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No Plan, No Strategy @ All Levels


Dusic

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Tiny brains? Ironic considering how many spelling and grammatical errors there are in your post.

 

I am not English, so I couldn't care, why don't you come type in Arabic / french for me and ill spell check you and check your grammer.

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Reading - spent less than us over them 3 years

West Ham - parachute payments

Birmingham - parachute payments - spent less than us over then 3 years

Blackpool - Parachute payments - spent less than us over them 3 years

Cardiff -spent less than us over them 3 years

Middlesborough - spent less than us over then 3 years

Hull - spent less than us over them 3 years - parachute payments

Leicester City -spent less than us over them 3 years

Watford - spent less than us over then 3 years

Derby County - spent less than us over them 3 years

Burnley - Parachute payments - spent less than us over them 3 years

Ipswich Town - Spent less than us over them 3 years

Nottingham Forest - Spent less than us over 3 years

Bristol City - Spent less than us over 3 years

Barnsley - Spent less than us over 3 years

 

Fake news you thick bumpkin. No need to resort to lying, even if you're getting utterly ruined.

 

To take one quick example- Leicester (from the site you've cited)

 

Expenditure (2009/10-2011/12)

 

Leicester: £22.91m

Southampton: £10.13m

 

Net Spend (2009/10-2011/12)

 

Leicester: +£20.02m

Southampton: -£8.17m

 

In other words they spent £28m more than us over that 3-year period.

 

I'll leave it there as you're quite obviously in distress :lol:

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VVD sale at 75m = soft touch.... :mcinnes:

 

We said he wasn't for sale at any price, and duly sold him. We said Liverpool had to withdraw their interest in the player after we caught them red handed tapping him up, and then sold him to them. Oh yes, we played hardball there, no doubt about it.

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Any Plan and leadership has to come from the top down until we start getting some from the owner we aren't going anywhere.

 

Our downfall was the takeover as soon as Kat found a buyer the club went into limbo while the takeover was sorted. When the takeover finally happened (how long did it take 12 months?) you might reasonably expect the new guy to come in and at least have a plan or vision for pushing us forward instead we just continued with the inertia of the take over period.

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Or a Villa - they had a good 3 seasons in the doldrums with Lambert, McLeish, Sherwood and their version of Mo Pe - Remi Garde. Like Sunderland (and inevitably us) they had no leaders and just spiralled into a downwards momentum. It would take a gigantic turn of momentum for us to avoid following suit - and we don’t have the leadership for that. Think we have a fair few years of this until things bottom out and we can start again (hopefully not going down to div1 this time).

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I think Gao was sold on the idea of buying a top 10 PL club, which we were 3 years running, which equals easy money. I run a small business but if I had, or could borrow £100m a football club would be the last thing I'd plough it into. No disrespect to SFC but the guy must be a f****** idiot, and clearly knows nothing about football. There are only around 7 clubs you would say are permanent fixtures in the PL (top 6 + Everton?), the rest could get relegated at any time, including us. These things go in cycles, we've had our purple patch and now we're on the decline, for how long who knows.

I think we'll survive this season though....

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Or a Villa - they had a good 3 seasons in the doldrums with Lambert, McLeish, Sherwood and their version of Mo Pe - Remi Garde. Like Sunderland (and inevitably us) they had no leaders and just spiralled into a downwards momentum. It would take a gigantic turn of momentum for us to avoid following suit - and we don’t have the leadership for that. Think we have a fair few years of this until things bottom out and we can start again (hopefully not going down to div1 this time).

 

Or we could do a West Brom and top the division

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We said he wasn't for sale at any price, and duly sold him. We said Liverpool had to withdraw their interest in the player after we caught them red handed tapping him up, and then sold him to them. Oh yes, we played hardball there, no doubt about it.

 

We sold him on our terms and maximised our price after he went on virtual strike and played half hearted for us.

You surely don`t actually think we should have kept him under those conditions do you? No other club would in the face of 75 million...

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We sold him on our terms and maximised our price after he went on virtual strike and played half hearted for us.

You surely don`t actually think we should have kept him under those conditions do you? No other club would in the face of 75 million...

 

Sold him on our terms a couple of days before the window opened, we were so reluctant to sell we sold him before we even could?

Sold him on our terms after he'd sulked, played awfully for most of the season and been a pain in the arse behind the scenes?

Sold him on our terms after saying he wasn't for sell?

Sold him on our terms after pronouncing when Hoedt signed he was here to play alongside Van Dijk?

 

Because call me cynical but i'd say that if there is one thing we didn't do, it was sell him on our terms.

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Win our next two and this thread disappears off the bottom of the page. Just saying.
1. No chance of winning the next two. A PL win is very hard to grind out if you are rubbish, let alone two in a row.

 

2. It would just come back at a later point. All the pieces of the OP are valid, regardless of a couple of results.

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Sold him on our terms a couple of days before the window opened, we were so reluctant to sell we sold him before we even could?

Sold him on our terms after he'd sulked, played awfully for most of the season and been a pain in the arse behind the scenes?

Sold him on our terms after saying he wasn't for sell?

Sold him on our terms after pronouncing when Hoedt signed he was here to play alongside Van Dijk?

 

Because call me cynical but i'd say that if there is one thing we didn't do, it was sell him on our terms.

 

He and Liverpool wanted the move in the summer and we said eff off but when it became clear

he was just going through the motions for us we had little choice to let him go in January but got the top price..

 

I guess the our best terms would have been no sale and him playing to his best for us, would he have knuckled down and done that????

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He and Liverpool wanted the move in the summer and we said eff off but when it became clear

he was just going through the motions for us we had little choice to let him go in January but got the top price..

 

I guess the our best terms would have been no sale and him playing to his best for us, would he have knuckled down and done that????

 

Personally, I would have let him see out his contract.

 

I would have issued a statement saying that we are happy when our players get recognised by top clubs and we understand we are a stepping stone. We expect, however, that when a player signs a new long-term contract they give their best until we agree to sell. I'd have told Van Dijk to look at the Schneiderlin situation and that if he gives us a proper year of effort we'll consider selling the following summer.

 

I wouldn't have issued some bull**** about him and Hoedt forming a great partnership.

 

That's what I would have done.

 

Can't see him being prepared to sit around doing **** all with the reserves for 5 years.

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He and Liverpool wanted the move in the summer and we said eff off but when it became clear

he was just going through the motions for us we had little choice to let him go in January but got the top price..

 

I guess the our best terms would have been no sale and him playing to his best for us, would he have knuckled down and done that????

 

So we didn’t sell on our terms then, we had little choice but to sell.

 

Aside from that we didn’t tell them to eff off, That’s not actually true it’s the spin out out by the club.

 

We were prepared to sell in the summer along with Cedric who was also negotiating a move away but when the takeover by Gao started to go through the deal was put back. Cedric knuckled down Van Dijk sulked and behaved like a ****. Up to you if you believe me or not, I know as a cheerleader for the club you’ll want to believe we bullied Liverpool into coughing up £75m but it ain’t true.

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So we didn’t sell on our terms then, we had little choice but to sell.

 

Aside from that we didn’t tell them to eff off, That’s not actually true it’s the spin out out by the club.

 

We were prepared to sell in the summer along with Cedric who was also negotiating a move away but when the takeover by Gao started to go through the deal was put back. Cedric knuckled down Van Dijk sulked and behaved like a ****. Up to you if you believe me or not, I know as a cheerleader for the club you’ll want to believe we bullied Liverpool into coughing up £75m but it ain’t true.

 

 

No Cheerleader stuff from me... but then your opinion of me is irrelevant to me tbh.. especially when its a bit childish..

 

Tell me why i should believe your version any more than the clubs? and i am open to either view..

 

If you have some stuff...my pm is open

 

Either way, the sulky pr ick wanted out and we made the dippers wait all be it not long...

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A successful organisation has a single strategy that is the focus of the whole organisation, not applied differently at different levels. That strategy is set by the leadership, and I would assume in our case, ownership. The strategy that we had, that Les called "The Southampton Way", was successful for a period of time, from League 1 up until 2 years ago. And I know Les was not here all that time. But during and since that take over, and I suspect in the build up to that, when Kat decided she wanted to sell, it has gone, leaving us with a ridiculous looking hashtag, along with WeMarchOn.

 

March On we do, but not to a place that we would want to march on to. If we carry on at this rate, next season we can look forward to a day marching on to Portsmouth.

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Personally, I would have let him see out his contract.

 

I would have issued a statement saying that we are happy when our players get recognised by top clubs and we understand we are a stepping stone. We expect, however, that when a player signs a new long-term contract they give their best until we agree to sell. I'd have told Van Dijk to look at the Schneiderlin situation and that if he gives us a proper year of effort we'll consider selling the following summer.

 

I wouldn't have issued some bull**** about him and Hoedt forming a great partnership.

 

That's what I would have done.

 

Can't see him being prepared to sit around doing **** all with the reserves for 5 years.

 

 

This is all good in your head but, we would lose him for a free xfer after paying 5 years of wages whilst he doesn't play, in turn he causes rifts and problems in the side. We shouldve sold him the minute his head got turned and not tried to be all clever.

 

That's how football works, sell him and move on quickly. Happens to all clubs.

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Have to agree, when we were took over by Marcus, with NC in charge we had a clear vision and ambition, decisions top to bottom seemed to follow this visions and there was a general sense from everyone within the club of striving for the best we could be.

 

Now it seems to be either an acceptance of mediocrity or too much belief that they got it right 2-3 years ago so they are doing it right now, whereas we have seen a catalogue of errors from the club leadership.

 

IMO culminating in Hughes's appointment, interim appointment fine, but is shows how far the drive and ambition from within the club has dropped when he is being appointed for 3 years.

 

We need a top to bottom clear out, but that would have to be instigated by the owner and that is not going to happen.

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This is all good in your head but, we would lose him for a free xfer after paying 5 years of wages whilst he doesn't play, in turn he causes rifts and problems in the side. We shouldve sold him the minute his head got turned and not tried to be all clever.

 

That's how football works, sell him and move on quickly. Happens to all clubs.

 

On this one, the Cabbage is right.

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This is all good in your head but, we would lose him for a free xfer after paying 5 years of wages whilst he doesn't play, in turn he causes rifts and problems in the side. We shouldve sold him the minute his head got turned and not tried to be all clever.

 

That's how football works, sell him and move on quickly. Happens to all clubs.

 

I dont think we tried to be clever. I believe he was going to be sold in the summer.. but as said further up, the takeover put a stop to it. We then did as we always do, started up the spin machine

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This is all good in your head but, we would lose him for a free xfer after paying 5 years of wages whilst he doesn't play, in turn he causes rifts and problems in the side. We shouldve sold him the minute his head got turned and not tried to be all clever.

 

That's how football works, sell him and move on quickly. Happens to all clubs.

 

Do you really think he would have spent 5 years sulking if he thought we were serious?

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Maybe some fans should complain to landersports@lander.com.cn about what they are doing about the crisis that has been swirling around the club for over a year now.

 

Lander turned up last August and have done NOTHING and are totally relying on 'failed shambolic mismanagement' that has cost the club milions of pounds.

 

The chairman krueger is a pr waffle merchant out of his depth and what does he do for £600,000 a year ?

 

Les Reed is a pensioner thats living on just a couple of decent arrivals and the overall majority is total failure in recent seasons.

 

Ross Wilson has wasted millions on players that are no more than bottom six recruits.

 

 

If Gao Jisheng doesnt act now to sort out this colossal mess, he should sell the club to someone that actually has interest in the welfare of the club.

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Maybe some fans should complain to landersports@lander.com.cn about what they are doing about the crisis that has been swirling around the club for over a year now.

 

Lander turned up last August and have done NOTHING and are totally relying on 'failed shambolic mismanagement' that has cost the club milions of pounds.

 

The chairman krueger is a pr waffle merchant out of his depth and what does he do for £600,000 a year ?

 

Les Reed is a pensioner thats living on just a couple of decent arrivals and the overall majority is total failure in recent seasons.

 

Ross Wilson has wasted millions on players that are no more than bottom six recruits.

 

 

If Gao Jisheng doesnt act now to sort out this colossal mess, he should sell the club to someone that actually has interest in the welfare of the club.

 

https://www.saintsweb.co.uk/showthread.php?60297-Gao-Away!-protests#.W7zFTHtKiUk

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No Cheerleader stuff from me... but then your opinion of me is irrelevant to me tbh.. especially when its a bit childish..

 

Tell me why i should believe your version any more than the clubs? and i am open to either view..

 

If you have some stuff...my pm is open

 

Either way, the sulky pr ick wanted out and we made the dippers wait all be it not long...

 

Because my version is backed up by direct quotes from Cedric.

 

https://www.ibtimes.co.in/cedric-soares-reveals-receiving-proposals-leave-southampton-764789

 

Now tell me which one is more likely to be telling the truth? A player with absolutely no reason to lie, or the club trying to appease and already disillusioned fan base? "oh we did everything we could, honestly we did but we had to sell him"

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Because my version is backed up by direct quotes from Cedric.

 

https://www.ibtimes.co.in/cedric-soares-reveals-receiving-proposals-leave-southampton-764789

 

Now tell me which one is more likely to be telling the truth? A player with absolutely no reason to lie, or the club trying to appease and already disillusioned fan base? "oh we did everything we could, honestly we did but we had to sell him"

 

its quite obvious that had the takeover not be at the vinegar stroke, both Cedric and VvD would have been sold that summer.

its what we do/did. It is what will help relegate us

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But the players still would have left, you really honestly believe they would have all stayed just because Cortese was here? I don't, not for 1 min, footballers are hard done by, they need to be able to buy a new mansion every month, go on spending sprees after ever shift and save for life after football. they wont stay here just cause of Cortese. in the lower leagues yes was easy as the big clubs didn't want are players then, was obviously going to get picked apart like every other club in the league not fighting for the title does.

 

Had Cortese stayed, Poch would have stayed.

 

Had Poch stayed, most of the players would have stayed (we’d have only lost Shaw and Lambert most likely).

 

The squad loved poch (and Cortese as it happens), when he left “the project died”.

 

That from a source within the club at the time who worked very closely to Poch.

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We'll never be able to replay that scenario to test your theory that players would have stayed so it's pure speculation really. The initial loss of players in 2014 wasn't too bad as they were more than adequately replaced anyway.

Rather than get caught up on a "this wouldn't happen if Cortese was still here" argument it's better to just focus on our current regime shortcomings. Cortese has no pedigree as a premier league chairman to prove otherwise.

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Had Cortese stayed, Poch would have stayed.

 

Had Poch stayed, most of the players would have stayed (we’d have only lost Shaw and Lambert most likely).

 

The squad loved poch (and Cortese as it happens), when he left “the project died”.

 

That from a source within the club at the time who worked very closely to Poch.

The much changed team still did well (better) for another two years.

 

Things have got stale and worse since Gao.

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Had Cortese stayed, Poch would have stayed.

 

Had Poch stayed, most of the players would have stayed (we’d have only lost Shaw and Lambert most likely).

 

The squad loved poch (and Cortese as it happens), when he left “the project died”.

 

That from a source within the club at the time who worked very closely to Poch.

 

this simply isn't true. Another myth about the Cortese reign. Why do you think Schniderlin threw his infamous "6 years ruined in 1 hour" Strop? It was because Cortese had promised him a move the following year if he put a shift in that season.

 

Remember Corteses brash claims of tearing up bids and throwing them in the bin when we started getting approached for oxlaide Chamberlain? How did that turn out?

 

Poch was an ambitious manager, yet he liked Cortese as he had given him a chance to resurrect his career, but do you really think he would have stuck around once a bigger club came calling because he loved he chairman so much? I don't dispute that the players liked Cortese too, to give him credit that was one thing that he did do well, they were treated like royalty and given everything they needed. but again, would they turn down moves to champions league clubs for double the wages because they liked the chairman? Insane to think that's the case.

 

of the players that left Lambert was in decline, Chamberlain was our second choice right back and hasn't developed at all, Shaw and Lovren were both replaced by players at least as good, the only real loss was Lallana. We recruited well and brought in a good manager.

 

There is a lot of sh*t spouted about Corteses, oh if only he was still here! The issue wasn't Cortese leaving it was not replacing him properly, which funnily enough has also been the pattern for players, managers and coaching staff since the summer of 2016.

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The decline is due to player recruitment failures and managerial appointment failures. Those failures have been exacerbated by a leadership vacuum which means nothing has been done to address the underperformance.

 

Koeman did a cracking job and managed to bring in the likes of Tadic, Pelle and Van Dijk who did very well for reasonable fees.

 

Quite simply, from that point on our recruitment has been rubbish. Not just in terms of quality of player but also getting the right mix of characters. Couple that with bull about the managers (remember the return to an exciting, attacking style of football under Pellegrino?!) and it isn't pretty.

 

We've still had the odd success. Ings is a good signing, so is McCarthy and Gunn looks like a top prospect. But we've signed loads of garbage. Arguably we had been so successful that we were due a drop-off but we haven't acknowledged that our approach is failing and mixed up our strategy. We were desperately weak at centre back and kept looking for relative European bargains when perhaps we should have gone for a grizzly old PL stalwart. Same for central midfield.

 

We've now got a squad of players where only two or three of them have any track record of decent Premier League perfoemances, week in week out. That's a gamble, and it's an unnecessary gamble when you've established yourself in the top flight.

Edited by benjii
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The much changed team still did well (better) for another two years.

 

Things have got stale and worse since Gao.

 

 

News of the take over started to surface towards the end of Koeman's last season.

 

At that point Kat has decided to get her money back and pretty much loses all interest ( before that she was still loaning the club money pushing on Staplewood and general appearing like she gave a crap .

 

The club then goes into a holding pattern while they wait for the take over to get sorted. It seems like the order of the day was to just keep things tick over until the new guy took over.

 

In hindsight you sense Koeman could see what was coming and jumped ship before the **** hit the fan.

 

The biggest thing is once the new owner took over you'd reasonable expect a fresh injection of enthusiasm and Leadership a new plan if action of where he wanted his new club to go.

Instead we got nothing and the club now just seems to be in some sort of limbo with no purpose or direction.

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The decline is due to player recruitment failures and managerial appointment failures. Those failures have been exacerbated by a leadership vacuum which means nothing has been done to address the underperformance.

 

Koeman did a cracking job and managed to bring in the likes of Tadic, Pelle and Van Dijk who did very well for reasonable fees.

 

Quite simply, from that point on our recruitment has been rubbish. Not just in terms of quality of player but also getting the right mix of characters.

 

 

 

It has the main thing for me is that we haven't really recruited like for like. Not in terms of quality because the chances of say replacing VVD with someone just as good is nigh on impossible.

 

 

 

In terms of position, character and playing style though we just haven't.

 

 

 

Three seasons after Pelle left we still don't have a big CF.

 

 

 

Three seasons after Mane left we still don't have a powerful player with pace in attack.

 

 

 

Two seasons after Fonte left we still don't have an experienced leader at the back.

 

 

 

It seems like it would be simpler to identify a player that leaves and what the bring to the squad and replace them with a similar type of player to give continuity. The last few years we really haven't done that at all.

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Maybe some fans should complain to landersports@lander.com.cn about what they are doing about the crisis that has been swirling around the club for over a year now.

 

Lander turned up last August and have done NOTHING and are totally relying on 'failed shambolic mismanagement' that has cost the club milions of pounds.

 

The chairman krueger is a pr waffle merchant out of his depth and what does he do for £600,000 a year ?

 

Les Reed is a pensioner thats living on just a couple of decent arrivals and the overall majority is total failure in recent seasons.

 

Ross Wilson has wasted millions on players that are no more than bottom six recruits.

 

 

If Gao Jisheng doesnt act now to sort out this colossal mess, he should sell the club to someone that actually has interest in the welfare of the club.

 

I don't think that would do much good. Landersports are in even more trouble than we are, probably also as a result of "relying on 'failed shambolic mismanagement' that has cost ....millions of pounds."

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Ownership - more than a year and still no idea what Gao is doing here let alone actually speaking to the customers of his business. All we can conclude is this takeover was a very negatove move from a supporter perspective.

 

Boardroom - Reed going further into his shell after 3 poor years and two, possibly three poor managerial appointments.

 

Wilson has more responsibility yet a largely woeful recruitment record, culminating in a poorly balanced, bloated squad where the highest paid player is our third GK with 0 minutes played.

 

Add to this a Chairman whose public comments are largely delusional and seemingly no CEO in the organisation structure. Who actually runs the business side of the club now?

 

Manager - went the whole pre season with 3 CBs then binned it after 60mins versus Burnley and again today. Recruitment clearly made with this formation in mind. Chops and changes players and systems but with seemingly no clue what is the best and with which players - after quite a lot of games.

 

Little suprise the club is performing badly - there is no plan, no cohesion and no direction - at all levels.

 

It's hard to argue with any of that. Spot on!

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From UI....

Saints poor results in recent weeks has led to a lot of ranting and raving on social media about the cub being rotten to the core, but that is just knee jerk reaction, we need to focus on the real issues.

 

Each defeat for Saints brings a further bout of ranting on social media ranging from the bottom end of things with just concern about the latest signings to the manager to the top end of the scale where people will froth at the mouth about the fact they feel that the club is rotten to the core.

Now I am not going to patronise people here, but unless we stop ranting and start focusing on the real issues and indeed doing something concrete about it then the club is going to be dragged down by the negative equity.

I am certainly not saying that there is nothing wrong with the club, but it is one area that is failing not the whole infrastructure and that is why we need to focus.

This is not the 1990's when I was involved in protesting against Ian Branfoot, Guy Askham and Rupert Lowe, when football club boards were made up of the local butcher, baker and candlestick maker, it is modern day football and the World over, apart from perhaps Germany, the top clubs are businesses otherwise they would not survive.

To complicate things these days, unless you are Chelsea or Manchester City etc, your whole business plan can be ruined by relegation and leave you with a wage budget you cannot hope to meet in the Championship for very long and that is why 14 clubs in the Premier League start every season worried about going down.

At the top end what is the point about moaning about Chairman Gao, in truth so far he has done little wrong, he has invested heavily in the club, he has not asset stripped as some would claim that he would do, he has not interfered in a business in a country he knows little about, he has let those charged with running the club get on and do so.

Gao isn't here to lose money, he is here to try and built the club up, calling for him to go is fine, but firstly he hasn't done anything wrong and secondly would we get anyone better to replace him ? Look around and the answer is probably not.

Next down is Ralph Krueger, it is easy to dismiss him as Canadian who knows nothing about "Soccer", but he is not here for his footballing knowledge, he is here for his experience in building up sports franchises ( to be pedantic that is what the Premier League is these days).

Those more excitable in the supporter base will scream about why are we creating soccer schools in China or the States when we should be concentrating on the football are way off the mark, this is the 21st century you have to develop a club in all areas and continue to do so, if one area is failing it doesn't mean that all the others are.

Krueger's job which is very much part time is to oversee all these departments, his culpability is if he doesn't deal with a problem in a specific area.

Responsible full time for the everyday running of the board is Managing Director Toby Steele, it is he all the departmental heads report to and in turn Steele's job is to report to Ralph Krueger, here there will always be overlap, as MD, Steele has a brief that he will follow set by the owner and will have to report to Krueger for the truly important decisions like sacking a manager.

In turn the football board responsible for the key area of the club will also sit with Krueger Steele and Les Reed and now we get to the nitty gritty.

Les Reed is effectively the director of football and although he has Krueger and Steele as council and to advise, it is he who runs everything football wise from the training ground to the first team manager.

Over the years Reed has had his detractors, but his track record since joining the club in 2010 cannot be argued with and up till last season could be said to be impeccable, he oversaw two consecutive promotions, a difficult first season back in the Premier League, followed by four straight top eight finishes, a league cup final and two Europa League campaigns.

Say what you want but statistically that was the most consistent period in our history and Reed does deserve some credit for that.

But in the football department it is going wrong and Reed has to bear his responsibility for that and the two key areas we are failing are in player recruitment and to a lesser degree although some will disagree appointing managers, Claude Puel cannt be deemed a failure with his 8th position in the League and a League Cup final, statistically he has had something like the sixth best season since the club joined the league in the 1920's, his only crimes were his rotation policy and not to entertain and he is not the only culprit in that area either at Saints or many trophy winning clubs.

Ross Wilson is the head of player recruitment and he is the one who is responsible for identifying our signings and it is here the real problem arises.

I would say that up to last season it has not been as bad as some would say, even a couple of years ago the main signings of Nathan Redmond and Pierre Hojbjerg and to a lesser extent Aex McCarthy have contributed especially last season, they have not been disasters.

But the big signings have been, yes like many clubs the issue is that although we can get a £20 million player in terms of his transfer fee, that player was only worth £10 million a couple of years ago and the increased payments to Premier league clubs have only pushed up transfer fees and demands, what costs £20 million now, we would have got the same standard player for half that a couple of years ago and this is the problem.

That is Wilson's main problem in identifying targets, he is expected to spend the money but he isn't getting what he is paying for.

But although that is his main problem, it is not the real problem, we are just not getting the bargains anymore, we are not picking up the Virgil Van Dijk's or Victor Wanyama's, this season we have two former record signings in Sofiane Boufal and Guido Carrillo out on loan and on Sunday of the four big summer signings Armstrong and Elyounoussi could not even make the bench and Gunn and Vestergaard although on the bench didn't play, OK Gunn is one for the future, but that still leaves our three outfield signings totalling £45 million not even getting a game, add the £36 million for Carrillo and Boufal and something is badly wrong with the recruitment.

Supporters only see this, they don't see all the good work in other departments being undone by those in one area of the club, they scream for everyone's head but without either understanding how the club works or having an answer about where we are going wrong.

As I said Reed has some leeway, he has the track record, but that track record is down to having the right people in place, just as Krueger being succesful is about him having the right people in place.

So the finger must truly now point at Les Reed who has to manage Wilson and then Wilson himself, yes he has done many good things at Saints, some of his signings have been good, but in the past year the system has been failing, it is not identifying the calibre of player we need, it is not identifying the type of player we need, our biggest problem at te moment is we need a leader on the pitch, why did we not sign one in the summer, our incoming central defender should have met the leadership qualities criteria as much as anything else, but we didn't sign anyone of that nature.

So Saints supporters need to focus on this aspect, at the moment all blaming Gao an Krueger merely glosses over the real issue, it clouds it and allows it to continue.

The root cause of the problem is player recruitment, the club need to deal with it, the next is whether we have the right manager in place and to be blunt Hughes although not covering himself in glory at the moment must feel let down by the players that have come in, although it should be said he would have been part of the process.

Back in the 1990's I got up off my arse along with several other Saints fans and stood up and were counted, today we have social media, but that is not protesting, that is ranting, I saw something about an online petition, an online petition about what ? it will do absolutely nothing, football clubs like any business know that for all the power of social media to promote a business, the negative side is the ability to criticise and rant, however football clubs aren't bothered about online petitions or ranting on Facebook, they know half the people who do so don't even go to the game.

What bothers them is unity, we didn't have the internet in 1993 when we protested against Ian Branfoot, what we did have though was a public meeting that was packed and on TV, we had 2,000 people protest outside the boardroom in the car park of the Dell, that makes the board sit up and notice.

That season saw a lot of protest, but in essence it helped keep us up, not just because it saw Branfoot go, but because it focused the fans anger and it focused them on protesting about what was wrong but also realising that what they wanted was the club to stay up and so during the game it was 100% backing for the team, not the club but the team !

What is now needed is a new Independent Supporters Association, it needs a new generation to step up to the plate, one that will unite the supporters and channel the energy.

Rant all you want on the Internet, anyone can do that, keyboard warriors I believe they call them, but this club needs a supporters association at the moment more than it has done for 20 years, who will step up to the plate

 

 

Sent from my SM-G950F using Tapatalk

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^ That is probably fair, we are probably expecting more of the owner, but yes technically he hasn't done much actually wrong.

 

And Kreueger I supposed the main criticism is about his leadership for not getting the football side sorted out. He should be sacking Reed and Wilson, because that is the clear area of failure.

 

Their job is to get value and good players from our transfers, they have not been doing that.

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Don't get me wrong, I don't want an owner who makes a tit of himself by spouting off and not delivering, like Everton or West Ham have.

 

I don't want Gao getting personally involved in footballing decisions where he has no expertise.

 

What I do want, though, is some sense that he has any purpose or clue whatsoever because at the moment it just looks like he just wanted to get some cash out of China and give his domestic profile a boost. Why has Kat kept 20%? Presumably because he couldn't meet the asking price. It all looks rather odd.

Edited by benjii
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Very interesting that long comment above, I agree with a lot of it.

 

I completely agree about the leadership on the pitch. We let Fonte go because he wanted to move, realistically I guess the club took the decision his best days were probably behind him, and we made some decent money off the back of his sale. But the reality is he was our leader on the pitch as we dragged our way up from League One, his game improving for most of the time he was here (coinciding with him breaking into the Portugal team). The fact is we haven't managed to replace him.

 

In terms of the current squad, players who you could say provide leadership or a bit of backbone to the team include Davis, Romeu and Yoshida. None of them are anywhere near their peak Saints form.

 

So there are lots of little factors which are causing trouble at the moment.

 

Having said all of that, if they can manage to string a few wins together then hopefully we can move on for the rest of the season. If we can manage 13th or 14th plus a cup run then it's at least a start moving in the right direction.

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Very interesting that long comment above, I agree with a lot of it.

 

I completely agree about the leadership on the pitch. We let Fonte go because he wanted to move, realistically I guess the club took the decision his best days were probably behind him, and we made some decent money off the back of his sale. But the reality is he was our leader on the pitch as we dragged our way up from League One, his game improving for most of the time he was here (coinciding with him breaking into the Portugal team). The fact is we haven't managed to replace him.

 

In terms of the current squad, players who you could say provide leadership or a bit of backbone to the team include Davis, Romeu and Yoshida. None of them are anywhere near their peak Saints form.

 

So there are lots of little factors which are causing trouble at the moment.

 

Having said all of that, if they can manage to string a few wins together then hopefully we can move on for the rest of the season. If we can manage 13th or 14th plus a cup run then it's at least a start moving in the right direction.

 

We've won 5 league matches from the last 39 so I would suggest a winning streak is looking unlikely.

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"The Project" to turn Saints into a Pocket SuperClub, tucked in under the Big Six, was on borrowed time as soon as Marcus croaked. Then, once Kat decided she really, really couldn't get interested in football and dumped Cortese it was dead in the water. Since then it's been managed decline with Kat getting out of here as fast as her conscience and the marketplace for small Premier League Clubs would allow her. She honoured her father's footballing legacy only superficially, reminiscent of a widow who runs off with the fancy man indecently quickly after hubby's coronary.

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From UI....

Saints poor results in recent weeks has led to a lot of ranting and raving on social media about the cub being rotten to the core, but that is just knee jerk reaction, we need to focus on the real issues.

 

Each defeat for Saints brings a further bout of ranting on social media ranging from the bottom end of things with just concern about the latest signings to the manager to the top end of the scale where people will froth at the mouth about the fact they feel that the club is rotten to the core.

Now I am not going to patronise people here, but unless we stop ranting and start focusing on the real issues and indeed doing something concrete about it then the club is going to be dragged down by the negative equity.

I am certainly not saying that there is nothing wrong with the club, but it is one area that is failing not the whole infrastructure and that is why we need to focus.

This is not the 1990's when I was involved in protesting against Ian Branfoot, Guy Askham and Rupert Lowe, when football club boards were made up of the local butcher, baker and candlestick maker, it is modern day football and the World over, apart from perhaps Germany, the top clubs are businesses otherwise they would not survive.

To complicate things these days, unless you are Chelsea or Manchester City etc, your whole business plan can be ruined by relegation and leave you with a wage budget you cannot hope to meet in the Championship for very long and that is why 14 clubs in the Premier League start every season worried about going down.

At the top end what is the point about moaning about Chairman Gao, in truth so far he has done little wrong, he has invested heavily in the club, he has not asset stripped as some would claim that he would do, he has not interfered in a business in a country he knows little about, he has let those charged with running the club get on and do so.

Gao isn't here to lose money, he is here to try and built the club up, calling for him to go is fine, but firstly he hasn't done anything wrong and secondly would we get anyone better to replace him ? Look around and the answer is probably not.

Next down is Ralph Krueger, it is easy to dismiss him as Canadian who knows nothing about "Soccer", but he is not here for his footballing knowledge, he is here for his experience in building up sports franchises ( to be pedantic that is what the Premier League is these days).

Those more excitable in the supporter base will scream about why are we creating soccer schools in China or the States when we should be concentrating on the football are way off the mark, this is the 21st century you have to develop a club in all areas and continue to do so, if one area is failing it doesn't mean that all the others are.

Krueger's job which is very much part time is to oversee all these departments, his culpability is if he doesn't deal with a problem in a specific area.

Responsible full time for the everyday running of the board is Managing Director Toby Steele, it is he all the departmental heads report to and in turn Steele's job is to report to Ralph Krueger, here there will always be overlap, as MD, Steele has a brief that he will follow set by the owner and will have to report to Krueger for the truly important decisions like sacking a manager.

In turn the football board responsible for the key area of the club will also sit with Krueger Steele and Les Reed and now we get to the nitty gritty.

Les Reed is effectively the director of football and although he has Krueger and Steele as council and to advise, it is he who runs everything football wise from the training ground to the first team manager.

Over the years Reed has had his detractors, but his track record since joining the club in 2010 cannot be argued with and up till last season could be said to be impeccable, he oversaw two consecutive promotions, a difficult first season back in the Premier League, followed by four straight top eight finishes, a league cup final and two Europa League campaigns.

Say what you want but statistically that was the most consistent period in our history and Reed does deserve some credit for that.

But in the football department it is going wrong and Reed has to bear his responsibility for that and the two key areas we are failing are in player recruitment and to a lesser degree although some will disagree appointing managers, Claude Puel cannt be deemed a failure with his 8th position in the League and a League Cup final, statistically he has had something like the sixth best season since the club joined the league in the 1920's, his only crimes were his rotation policy and not to entertain and he is not the only culprit in that area either at Saints or many trophy winning clubs.

Ross Wilson is the head of player recruitment and he is the one who is responsible for identifying our signings and it is here the real problem arises.

I would say that up to last season it has not been as bad as some would say, even a couple of years ago the main signings of Nathan Redmond and Pierre Hojbjerg and to a lesser extent Aex McCarthy have contributed especially last season, they have not been disasters.

But the big signings have been, yes like many clubs the issue is that although we can get a £20 million player in terms of his transfer fee, that player was only worth £10 million a couple of years ago and the increased payments to Premier league clubs have only pushed up transfer fees and demands, what costs £20 million now, we would have got the same standard player for half that a couple of years ago and this is the problem.

That is Wilson's main problem in identifying targets, he is expected to spend the money but he isn't getting what he is paying for.

But although that is his main problem, it is not the real problem, we are just not getting the bargains anymore, we are not picking up the Virgil Van Dijk's or Victor Wanyama's, this season we have two former record signings in Sofiane Boufal and Guido Carrillo out on loan and on Sunday of the four big summer signings Armstrong and Elyounoussi could not even make the bench and Gunn and Vestergaard although on the bench didn't play, OK Gunn is one for the future, but that still leaves our three outfield signings totalling £45 million not even getting a game, add the £36 million for Carrillo and Boufal and something is badly wrong with the recruitment.

Supporters only see this, they don't see all the good work in other departments being undone by those in one area of the club, they scream for everyone's head but without either understanding how the club works or having an answer about where we are going wrong.

As I said Reed has some leeway, he has the track record, but that track record is down to having the right people in place, just as Krueger being succesful is about him having the right people in place.

So the finger must truly now point at Les Reed who has to manage Wilson and then Wilson himself, yes he has done many good things at Saints, some of his signings have been good, but in the past year the system has been failing, it is not identifying the calibre of player we need, it is not identifying the type of player we need, our biggest problem at te moment is we need a leader on the pitch, why did we not sign one in the summer, our incoming central defender should have met the leadership qualities criteria as much as anything else, but we didn't sign anyone of that nature.

So Saints supporters need to focus on this aspect, at the moment all blaming Gao an Krueger merely glosses over the real issue, it clouds it and allows it to continue.

The root cause of the problem is player recruitment, the club need to deal with it, the next is whether we have the right manager in place and to be blunt Hughes although not covering himself in glory at the moment must feel let down by the players that have come in, although it should be said he would have been part of the process.

Back in the 1990's I got up off my arse along with several other Saints fans and stood up and were counted, today we have social media, but that is not protesting, that is ranting, I saw something about an online petition, an online petition about what ? it will do absolutely nothing, football clubs like any business know that for all the power of social media to promote a business, the negative side is the ability to criticise and rant, however football clubs aren't bothered about online petitions or ranting on Facebook, they know half the people who do so don't even go to the game.

What bothers them is unity, we didn't have the internet in 1993 when we protested against Ian Branfoot, what we did have though was a public meeting that was packed and on TV, we had 2,000 people protest outside the boardroom in the car park of the Dell, that makes the board sit up and notice.

That season saw a lot of protest, but in essence it helped keep us up, not just because it saw Branfoot go, but because it focused the fans anger and it focused them on protesting about what was wrong but also realising that what they wanted was the club to stay up and so during the game it was 100% backing for the team, not the club but the team !

What is now needed is a new Independent Supporters Association, it needs a new generation to step up to the plate, one that will unite the supporters and channel the energy.

Rant all you want on the Internet, anyone can do that, keyboard warriors I believe they call them, but this club needs a supporters association at the moment more than it has done for 20 years, who will step up to the plate

 

 

Sent from my SM-G950F using Tapatalk

 

What an absolute load of inaccurate tripe

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