Daft Kerplunk

Ralph could surely benefit from a decent coaching set-up. It can’t be great on the training pitch with the dross we have in Craig Fleming, Kelvin Davis and Dave Watson! Ralph doesn’t appear to communicate with any of these during a match and seems isolated.

Fans can focus on penalties though, the players should have come out fired up in the second to carry on applying pressure and be on the front foot. Any team playing us that is 1 nil down at half time knows they can come at us early doors and we will fold. We have a mentality problem. Super harsh penalty but that only made it 1-1. We’ve been weak in our attitude yet again.

Utterly predictable. Forget blaming the penalty decision, we’ve been fannying about since the last minutes of the second half.

Mark Dennis with loads of very bad challenges: cult figure. Different time, different football.

Stop the count! Stop the count! Stop the coooooooooooooouuuuuuuuunnnnnnnnnnnnnt!

Between April 2010 and November 2018, Reed was Head of Football Development and the Vice-Chairman of Football at Southampton. In this time many of the strong but perhaps forthright coaches were got rid of and replaced with average yes men, or worse, just mates of those at the top who aren’t that great but have got the plum roles. Add declining recruitment and more challenge from the likes of Chelsea who pay parents or offer ridiculous contracts to youngsters and there is a blend of problems. All these players making the first team now are just statistics to sell the club to sponsors, prospective buyers and fans who can’t tell the difference between a genuine good prospect and an average one. The last players of genuine ability and the hunger required came through the academy a decade ago. Matt Crocker has a huge job on his hands, the success won’t come because of cowering corporate behaviour, pretty powerpoints and pulling socks up, it’ll come by having the best coaches, perhaps even some ex-players in the environment who know the club and what it takes to make it in the game, and then convincing parents that this is the place for talented kids playing among other talented kids, not just kids taken on to boost the numbers. Some will be lost because of the money, many will know that with the best coaches, this would be the only place to be. That’s what has been lost. Some still choose to ride on a wave that fell flat on the shore a decade ago.

Could be just what we need to get some goals back in this group. Hopefully we can secure a solid mid table spot now

Is this a case of BS? Surely the facilities are open for first team use and recovery unless the legal team has deemed this naughty behaviour and they are impacting football success. A risk reduction approach is fine but surely the club hasn’t lost sight of their primary reason for existence and players need to be ready to play.

This one is for the people who purchased a stop the count T-shirt

19th September 1984 UEFA Cup Southampton FC 0 v Hamburg SV 0

Leicester are certainly above us now and will be for the foreseeable. When they won the league they got catapulted into that higher perception and they have capitalised on it with signing replacement and new players and commercially where they’ve been more active and are still looking to expand. Whether this is funded by an owner doesn’t mean anything. Arguing that we are in their category is futile, they are the Apple computer to our Dell.

Football player wants to play actual competitive football and not play for a B team. I thought that these are the players we should like. Sitting on the bench occasionally whilst the club boost the ‘academy’ players who’ve ‘made it’ to the first team numbers is hardly what any football player should want. It’s rubbish if a true talent wants to move on but if he isn’t playing for us, it’s better for his career to be playing competitive football somewhere. Makes a nice change in a way from those who aren’t going to make it as a Premier League player staying because they’ve got a decent salary.

No, looks at which tournaments academy teams should play in, and then gets teams to come to Southampton.

It would be nice to think that fans wouldn’t fall for the player letting us down bullshit this time. The ‘good’ offer highlighted by Adam Blackmore suggests we haven’t offered a great deal and Hassenhutl’s chat about not relying on Danny Ings shows you the internal reality. He’s likely to go because his value is not appreciated or affordable to the bean counters. We are in a financial hole, the commercial department is at best average so money isn’t going to be flooding in to help fund player wages so we need to sell the key assets, which are players. It’s naive to think otherwise. Best case scenario would be selling the club to someone either willing to invest in areas that don’t impact financial fair play therefore ‘freeing’ up money for football or one with some genuine commercial gumption rather than the current team at the helm. Preferably both. If you do go Danny, you go with my best wishes. You gave the club what they needed, we fans have had a genuine hero for a bit. You deserve a shot at achievement that you won’t get here.

Not destroyed as it is still operating but it is nowhere near as good as it was. From what I understand, the rot started with Les who took credit for what had gone before but started getting rid of coaches who didn’t believe he or Martin Hunter were the best thing since sliced bread. Les was great at creating a story about how good he was and with a board made up of people who were/are pretty clueless about football, that made him untouchable for awhile. They also didn’t like kids who were talented and full of potential but were rough around the edges, and it still doesn’t look like we recruit from the city’s tougher areas that much anymore. As someone has pointed out though, Chelsea do get to kids and families through very generous offers so that does make it harder but if you’ve got the best set-up with great coaches, parents will at least need to turn that down and go for the money instead. The decline has continued with the appointment and promotion of sub-standard coaches, turning down the opportunity to employ good ex-players to join the coaching staff because they aren’t Matt Hale’s mates, poor recruitment at the younger ages and giving more attention to the academy satellite at Bath and the West Country than here in Southampton and the South. People don’t sarcastically call the academy Bathampton for nothing. Hopefully Matt Crocker will be able to get to make changes but he will be up against some skilful internal politicians adept at keeping their jobs and power. The academy will be back to its best when the kids we sign at 8-12 start making the first team, not the kids we sign at 16 or older who’ve really been developed as players at another academy in the UK or Europe.

If we sell, it could fill a financial hole we are probably in. Great financial action. Will be a massive loss for the first team, fans and the actual football element of SFC. Terrible football action.

The reality is that football is run by people with little care, and in some cases, little understanding of football beyond it being a fairly lucrative business with guaranteed customers. Outside our detached owners, our own team at the top is made up of posh boys who probably like rugby or cricket more than football, or at least deep down they do, or that’s what their kids play because football is just for oiks. No problem with that but it just exemplifies that those running football don’t love the game on a deep level. When that’s the case, it’s only about money, whatever they say. A European league run with playoffs like the big us leagues would be an answer but those leagues developed that way as they got bigger. A European league is a contraction and as many point out, you can only have one winner and that means 15 other teams used to winning don’t. They are underestimating why people not in the communities nearby like those teams in the way they do. The obvious dream to the big teams is US sport leagues but all American Leagues have population and demographic requirements to host a team in a league (apart from some very traditional teams like Green Bay Packers) and there is way more geographic loyalty. Each team can sustain itself to a degree because of corporate business, stadium seat purchases and local TV deals. Apart from baseball, every team has to take part in a draft and each team gets a superstar or two, and there are big restrictions on wages paid. A European super league wouldn’t necessarily fail but it won’t be the walk in the park the top boys think. I for one would have limited interest and kids aren’t watching like they used to so football might end up alienating its core audiences. If it had balls, the premier league would call these teams bluff, and as someone suggested, say they need to leave all competitions in the UK. They won’t and ultimately, these clubs will get a great share of the TV revenue.

All these players should be sent on loan and probably moved on ideally. None are really likely first eleven material for a top twelve prem club.

These little ITK spats are hilarious. As if anyone is going to say, ‘yeah my source is Zoe in the legal team, or Charlie in marketing or Caroline at the FDSC (Staplewood)’. Keep posting any snippets those who are ITK or claim to be, ignore those who are envious of your contacts...or perhaps are plants from inside ‘the club’ who try to rubbish you?

Would be a desperate and massive mistake

That was indeed the possible 🤣

Oooh, just think of the academy graduate chat the marketing team can talk about with this one. So much mileage of a player ‘coming home’ even if he’s way past his best and we couldn’t afford the two (possibly three) really decent ones.

UA would never have been able to fulfil this because they probably aren’t quick enough at turning kit manufacture around but their decision to agree to a third party making them is perhaps a way out of a contract they over paid for. Plus they seem less interested in football, or can’t afford to be in it anymore. Glad ‘the club’ is letting people keep the shirts although they would’ve gone in the bin anyway 🤣

If true, I look forward to enjoying his contribution for a few years

Excellent news if Gao is to go and be replaced by a proper owner. Glad Martin Semmens is now fixing this mistake by the then leadership team of Kruger, Liebherr and Semmens 👍🏼