baggytrousers

Saints are building a squad of talented youngsters with huge potential. It's no coincidence that our three main signings of the summer were 21, 22 and 22. Why is it so hard to believe that these incoming young players might see the club as being on the verge of developing something special ?

Totally agree with this. Was speaking with an Everton fan last night and he was telling me how they are so unimpressed with Ronald Konman at the moment. It's starting to dawn on their fans that they may just have bought themselves a lemon. In Puel's defence we have replaced 3 players who were at their peak with 3 players who are 22 or younger. All three of them are exciting young talents but are not the finished article yet. Give them time. Personally I believe the "new direction" that was being mentioned by our ITKs at the start of the season was to bring together a squad and a coach who would grow together into quite a formidable team in the medium to long term. In that context we're doing alright.

Excellent post. I would add that there have been a couple of games where we haven't displayed enough urgency going forward until it was too late but by and large it's been our finishing that has cost us all season.

Maybe he doesn't play golf.

Good win over Ronald Konman and done with some academy players that he clearly didn't rate makes it all the more sweet. Think it might be starting to dawn on some of the Everton fans that maybe they haven't got their messiah to lead them out of the darkness after all. Would have loved it if we could have got a couple more as not taking our chances has been our achilles heel all season. Really hoping we have one game soon where we score a hatful as this team's not far off from being a very good side indeed and the confidence they'd get from giving somebody a spanking could well see us move to the next level.

Just had a look at the Premier League site's official table for shots on target and we are 6th : Rank Club Stat 1. Manchester City 228 2. Liverpool 225 3. Tottenham Hotspur 209 4. Manchester United 203 5. Chelsea 199 6. Southampton 184 7. Arsenal 172 8. Crystal Palace 171 9. West Ham United 171 10. Everton 159 11. AFC Bournemouth 146 12. Stoke City 146 13. Swansea City 135 14. Watford 135 15. West Bromwich Albion 134 16. Leicester City 127 17. Hull City 112 18. Burnley 110 19. Middlesbrough 110 20. Sunderland 109 https://www.premierleague.com/stats/top/clubs/total_scoring_att?se=54 Doesn't quite correlate with your overly pessimistic version of events but seems about right to me. Our problem has surely been that we haven't been our conversion ratio. Too many good chances getting missed.

What is this obsession with proven premiership quality ? Over the summer all the trolls on here were banging on and on about how we should sign Bony, Berahinho and Siggurdson. How are those 3 doing ? Any better than the 3 main players we signed ? Don't think so. And our players have so much up side. None of them have passed 22 years old yet. Last season's back page headline is quite often this season's chip paper but you pay exhorbitant amounts for the privalege of having a big name who quite often becomes an overpriced, overpaid liability. We have invested in young up and coming prospects with good skills and good attitudes just like Leicester did with Mahrez, Vardy and Drinkwater or Tottenham did with Dele Alii. I'm confident it will come good. We've already shown signs of it this season but we are lacking consistency and we're certainly not putting away our chances. At the moment we are third in terms of number of chances created but worst in terms of percentage of chances finished and before you say it this isn't just a striker issue. How many chances has VVD missed this season for example and he's our best player. The lack of confidence in front of goal seems to be a problem throughout the team. I coached a kids team who had this issue once and it got to the stage where I genuinely didn't know what else to try. Then we had a game where we got a couple of really flukey goals against the run of play followed by a game against the bottom team where we had enough chances to actually put some of them away and suddenly the team was away. A couple of games later the goals were flying in. It's all about confidence. We have good, young, exciting players and a good coach. We also have a run of winnable games coming up. Can only see things getting better from here on in.

0.0005/10

Cos that great, great manager did so well in Europe last season. We only need to get a home draw against an Israeli side to qualify from our group and then who knows. That's a slightly better position than last year's Ronald Konman Midgetland farce.

Well written article about Saints http://www.bbc.com/sport/football/37954971 Well worth a read

Anyone who believes this ridiculous analogy is a simpleton. It implies the only way to change the status of a club is by gambling on new owners. Six years prior to beating Inter Milan we were playing Dagenham and Redbridge. Don't recall many dice being rolled in the intervening years, just good stewardship of our club and steady progression. Why gamble when we can evolve ?

Good of you to point out that we have improved continually since 2009. The argument that we can't go further without big money is the same one the Venkys made and the current Chinese owners at Villa and all the other big money but no sense owners that have blighted our leagues over the last few years. Our continual improvement over the last seven seasons has been largely due to the excellent stewardship of our club under the current owners. Many on here predicted disaster this season because in the summer we didn't spend big money on the likes of Zaza or Bony or Berahinho or Sigurdsson. Show some ambition was their rallying cry but now the reality of a fine manager, promising young players and probably the best squad we've had in years is apparent they're not showing some contrition for their ridiculous posts back in September. A potential wheelbarrow full of money is being dangled and the salivating is starting because they think money is a fast track to success. We spent way less than the likes of West Ham and Stoke over the summer and yet they seem to have gone backwards whilst we are continuing our relentless march forwards. It's not money that makes a good club, it's how the club is run and on that point I think we're some of the most fortunate fans in the league.

I see that Nice are currently sitting on top of the French league. I know they have got a good manager in to replace Puel but their strong start to the season must surely indicate that Puel left the club in really good shape. Being top of the league is immense for a club of their size.

How lucky we are to come across 3 truly awful sides in a row. Good to see you're maintaining your consistent position of not wanting to judge our new manager or his system until at least the end of October.

Read Niall Quinn's article on the Southampton Way. The crux of how clubs of our size compete in the modern football environment is being prepared for when we inevitably lose players by making sure that we have more good players coming through than the number we lose. In this way we keep moving forward and Quinn was heaping praise on Southampton whilst lamenting that Sunderland hadn't the foresight to do something similar. Koeman was a good short-term manager but I believe Puel is a better coach and will be better for the club in the long term.

Koeman was competant. Nothing more. And he only cared about the first team. Think the club as a whole will progress more under the current coach if the fans give him the chance without *****ing about every little thing. The whole concept of this thread (that he's somehow in trouble because two players have come out and praised his methods) is ridiculous.

Yeah, let's have an argument over how big a club we actually are. Surely the most salient point about this good article is that as a club we have developed a strategy which works well in the modern football world we have today with it's crazy wages and insane transfer fees. That strategy was developed by Cortese and has been continued and taken forward by the club under Les Reed's guidance. As Quinn says it's about recognising that losing good players is inevitable but making sure that we can replace them at a faster rate than we lose them so we gradually spiral our way up in a sustainable way. It's not difficult to see when you look at it over the course of a few seasons so why, oh why, do we have an insane meltdown on here every summer. Clearly there are some people on this site that just don't get it. Read Quinn's article and learn.

For what it's worth I for one agree with virtually everything you've said. I say virtually everything as I do disagree with you when you said that Les Reed must be dreaming when he said that the club has Champions League ambitions. I do think the club is ambitious but in a slowly, gradually building us up kind of way. Time will tell if this proves to be unrealistic and it is certainly vexing some of the moaning minnies on here whose sole idea of ambition is to get the cheque book out and seem to want instant success stanly cost. That path has been the ruin of many a club before us. Taking their age into account the quality of the three youngsters we have signed this season is outstanding and we have amanager who can take them and the rest of he squad forward so ultimately challenging for a Champions league place ought to be within our sights but let's get there in a sustainable way.

All views on football are contestable. One of the reasons why we live the game. Growing success doesn't just mean the academy. It also encompasses scouting up and coming young talent from around Europe, signing the most promising ones and improving them. Hopefully once they've gone to the next level they'll choose to stay. If not, we make a tidy sum on them and go again. Each time we go through this cycle our options improve. You mentioned Mane. With the money we got from him we've signed 3 players, all 22 or under, who could go on to be as good or even better than him. I think it's our intent to try and keep them at Saints long term but fully appreciate that this may not happen for all three. Regarding the brave call as I pointed out we've got a recent history of confounding expectations. Why not this time ? Every year at this stage we have a meltdown on this site and pundits predicting this will be the year that our luck runs out. It's not luck. We are a well run club and we'll have enough I the tank to have a decent season and position ourselves nicely for the future just as we have been doing for the past few seasons. It's a good strategy but it sometimes does necessitate sacrificing short term success for long term gain. Keep the faith.

Love it that we're a club that is looking to grow success rather than just buy it. Love it that every year we confound the pundits' predictions. This year will be no different. Love it that we swim against the tide. Love it that we've signed a 21, 22 and 22 year old that have been likened, by people in the know, to Busquets, Henry and Hazard. Love it that we've re-signed 7 of our core players on to long term contracts. Love it that we're trying something different and more adventurous tactically rather than just copying the big clubs but with lesser players. Love it that we don't just spunk ridiculous money on big names who had one decent season in the premiership and are now just money magnets. Love it that we do our homework on players and managers. Interested ? Definitely!!!!! More so than I can ever remember. Really looking forward to watching our team this season and still proud to be a Saints fan.

Agree with all of this except the bit about Redmond. Think he's better than most people are giving him credit for. Otherwise, good post.

He's got previous. If you'd done your research and looked at the evidence you would know that. At Lyons he swapped his tactics from 4-3-3 to 4-2-3-1 (http://www.tomwfootball.com/2011/03/23/tactics-french-sides-flock-to-worship-at-altar-of-4-2-3-1/) mid season, As you say he wants to win and in that regard he's a pragmatist. All I'm saying is that there may be some games this season where he elects to play 4-2-3-1 but on past evidence I'd still expect the midfield diamond to be his formation of choice the majority of the time.

I am calm. I'm not one of the ones who's getting restless as you put it. You talk about being naive but wouldn't it be way more naive to believe someone who's taken a throw-away line from a supposed ITK and extended it into some sort of supposed future player revolt, based on what exactly ? Now that the same ITK has come back with a comment of "I don't think its anything to worry about. We could just do with a win sooner rather than later. CP is a really really good manager." you don't seem so keen to take his post and read things into it. The reality is that, as with last season, we haven't started too well in terms of results but, as with last season, there are positives to build upon. Personally, I think there are plusses and minuses to the new system so far. Staying with 4-2-3-1 would have been safer but also more predictable and I do believe he will still deploy that system for some games this season. Remember that Koeman swapped the system last season to 3-5-2 on a few occasions and I don't see many people moaning about that. I honestly think we could see some really exciting adventurous football at St. Marys this season under Puel. As LeG says he is a really really good manager but, for whatever reason, some fans seem intent to be on his case from the get-go. Give him time to work with the players and get his system bedded in and then see how we're doing. sorry for fkin disagreeing with you on a forum Mr Beatle

Who said the negative grumblings were from players ? I saw no mention of players in any post. Could have been the tea lady for all we know. Good to see we've gone from 'Heard some negative grumblings today' to Kelvin packing a loaded gun in a couple of posts. Seems LeG has inadvertantly loaded a gun here by giving the paranoia merchants a snippet for their incessant negativity to feast on. I've no doubt they'll make the most of it if we don't win at Arsenal as has been the case for 29 years now.

I seem to recall West Ham fans raising the same sort of complaints about a nothingy sort of midfielder they had who at the time didn't seem to have an obvious strength : http://www.skysports.com/football/news/11668/2385820 Even though coaches at different levels appreciated his all round game the fans were impatient, just couldn't see it and got on his back, thinking his place in the team was pure nepotism, much like a lot of Saints fans think JWP getting a game is a bad call by the manager. Not saying JWP will necessarily be anywhere near this good but there's a salient lesson here about fans writing off one of their own before that player has developed enough to truly establish themselves.