Ultimatt

I'll take top players at smaller clubs over bench players at top clubs.

I don't care so much about who next seasons manager is. It's the squad that needs an overhaul. Not sure why people are so desperate to lock down someone that got 8 points in 8 games, but it doesn't matter who the manager is with our current players. Investment needed or we're set for another lower half finish at best.

£70k - https://sillyseason.com/salary/southampton-fc-players-salaries-79200/ £90k - http://www.football365.com/news/which-player-earns-the-most-at-every-pl-club £55k before his last extension https://www.dailystar.co.uk/sport/football/599698/Southampton-weekly-wages-Manolo-Gabbiadini-Martin-Caceres-sportgalleries £70k seems about right. I don't see how he could actually be our highest earner, and he wouldn't have gotten that big a jump from £55k/wk after such a poor season.

Salary figures aren't the most reliable online and vary place to place, but word has it Mahrez is on £100k/wk which is more than Mane @ Liverpool. If true, that's how.

You could argue that it failed because we changed the type of player we targeted to replace the stars. We used to go after guys playing regularly and being top players in whatever team/league they were in, to almost exclusively going after players who spent a lot of time benched. It's no surprise they didn't shine here.

I don't see how we're going to compete with the big 6 and even Wolves in China. IMO the club are doing an opposite pareto. Putting 80% of their focus in Merchandise/Sponsors/Partnerships which only gives about 20% of our revenue. The real money is made in finishing high up the table (more prizemoney & more TV matches), qualifying for Europe (more matches), getting deep in cups (more matches), and selling those quality players that helped you win so much. 80% of the focus should be on our First Team. Success on the field flows through to more merchandise sales, higher gate receipts, bigger sponsorship deals and higher value of our players. In short, our board are fools.

Largely irrelevant for the club, sure. But i'd be surprised if the board didn't have bonuses tied in to sales. Not so irrelevant for the individuals in charge.

As mentioned by others, he's saying the right things. Words are only words though and our club has a strong history of selling ******** PR. It will be telling whether they continue to do everything on the cheap or if we see a change in transfer strategy back to what made us successful. Also Les Reed is a complete coward. All too happy to get his face out there when times are good and now he hides from the fans and the media. Pathetic.

The top 6 are possibly the strongest they've ever been this year. 5 teams made the CL knockout rounds and Arsenal made the Europa semis. On the other end the huge TV money has made the worst teams of the league much more competitive with all teams having enough to plug any weaknesses. It means there's no more middle ground anymore, just the top and bottom. 14 teams are relegation candidates next season.

Fans of 14 clubs complain about turgid football. I'd put it down to the weakest teams being stronger and the mid-table sides not having any good attackers. The increase in TV money has meant that all sides, even those newly promoted, can strengthen weak areas, so there's no more easy beats. IMO there's a conscious choice by too many managers to sit back and make sure they don't lose, rather than go for the win. With 14 teams being relegation candidates you have a whole lot more "6-pointers" where teams are scared to go for it and settle for the draw. The big 6 also have all the best attackers. Vardy's probably the only one that has a chance to regularly start in those teams. 6th placed Arsenal have a front 3 of Aubameyang-Lacazette-Mkhitaryan. Quality. Without top attackers it doesn't matter how much you dominate over 80% of the pitch. It's all for nought if you don't score. We've had a bunch of games over the past 2 seasons where we were clearly the better team and on the front foot and couldn't score. This season the bottom 14 teams averaged only 1.03 goals/game. That's the lowest it's been in at least a decade.

https://www.foxestalk.co.uk/topic/115812-end-of-season-puel-poll/ More wanting him to stay another year than go atm. The difference between ending the season with a couple of good performances vs our players completely downing tools last season. Right call for them to keep him as they were easily best-of-the-rest this season for attacking football.

He struggled. I didn't like that he abandoned 3 at the back despite that cup loss. Having said that, he was hamstrung by playing a completely void of confidence keeper and weak attackers. There were a bunch of games where we could've turned those draws into wins and we'd have been safe in an uneventful season.

£22.4m matchday income in 2016/17 including the extra EFL/Europa games. £19m in 2015/16. So about £1m per game.

£2m down the drain for finishing 17th instead of 16th

£2m on the line if we hold on to a draw. Expensive few minutes.

Boufal, Carillo and Lemina not even on the bench. Injured or are our 3 record signings all on their way out?

If he goes we've luckily still got Forster for 4 more years Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

If Villa make it there'll be 3 Chinese owned clubs in the PL + a 13% stake in Man City. I'm not sure how successful our plans of expanding there will be given the competition. Wolves will be big spenders and could feasibly take a lot of bandwagon Chinese fans. Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

And most goals/most attacking football outside the top 6. Still not enough for the MTV generation.

McCarthy to run away with it. Boufals goal.

I've seen Forster play blinders too. If Gabbi only shows up a couple times a year then why all the praise for him? Doesn't that mean he plays half-hearted the rest of the time? I dunno why he's almost universally praised here. The same judgement that saw most of our fanbase turn on Puel? I know you think otherwise to the common judgement here on that one.

Vardy almost never leaves the shoulder of the last defender. He's a longball/throughball specialist. Ask yourself these questions: Is Gabbi good for balls over the top? No. Not fast enough. He doesn't have anywhere near threat that Vardy gives. Is Gabbi good at getting to crosses? No. Not strong enough. Doesn't have a particularly good 1st touch either. Is Gabbi good at setting up teammates? No. He actually hasn't given a single assist since joining us. Not one. The only compliment I see of him is that he makes intelligent runs. That's all good and well except he's clearly not being found by those runs, so either they're not actually good runs, or our midfield don't think they can find him so don't pass. The way we improved as a team when Austin came back in was huge. IMO he's a good shooter but he's too easily defended against in the premier league and becomes too much of a passenger. A 26 year old with most league goals in a season: 8. Benched throughout his career, played at 6 different clubs already and talk of him moving on to a 7th this summer. He hasn't been able to really find his feet anywhere.

Player Touches/90mins Jérémy Pied 79.50 Pierre-Emile Højbjerg 79.30 Steven Davis 75.68 Virgil van Dijk 74.14 Matt Targett 73.83 Oriol Romeu 73.26 Cédric Soares 69.89 Mario Lemina 69.55 Sofiane Boufal 69.15 Ryan Bertrand 68.35 Sam McQueen 64.96 Wesley Hoedt 63.96 Maya Yoshida 61.36 Jack Stephens 59.08 James Ward-Prowse 58.81 Josh Sims 58.14 Nathan Redmond 57.45 Dusan Tadic 56.18 Jan Bednarek 50.37 Shane Long 39.09 Charlie Austin 36.80 Guido Carrillo 35.04 Alex McCarthy 30.82 Fraser Forster 30.25 Manolo Gabbiadini 26.65 Michael Obafemi 22.50 Only 1 Premier league forward averages less touches a match than him, Vardy, who's job is to play on the line and make runs in behind. Gabbi doesn't have anywhere near the same speed to play that style. Alexis Sánchez 76.54 Anthony Martial 64.21 Wayne Rooney 61.76 Raheem Sterling 60.58 Roberto Firmino 56.63 Pedro 56.55 Dominic Solanke 53.85 Nikola Vlasic 52.75 Marcus Rashford 50.95 Mohamed Salah 50.88 Richarlison 50.57 Collin Quaner 50.45 Olivier Giroud 50.25 Jordan Ayew 50.08 Salomón Rondón 48.33 Joshua King 47.91 Peter Crouch 47.61 Andy Carroll 46.50 Gabriel Jesus 46.37 Danny Welbeck 46.24 Yannick Bolasie 46.12 Sergio Agüero 46.03 Joselu 45.86 Ayoze Pérez 45.45 Theo Walcott 45.27 Marko Arnautovic 44.87 Kelechi Iheanacho 44.82 Alexandre Lacazette 44.43 Álvaro Morata 43.88 Shinji Okazaki 42.83 André Ayew 42.41 Wilfried Bony 42.06 Glenn Murray 41.53 Hal Robson-Kanu 41.36 Christian Benteke 41.34 Steve Mounie 40.62 Dominic Calvert-Lewin 40.56 Oumar Niasse 40.41 Jay Rodriguez 39.17 Shane Long 39.09 Tomer Hemed 38.95 Ashley Barnes 38.64 Laurent Depoitre 38.35 Elias Kachunga 38.34 José Izquierdo 38.18 Sam Vokes 37.76 Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang 37.69 Troy Deeney 37.26 Cenk Tosun 37.26 Harry Kane 37.26 Charlie Austin 36.80 Chicharito 36.69 Chris Wood 36.13 Romelu Lukaku 35.39 Callum Wilson 33.08 Dwight Gayle 32.27 Tammy Abraham 31.26 Andre Gray 29.20 Manolo Gabbiadini 26.65 Jamie Vardy 23.26 https://www.premierleague.com/stats/

The stats say he massively goes missing with us. When I looked a few months back he was averaging a touch roughly every 4 minutes, half as often as Pelle or Lambert and well below Long/Austin. He's a big liability if he's our lone striker. IMO the opinions on him here are massively inflated vs what he actually produces. On a positive note, I've liked his reaction both after the goal yesterday and from the bench in recent games when we've gone up. Looked like a good attitude.

So he's 4th choice behind Austin Long & Gabbi. Ouch.