Ultimatt

Gabbi looks the part as long as he gets service. 0.50GPG this season. Austin is a 15+ goal a season striker year in year out. 103 goals in his last 202 games. 0.42GPG this season. Admittedly he's had injury issues in his 1.5 years with us but before then he rarely missed a game. If his body comes good then he's definitely at our level. Beyond that we only need 1 more striker to play 3rd string, given we only play 1 on the pitch at a time. Pick 1 from Gallagher/JRod/Long and sell the other 2. No Europe. A 3rd strong striker just means more rotation and less playing time for all of them, so less partnerships form and each one of them can't maintain form. I'm pretty sure a major gripe with Puel has been his rotation. We need quality over quantity this season. We also need wingers that score. Tadic/Boufal/Redmond just didn't cut it and won't get any support from 11 goals in 189 games Davis.

6m interest on 63m loans. Ouch. I guess it's the most likely reason why we were 20th on net transfer spend this season, paying off the loans.

We're not buying a striker. Gabbi and Austin are both good enough and then Gallagher/Long/JRoD surplus.

2 big reasons why 8th place had such a low points total this year: - The top 7 scored more points together than any time in the last 10 years (didn't check further back then that). 538 points between them this year compared to 479 and 497 the 2 years prior. - The new TV deal has levelled the playing field for a lot of clubs that aren't the big 6. Only 6 points separating 10 teams, all taking wins off each other because they're all rich enough now to buy quality players. PREMIER LEAGUE NET SPEND TABLE 20. Southampton -£13.73m 19. Liverpool -£5.10m 18. Swansea £8.16m 17. Hull £9.44m 16. WBA £9.78m 15. Watford £10.92m 14. Bournemouth £12.92m 13. Sunderland £13.46m 12. Chelsea £20.74m 11. Leicester £22.14m 10. Everton £23.04m (Including £50m for the overrated Stones) 9. Tottenham £24.82m 8. Stoke £29.53m 7. Middlesbrough £33.28m 6. West Ham £36.13m 5. Burnley £37.74m 4. Crystal Palace £42.59m 3. Arsenal £87.25m 2. Man Utd £117.17m 1. Man City £151.00m End of the day, we had the lowest net spend (actually made profit despite the new TV deal, go figure). We had Europa unlike 8 of the 9 teams near us (-Leicester). We had key injuries to Austin/VVD. And we reached a cup final. Plenty of reasons why our points total is as low as it is.

I remember people saying similar about Mane in his 1st season. Now they call him world class and say £36m wasn't enough. Puel just needs to gets backed with signings in the summer.

Arguable. I think we have a few areas we could strengthen. Most of all we need Wingers and CM's that score goals. Even under Koeman/Poch they didn't with the exception of Mane. These are the stats for goals in their Saints Premier league careers: Tadic 14 goals in 98 PL games Davis 9 goals in 161 PL games JWP 7 goals in 137 PL games Long 18 goals in 89 PL games JRod 26 goals in 104 PL games We sold our prolific scorers in Mane/Pelle and were left with the above as our best XI for most of the season. Puel isn't a miracle worker, under Koeman/Poch these guys were just as bad. Then add Redmond into the mix who only scored 11 in 112 games for Norwich (43 of which were Championship so should've been easier). Our squad this year was garbage compared to previous years, plain and simple. We could find a keeper better than Forster CB better than Yoshida/Stephens(whichever is 2nd to VVD) CM(s) better than JWP/Davis/Clasie/Hojbjerg (aka CM's that can play quickly and score goals) Winger that can score goals (maybe Boufal/Redmond will come good) Only positions we're strong enough at are the fullbacks, DM and striker.

No squad depth. It's what we should do now that we're not playing Europa next season. Quality over quantity.

3 years from now. He'll get a 2 year extension and leave with a year remaining.

£13.73m https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/southampton-fc/transfers/verein/180

PREMIER LEAGUE NET SPEND TABLE 20. Southampton -£13.73m 19. Liverpool -£5.10m 18. Swansea £8.16m 17. Hull £9.44m 16. WBA £9.78m 15. Watford £10.92m 14. Bournemouth £12.92m 13. Sunderland £13.46m 12. Chelsea £20.74m 11. Leicester £22.14m 10. Everton £23.04m (Including £50m for the overrated Stones) 9. Tottenham £24.82m 8. Stoke £29.53m 7. Middlesbrough £33.28m 6. West Ham £36.13m 5. Burnley £37.74m 4. Crystal Palace £42.59m 3. Arsenal £87.25m 2. Man Utd £117.17m 1. Man City £151.00m Puel thrown under the bus with our weakest squad in years, before injuries to our best player and best striker. Starts getting the academy kids involved again and still manages 8th and a cup final. Our goals scored sucks but on results it's hard to argue he hasn't overperformed. Look back at the start of season expectation threads and everyone expected worse. If we sack him he'll have no issues walking in to another big job.

JWP/Stephens/Mcqueen/Targett/Sims/Reed with 84 starts between them.

I can see it now. American owners coming in and they'll get Bob Bradley.

Story of our season. We don't take our chances up front.

Why do so many people care that he's boring in interviews? It's unbelievably pedantic To think that can contribute to firing a manager... What the hell is wrong with you There's plenty of players with next to no personality, should we sack them too? Let the guy's ability to manage be the only important factor. If you think he produces boring football then so be it. Given how **** weak our squad is this year compared to recent times I think a league finish of 9th is about right. Cup final was great, Europa league knockout was poor. All in all luck hasn't been on our side this year; key injuries and some shots hitting the woodwork that would've vastly changed our season. Our scheduling was a nightmare. Billy big ******** Fonte undermined the coaches rather than leading by example. The lack of goals has sucked but we spent so much of the season with Long/JRod leading our midfield that hasn't contributed goals in years. For me Puel 100% deserves a crack next year to see what he can put together. We've seen him start sticking to a fairly regular XI once we went to 1 game a week so that consistency should help a lot next year. Not having Europe also means we can offload some players and use that cash for quality over quantity.

I included all their signings season 1. VVD Clasie Cedric Romeu Cuco etc were season 2. The "nature of our system" is to make money. More moneys the only way we'll ever compete with the top 6 on a regular basis. That's why we don't tend to buy ready-made players already at their peak. Looking at Koeman's 1st year signings which will we make money on. Pelle we got lucky thanks to China (5th highest paid player in the world? lol...). Mane we made a killing on (the only typical-age Saints signing). Bertrand we'll profit on. Long/Forster/Tadic/Gardos we probably won't. Koeman came in buying players he knew that were just about the finished product. Puel came in buying younger "for the future" players and the one he knew well has been injured all season (Pied).

You can't judge him critically by saying his teams did better the year after he left, without acknowledging that he had some part in putting that team together and training them. When you put together a squad of young talent it's only natural for them to improve year on year. When Koeman came in he bought old for Southampton standards. Pelle 28, Long 27, Forster 26, Bertrand 25, Tadic 25, Gardos 25, Mane 22. With the exception of Mane, he bought ready-made players for immediate success. You look at his Everton signing of Williams and you can see he's about that short-term success. Compare that to Puel's first year. McCarthy 26, Gabbiadini 25, Redmond 22, Boufal 22, Hojbjerg 20. Those last 3 are all Mane like signings in that they're a long way off reaching their potential. This season has been a rebuild. More time for academy players. Signing younger players for the future than under Koeman. Along with the key injuries that Koeman never had to deal with. Along with the crazy scheduling that Koeman never had to deal with. We'll see how they go next season when Koeman has Europa and we don't, that is unless he tanks it and fails to qualify for the group stage again.

Whatever they actually are, I think we can all agree that there's a big pack of clubs at similar budgets and we're all worlds away from the top 6. It's just impossible to compete year on year with the big 6 with half or a quarter of their money.

Do you think only ours went up? Lol Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

It's ridiculous the amount of fans that think you can just push on and improve league position year on year. Real life isn't football manager. The differences in £££ spend don't just suddenly close. Premier League Clubs Wage Bill For 2016-17 Season 1. Man City £225m 2. Man Utd £220.8m 3. Chelsea £218m 4. Arsenal £200.5m 5. Liverpool £165.6m 6. Tottenham £121.2m 7. Everton £83m 8. West Ham United £79.8m 9. Stoke £75.9m 10. Sunderland £68.3m 11. Leicester £66m 12. West Brom £65m 13. Southampton £63.6m If we realistically want to compete with the Top 6 then we need to raise our income. I can't believe people seriously think we can hold on to a strong team with £63.6m wage budget. Impossible. Money talks and it's the most important thing bar none for how successful a club is year on year.

In training it's Forster on the other end. No surprise that a low pass to either side is enough for him to win the training shootouts.

I was a Lyon fan at the time regularly watching their matches so can shed some light. The president Jean Michel Aulas wanted to make a push to take the club to the next level and achieve European success. There's 3 reasons why Lyon regressed: - They became the 1st French club to float on the stock market. Unfortunately the timing of that coincided with the GFC and the club shed millions. - The club changed their transfer strategy to bring in expensive foreign signings (Lisandro Lopez was enormous money) and they somewhat flopped. Him and Bafetimbi Gomis just weren't lethal enough (very similar to our biggest issue). - Their squad was past its peak. Juninho, Govou and others retiring. They'd gone from housing over half the French NT to barely any. Not much youth coming through with their last golden batch all having moved on; Benzema, Ben Arfa etc. Puel did get them to a champions league semi final, their best result ever, so call that a success. But league form fell and the club had to cost-cut and rebuild. Only now are they starting to surge again thanks to another batch of academy prospects. The similarities between Lyon's model that won them 7 titles and what Southampton is trying to do are strong. It's just that the English league is much stronger.

Arsenal are a basket case atm and Sanchez is surely leaving. If they don't make CL then Wenger is gone too. Their next season rests on how they replace these 2.

Looks like he's only here as half-season cover and no intention of making it permanent. I can understand Puel/the club giving all the game time to Stephens instead; one of our own, young and will greatly benefit. Could only see Caceres coming in for Yoshi but I think it's great Maya is getting a regular run this season. He's been a great humble backup player for years and has more than earned these games. So I don't really mind Caceres not getting a sniff, the club is thinking longer term getting games into the other 2 CB's.

We create more chances than most teams and concede less shots than most. Not Puels fault Forster is **** (Dave Watson), JRod/Long can't finish (jay never looked the same after injury. Long always looked the same, can't convert), and we have a midfield that hasn't contributed goals since we moved back to the premier league. Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

Lovren, Shaw, Chambers. We can't keep everyone. We can't compete when the 6th biggest club in the country has double our wage bill. Leicester's success was on the back of the confidence/motivation of strong momentum. Next to no injuries, no cups, no Europe, meant the same 11 started virtually every game and were fresh. Never rated Morgan and Huth, bang average players, yet they defended as a team and had that huge run of 1-0 wins that got them the title. All the stars aligned. Mid table side that with the extra Europe fixtures drops a few places down the table like almost all clubs do. It's harsh on Ranieri since the expectations are so far above the level the teams actually at.