Sport Republic

[Dr. Kucho]

23 minutes ago, AlexLaw76 said:

We signed Juan initially...I wonder for what reason.

Because Juan day he might be an important player for us…

I’ll get my coat. 

[Miltonaggro]

Minge and Bracket are on the case…

[SaintNewForest]

38 minutes ago, Miltonaggro said:

Minge and Bracket are on the case…

Twat & Twatter 

[Badger]

40 minutes ago, Miltonaggro said:

Minge and Bracket are on the case…

When is that image from ?

Despite the comments from the club and assurances given (especially those in here in the summer by a few posters) it does seem Rasmus is still in a controlling role. Fans focus ought to be on that prick. 

[S-Clarke]

10 hours ago, Badger said:

When is that image from ?

Despite the comments from the club and assurances given (especially those in here in the summer by a few posters) it does seem Rasmus is still in a controlling role. Fans focus ought to be on that prick. 

Alfie said on the TSP last night that he's still actively involved, he's Dragan's main advisor on all football matters across all clubs and is involved in all major decisions across the group. He's a CEO for SR and still a CEO on our board.

He was at QPR on Wednesday and will be at St Mary's on Saturday.

Edited November 7 by S-Clarke

[Football Special]

27 minutes ago, S-Clarke said:

Alfie said on the TSP last night that he's still actively involved, he's Dragan's main advisor on all football matters across all clubs and is involved in all major decisions across the group. He's a CEO for SR and still a CEO on our board.

He was at QPR on Wednesday and will be at St Mary's on Saturday.

Well everyone knows how to direct their protests on Saturday now, and the fact Dragan has continually allowed Rasmus to have such a say makes him just as responsible for disaster of SR's decisions 

[SaintNewForest]

48 minutes ago, S-Clarke said:

Alfie said on the TSP last night that he's still actively involved, he's Dragan's main advisor on all football matters across all clubs and is involved in all major decisions across the group. He's a CEO for SR and still a CEO on our board.

He was at QPR on Wednesday and will be at St Mary's on Saturday.

SR need to fuck off. 

[Miltonaggro]

53 minutes ago, S-Clarke said:

Alfie said on the TSP last night that he's still actively involved, he's Dragan's main advisor on all football matters across all clubs and is involved in all major decisions across the group. He's a CEO for SR and still a CEO on our board.

He was at QPR on Wednesday and will be at St Mary's on Saturday.

That’s handy to know in terms of Saturday. 

[tdmickey3]

3 hours ago, S-Clarke said:

Alfie said on the TSP last night that he's still actively involved, he's Dragan's main advisor on all football matters across all clubs and is involved in all major decisions across the group. He's a CEO for SR and still a CEO on our board.

He was at QPR on Wednesday and will be at St Mary's on Saturday.

So we now know the new coach/manager is going to be another shit show because the cretin is still up to his uselessness.

Dragan might be rich but as the saying goes "Fools and their money are easily parted"

• Being easily tricked: 

  It also applies to people who are persuaded to give money away on false pretenses, such as through a scam. 

• Lack of judgment: 

  A foolish person may not be able to discern a wise purchase from a silly one, spending money on whims. 

   
• Reckless spending: 

  Someone who spends money thoughtlessly or without saving will quickly find themselves with nothing left. 

   

Solak has been duped by Rasmus that's for sure

[Fitzhugh Fella]

I once spent some time with Rasmus at Staplewood and he came across as a decent bloke, friendly and committed to the club. Yes he screwed up appointing Jones but more for the fact Jones was not right for us (obviously he is right for some clubs (Luton and Charlton), so maybe RA just hadn't been here long enough at that stage to understand our DNA? Just speaking as I find.

He might have a say or a veto on the next appointment but the person with the main responsibility is Spors

[S-Clarke]

7 minutes ago, Fitzhugh Fella said:

I once spent some time with Rasmus at Staplewood and he came across as a decent bloke, friendly and committed to the club. Yes he screwed up appointing Jones but more for the fact Jones was not right for us (obviously he is right for some clubs (Luton and Charlton), so maybe RA just hadn't been here long enough at that stage to understand our DNA? Just speaking as I find.

He might have a say or a veto on the next appointment but the person with the main responsibility is Spors

I'd say he's messed up more than the Jones appointment.

I look at his horror transfer window of January 2023, he was confirmed as having full responsibility over that window as Joe Shields had left. He left us with Oric, Onuachu and Sullemana - and an outlay of almost £50m on 3 players who contributed zilch.

He has a lot to answer for beyond the Jones appointment.

[saintant]

4 hours ago, S-Clarke said:

Alfie said on the TSP last night that he's still actively involved, he's Dragan's main advisor on all football matters across all clubs and is involved in all major decisions across the group. He's a CEO for SR and still a CEO on our board.

He was at QPR on Wednesday and will be at St Mary's on Saturday.

Why doesn't Dragan choose a main advisor who knows something about football. Just a thought.

[saintant]

11 minutes ago, Fitzhugh Fella said:

I once spent some time with Rasmus at Staplewood and he came across as a decent bloke, friendly and committed to the club. Yes he screwed up appointing Jones but more for the fact Jones was not right for us (obviously he is right for some clubs (Luton and Charlton), so maybe RA just hadn't been here long enough at that stage to understand our DNA? Just speaking as I find.

He might have a say or a veto on the next appointment but the person with the main responsibility is Spors

He may be both of those things but neither qualifies him to make major decisions on football. He is a waste of space.

[S-Clarke]

1 minute ago, saintant said:

Why doesn't Dragan choose a main advisor who knows something about football. Just a thought.

Well exactly, that's a genuine question and it's why any 'rope' Dragan has is really losing length.

He can bring in another advisor if he wants.

[tdmickey3]

Just now, saintant said:

Why doesn't Dragan choose a main advisor who knows something about football. Just a thought.

Gullible, stupid, sucker for bullshit? *delete as appropriate or not it could be all 3

[Ted Bates Statue]

Quote

There is a view from sources close to Southampton’s dressing room, speaking anonymously to protect relationships, that the summer’s recruitment did not suit the profile of player Still had been accustomed to coaching in France.

Sources close to Still, also speaking on the condition of anonymity for the same reasons, echoed that sentiment and suggested, in hindsight, that he could have been more vocal on the incomings and outgoings to ensure he had a suitable squad at his disposal.

There is also a sense that he could have pushed harder on the make-up of his coaching staff, with Adam Lallana and Carl Martin already at Southampton when he arrived. The only coach Still brought to St Mary’s was Ruben Martinez, the goalkeeper coach.

Clement Lemaitre, who also joined at the same time as Still, worked as a video analyst. Both Martinez and Lemaitre were dismissed, as was Martin, who had spent seven years at the club.

Even though Still was generally well-liked by the players and fundamentally viewed as a good person, a common criticism has emerged that centres on his personality not being the right one to drive through the change required to lift the mood — which was at rock bottom — and provide a sense of freshness.

An example of how he didn’t particularly help himself is when it came to training. He would religiously stick to only doing tactical work with the starting XI throughout the week, meaning there was a lack of focus on what the substitutes should be doing when they are brought on.

 

Quote

In recent months, clearly recognising something wasn’t quite adding up despite the vast sums of money being spent, Solak moved Henrik Kraft, one of Sport Republic’s co-founders and Southampton’s chairman, to one side. Rasmus Ankersen, also a co-founder of the ownership group, now plays a much less hands-on role.

One commonly held opinion from people with knowledge of the dynamics behind the scenes at board level is that there is a culture of blame as opposed to one of responsibility. So, when things go badly, as they have been doing in recent years, nobody steps forward and owns it. Instead, a blame game takes place.

Some comments from https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6786896/2025/11/07/southampton-will-still-sport-republic-analysis/

Regardless of who we appoint, Sports Republic have a bloody long way to bring back confidence in how our club is being run.

Another belter was that we wanted to bring back Danny Ings. For all the misgivings on here about data in scouting and analysis, it's a bit sad that our primary source of identifying talent to join us now seems to consist of browsing our alumni on saintsplayers.co.uk

 

[Dark Munster]

15 hours ago, S-Clarke said:

Alfie said on the TSP last night that he's still actively involved, he's Dragan's main advisor on all football matters across all clubs and is involved in all major decisions across the group. He's a CEO for SR and still a CEO on our board.

He was at QPR on Wednesday and will be at St Mary's on Saturday.

Shit. This is what I suspected (and feared) for a long time, while others have been saying Rasmus is not involved any more. Bullshit. So many appalling decisions have his fingerprints all over them.

And as for Dragan, when he said at the end of last season's disaster that people at the club had let him down I thought he included Ankersen in that group. But apparently not. He can't see that that wanker is the ringleader of the clowns, FFS.

Dragan's a f*cking idiot.

[coalman]

15 hours ago, Fitzhugh Fella said:

I once spent some time with Rasmus at Staplewood and he came across as a decent bloke, friendly and committed to the club. Yes he screwed up appointing Jones but more for the fact Jones was not right for us (obviously he is right for some clubs (Luton and Charlton), so maybe RA just hadn't been here long enough at that stage to understand our DNA? Just speaking as I find.

He might have a say or a veto on the next appointment but the person with the main responsibility is Spors

You make him sound like Jack Stephens. He's been here for three years. We've been relegated twice and promoted once. We're somewhere around our 7th manager and 3rd DOF.

Before he joined we had fuck all money yet managed to comfortably beat relegation the previous two seasons.

It's unclear how much he is involved right now but he was front and centre during a number of disastrous transfer windows. As people have said he's still CEO and Dragan's right hand man in football matters. He also recruited Spors and, let's face it, his recruitment record stands out for all the wrong reasons.

We've gone from a side that briefly topped the Premier League under Ralph to 5th bottom of the Championship under his guidance.

We've got a huge squad with no functional striker, goalkeeper or defence and we've spent 100s of millions getting there.

He might help grannies across the road and be a nice bloke to have a chat with but he's clearly not up to running our football club in any capacity.

[Willo of Whiteley]

Let’s be polite about Rasmus, he’s like one of those turds that just won’t flush.

[SW11_Saint]

19 hours ago, saintant said:

Why doesn't Dragan choose a main advisor who knows something about football. Just a thought.

He does know about football though - as in he has experience - he’s been a player, a DoF and a Chairman. 

[SW11_Saint]

3 hours ago, coalman said:

You make him sound like Jack Stephens. He's been here for three years. We've been relegated twice and promoted once. We're somewhere around our 7th manager and 3rd DOF.

Before he joined we had fuck all money yet managed to comfortably beat relegation the previous two seasons.

It's unclear how much he is involved right now but he was front and centre during a number of disastrous transfer windows. As people have said he's still CEO and Dragan's right hand man in football matters. He also recruited Spors and, let's face it, his recruitment record stands out for all the wrong reasons.

We've gone from a side that briefly topped the Premier League under Ralph to 5th bottom of the Championship under his guidance.

We've got a huge squad with no functional striker, goalkeeper or defence and we've spent 100s of millions getting there.

He might help grannies across the road and be a nice bloke to have a chat with but he's clearly not up to running our football club in any capacity.

He’s CEO of SR, not SFC - that’s Parsons. 

[trousers]

Ralph Kruger knew more about running a football club (and I'm only half jesting...)

[Dr. Kucho]

I find this quite worrying the influence of Ankersen on Solak. If you add what Alfie House said on the TSP podcast along with what the French reporter wrote (that Sports Republic is a mess and some are employed but have no real job) this spells disaster.

My take on this, I am not ITK, is that Ankersen likely tells Solak whats best for the club (players, coaches, strategy etc) and Solak tells the staff to do so. Like telling Spors to go hunting for young talent instead of more established players. It would explain the high turnover in staff and why loads who join the club suddenly don’t perform.

Ankersen strikes me as someone who thinks he’s smarter then everyone else and uses data and AI to make decisions over common sense and experience. 

Likely so the reason we don’t employ a more experienced manager. Can’t see a manager who’s been around and has achieved succes come in and be told how to play or who to play.

Best we can hope for is that Solak starts realizing the way the clubs going and makes some big decisions. 

As said above, this is pure speculation and I could be completely wrong. 

[tdmickey3]

As long as Ankerson is involved we will continue to be a utter shambles and there is now no doubt he is still all over it.

Solak is are an utter fool 

[Dark Munster]

5 hours ago, Dr. Kucho said:

I find this quite worrying the influence of Ankersen on Solak. If you add what Alfie House said on the TSP podcast along with what the French reporter wrote (that Sports Republic is a mess and some are employed but have no real job) this spells disaster.

My take on this, I am not ITK, is that Ankersen likely tells Solak whats best for the club (players, coaches, strategy etc) and Solak tells the staff to do so. Like telling Spors to go hunting for young talent instead of more established players. It would explain the high turnover in staff and why loads who join the club suddenly don’t perform.

Ankersen strikes me as someone who thinks he’s smarter then everyone else and uses data and AI to make decisions over common sense and experience. 

Likely so the reason we don’t employ a more experienced manager. Can’t see a manager who’s been around and has achieved succes come in and be told how to play or who to play.

Best we can hope for is that Solak starts realizing the way the clubs going and makes some big decisions. 

As said above, this is pure speculation and I could be completely wrong. 

I agree it's speculation, but all the evidence indicates that you are 100% correct.

[sockeye]

5 hours ago, Dr. Kucho said:

data and AI to make decisions over common sense and experience

This is it for me.

Data does not replace wisdom.

[Turkish]

Has anyone listened to Rasmus TED talk? Im a big fan of TED talks quite often listen to them. He does come across very well to be fair but it's basically 15 minutes of him explaining when goal difference is a better judge of how a team actually performs. There is some merit in what he's saying, ie that generally the best and worst teams have the best and worst goal differences which is true but it seems like that's the entire basis for his data driven approach. 

[S-Clarke]

35 minutes ago, Turkish said:

Has anyone listened to Rasmus TED talk? Im a big fan of TED talks quite often listen to them. He does come across very well to be fair but it's basically 15 minutes of him explaining when goal difference is a better judge of how a team actually performs. There is some merit in what he's saying, ie that generally the best and worst teams have the best and worst goal differences which is true but it seems like that's the entire basis for his data driven approach. 

I've listened to snippets of it. Was this the one where he proclaimed Newcastle were in a false position under Pardew at the time, and that they'd fall off due to the GD extreme?

Like you say, there are merits in what he says...but there are also some real positives to take away from how a team like Newcastle (at that time) could compete as high as they did, with such a low GD. The chances of teams like us being able to compete in the PL with a consistently high positive GD is slim to done, so you have to find other ways.

[Turkish]

1 minute ago, S-Clarke said:

I've listened to snippets of it. Was this the one where he proclaimed Newcastle were in a false position under Pardew at the time, and that they'd fall off due to the GD extreme?

Like you say, there are merits in what he says...but there are also some real positives to take away from how a team like Newcastle (at that time) could compete as high as they did, with such a low GD. The chances of teams like us being able to compete in the PL with a consistently high positive GD is slim to done, so you have to find other ways.

Yeah that's the one. In theory it's right, the teams with the best and worst goal difference generally finish highest and lowest. That's just common sense really, if you've got a good defence and good strikers then you're going to win more games. Where is all falls down is that since they joined we have consistently been crap at both so there is a lot more too it than looking at a spreadsheet which is what they seem to have failed to grasp.

[Miltonaggro]

50 minutes ago, Turkish said:

Has anyone listened to Rasmus TED talk? Im a big fan of TED talks quite often listen to them. He does come across very well to be fair but it's basically 15 minutes of him explaining when goal difference is a better judge of how a team actually performs. There is some merit in what he's saying, ie that generally the best and worst teams have the best and worst goal differences which is true but it seems like that's the entire basis for his data driven approach. 

A lot of the ‘wisdom’ in his books, media and website (which is wonderfully peak Partridge) is incredibly derivative bizspeak - at best rehashed at worst passing off. It’s incredible that most supporters can see that Ankersen is a charlatan and fraud, but Solak cannot. 

[Willo of Whiteley]

Can anyone explain to him the pissing basics of football.

You literally have to have one more shot go in the net to win. Every other stat is completely irrelevant.

That’s why I used to think “f*** off Russ” when he brought up dominating the game with 75% possession, it means jack shit if you do nothing with it.

[Wade Garrett]

Bunch of cunts.  Hope they lose all their money.  
 

[Dman]

If they appoint Eckert its the final straw for me. We're a complete mess and need a strong head to steer and steady the ship for a season or 2. Eckert might be the right man long term, but its setting everyone up to fail if they appoint him now. 

If this goes the way its looking, its time to seriously protest. Lowe levels. 

[Jack]

28 minutes ago, Dman said:

If they appoint Eckert its the final straw for me. We're a complete mess and need a strong head to steer and steady the ship for a season or 2. Eckert might be the right man long term, but its setting everyone up to fail if they appoint him now. 

If this goes the way its looking, its time to seriously protest. Lowe levels. 

Feels like it’s going that way doesn’t it. Fans were so up for it at the start of the season but that’s really quickly died on its arse with the Still experiment gone wrong and such obvious mismanagement from the top. Fucking depressing 

[ally_uk]

Bunch of clueless cunts 

[S-Clarke]

They like to think they're clever, but they are actually thick as absolute shit.

Probably the thickest owners in the world. They haven't got a clue how to run football clubs.