loaned to other clubs, would have also been receiving feedback from Saints as well.

Our lads play against other Academy teams who aren't deemed as good as those in the first division. All those who say the point of U23 games is to develop players rather than win are right. But the issue is that players develop quicker when they play at a higher level and that is how you find out about their ceiling. Our kids won't have that opportunity within their own age group now and that is a blow. So this relegation really is bad news, and its also not a very good look for the Academy in general.

There is more to judging the quality of your season than what you expect based on the size of your club. I don't think anyone expects us to be able to maintain a league position like we achieved last season but this season is full of regrets that felt avoidable and I think that is why fans are frustrated. All the missed chances, mistakes and recruitment decisions that haven't 'come off' lead to people thinking we could / should be doing better.

He's messed up a few times, but is success rate is better than average (I would say). I'm not a fan of his public expectation setting which is really ill-advised however if he continues to sign players for £10-15m that we sell for £25 - 30m then he's doing a very good job. It's hard to keep your players if they want to leave. You need to make then want to stay - if we can't offer the wages then we've lost one of the biggest things you can do to convince a player to stay. We've benefited far more from the players we've sold to Liverpool than they have, by the way.

Good point. I'd rather he sign really poor players no-one else wants while we fight relegation every season. Then we could all be happy knowing we will never sell a player again. I'd sleep better at night knowing that.

It was an experiment worth trying, even if it ended up being a disaster. It was worth seeing how it would be with Redmond, Boufal and Tadic in the same team. The idea was sound - Hull play quite open (hence they either win or lose games) and so at St Marys there would be space for us to exploit and we could simply be better than them with more talent in the team. I had no issues with the team pre-game. Unfortunately worst fears were experienced - Redmond, Tadic and Boufal are all chefs who like the ball to feet and to be the fulcrum of the move. They don't make that run that creates space for others or understand that if they don't get the ball then its not the end of the world. They are not combination players and do not play nicely with anyone who isn't a striker. I don't recall a single move between them from any of them. So we ended up outnumbered in midfield (as a result of the personnel) and when we had the ball we had no threat whatsoever as it was like strangers were playing. A draw was lucky, a win would have been criminal. I think it was bad enough that we need to move on from it straight away and learn the lesson that the balance of our team is far more important than individual ability.