Ultimatt

I was being sarcastic about Taylor. For your 2nd line, source?

We need more Stuart Taylors. I'm not exactly sure what it is he contributes but i've no doubt it's good. Leaders don't have to be over 30. There's young guys that exhibit the qualities you want like Hojbjerg. Some older ex-leaders can also turn into bellends like Fonte angling for a move. Age is just a number and we can recruit people with the right attitude at any age. The other, probably more important, characteristic of a good leader is ability. They need to be good to be respected imo. That's where guys like Hojbjerg and JWP fall at the moment whereas a guy like VVD didn't have as good an attitude but became a leader through skill. We don't have any players left that have both the attitude and ability to be leaders.

A couple of analysis posts that go against the large squad strategy our board have gone for: http://www.football-observatory.com/IMG/sites/mr/mr34/en/ http://www.football-observatory.com/IMG/sites/mr/mr38/en/

Our fans demanded 2 up top and more attacking football. Looks like the club/Hughes listened (at the expense of results).

We'd still sell Boufal for at least £10m, we only paid £16m. It's a small loss while the potential gain was way higher if he had 1 good season. He's got 2 goals 1 assist in his last 3 games on loan so might be getting more starts now if he can continue that form. Carillo is inexcusable. A panic January buy. Having said that, he's having an okay season in La Liga and we'll get most of what we paid back. He's their top rated player this season on whoscored: https://www.whoscored.com/Teams/825/Show/Spain-Leganes#team-squad-stats-detailed

Reed and Krueger are there to make profits. The owners of the club want profits. Reed and Krueger's jobs are safe because they're delivering what the owners want. It's all become about money instead of aiming to finish as high as possible. There is a strategy. It's just one that only serves the owners and is terrible for the fans.

Austin, Gabbi, Armstrong, JWP, or Davis. Who knows. Targett got the start at LW that game so I can see one of the attackers upset.

He was starting to struggle when he left. Seemed to lose a yard of pace which will get punished in the premier league. Doesn't take away from the fact that he was a rock in years prior.

It's no surprise that Les and Ralph are still here with the rumoured "3 years of no board changes" promise. They're known to put profits over on-field success which is music to an owners ears. Sadly for Gao he was sold a dud. It was a mix of academy talent + great players already in the team from L1/Championship + great scouting that made us successful and all of that was gone when Gao took over. He's no Abramovich or Qatari prince, he's in this to make money from an investment. To that effect it's maintain the status quo of being a selling club putting profits first.

Wanyama - his partnership with Schneiderlin made one of the best CM pairings in the league. They were vital to us performing well which helped attract the future better players. Mane - great player. Nuff said. Pelle - the perfect replacement for Lambert. He let us continue to play our 4-3-3 style ("The southampton way") Not including VVD because we've had a bunch of CB's that did well for us; Fonte, Alderweireld, Lovren; despite him being a top player.

18/19 Vestergaard, Elyounoussi, Gunn, Armstrong - €62m 17/18 Carillo, Lemina, Hoedt, Bednarek - €61m 16/17 Boufal, Gabbiadini, Hojbjerg, Redmond, McCarthy, Pied - €69m 14 1st team signings costing €192m in the last 3 years and we're near relegation. That's in addition to 14 permanent signings during Koeman's two years. 28 signings in 5 years. Well run club my arse..

Adkins: 22.7% (5W 7D 10L) - 1.00 points/game Pochettino: 35.2% (19W 18D 17L) - 1.39 points/game Koeman: 47.4% (36W 15D 25L) - 1.62 points/game Puel: 31.6% (12W 10D 16L) - 1.21 points/game Pellegrino: 16.7% (5W 13D 12L) - 0.93 points/game Hughes: 18.8% (3W 4D 9L) - 0.81 points/game Goals scored per game: Adkins 1.36 Pochettino 1.35 Koeman 1.49 Puel 1.08 Pellegrino 0.97 Hughes 0.88 Goals conceded per game: Adkins 1.82 Pochettino 1.22 Koeman 0.97 Puel 1.26 Pellegrino 1.47 Hughes 1.63 Hughes is our lowest scoring and 2nd highest conceding manager since we returned to the PL. Having said that, sacking him is useless when the board continue to sign backup players. We might survive this season thanks to 3 other teams being worse but the idea of us being a "well run club" is a joke with our fate very much in other teams hands. Relegation is inevitable in these next few years, regardless of manager, unless something changes at the very top.

It takes some doing for the club to finish 17th last season and sign players that couldn't improve that. Just bizarre. We need a clear-out and to stop this stupid strategy of quantity over quality.

Great results for us this weekend. Hudders, Cardiff, Newcastle and Fulham all look very Championship (so do we).

Back to the 5-2-3. I wonder how practised we are in it. Last time we got overrun in the middle and our CB's didn't know who to mark. This formation should suit Gabbi so important for him to have a good game.

King and Wilson have been banging them in the last few years the way Mane/Pelle or Lallana/Lambert did. Goals win matches, simple as that. Strikers are the most expensive players for a reason and ours have been flailing for 3 seasons.

If we only count games since our return to PL: Adkins: 22.7% (5W 7D 10L) - 1.00 points/game Pochettino: 35.2% (19W 18D 17L) - 1.39 points/game Koeman: 47.4% (36W 15D 25L) - 1.62 points/game Puel: 31.6% (12W 10D 16L) - 1.21 points/game Pellegrino: 16.7% (5W 13D 12L) - 0.93 points/game Hughes: 20.0% (3W 4D 8L) - 0.87 points/game Goals scored per game: Adkins 1.36 Pochettino 1.35 Koeman 1.49 Puel 1.08 Pellegrino 0.97 Hughes 0.93 Goals conceded per game: Adkins 1.82 Pochettino 1.22 Koeman 0.97 Puel 1.26 Pellegrino 1.47 Hughes 1.53 If you rate our teams performance by manager then Koeman > Poch > Puel > Adkins > Pellegrino > Hughes

It's hard to experiment and blood players when you're in a relegation scrap. Hughes is under pressure to pick who he thinks is his best each game, which includes his best bench who need to be fresh in case they come on. It's not working though so it's probably time to try someone new Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

McCarthy didn't make the grade at Palace. Bertrand i'll give you. Cedric will never be good enough for a top club while his crossing and defending of crosses is where it is. He rarely finds a target and constantly gets exposed at the back post. Romeu was clear 2nd choice to Wanyama and didn't make the grade at Chelsea. Lemina didn't make the grade at Juventus. Hojbjerg didn't make the grade at Bayern. Moe is early days, we'll wait and see if he gets going. Redmond didn't make the grade at Norwich. JWP has never made the grade here. When you say Austin has a 1 in 2 PL record you mean him being available/fit 1 in 2 games? Ings didn't make the grade at Liverpool. Plenty of 'on-paper' players that weren't good enough to cement spots at their last clubs. That's what we've become. Misfits FC.

It's those same memories of "the Good Old Days" of Koeman/Poch that meant Puel was judged so harshly, when his squad was clearly weaker. If we went Koeman --> MoPe --> Hughes --> Puel he'd be lauded on here guaranteed.

Let's stop scapegoating managers. 3 in a row have been the victims of poor recruitment/squad management. Reed & Wilson need to go.

Puel's Leicester side have scored at least once in 45 of his 54 games in charge (83% of games). He also made the QF of both cups last season, losing in Extra Time and Penalties to Man City and Chelsea. Must be so boring... Back to the topic at hand. Hughes doesn't seem to be getting much out of the squad, but this is a squad bereft of quality. 1.5 years ago the blame shouldn't have been levelled at Puel but rather at the board and recruiters. I fear Hughes will be the 3rd manager scapegoated while we continue to sign the misfits; long contracts to underperforming players that couldn't cut it here and new signings of players that couldn't cut it at their old club.

Lets not unless you want to compare Mane/Pelle/Wanyama to Redmond/Austin/Romeu. Koeman to Puel is nowhere near apples to apples. Our fanbase, with you at the helm, were too blind to realise we'd lost our best players and expected us to perform on par with our best years. It just doesn't work that way. That Puel team was in no way a top 6 challenger. Hilarious that a Champions League semi-final manager isn't enough for Southampton fans. A bunch of us on here defended Puel while he was here and we're being proven more and more right as time goes by while you continue to look more and more the fool.

Puel 38 matches, 1.21 points per game, 1.08GF 1.26GA Pellegrino 30 matches, 0.93 points per game, 0.96GF 1.47GA Hughes 14 matches, 0.93 points per game, 1.00GF 1.50GA On paper he's no better than MoPe and both lose in all aspects to the "Boring yet we scored and created more" Puel.

Dropped? No place for an AM in Hughes formation.