Bad Wolf Posted 27 April, 2023 Share Posted 27 April, 2023 7 hours ago, CB Fry said: My understanding is that we are only going down because flipping Brighton lost to Forest last night. Oh that Brighton make me like so furious. Brighton did that on purpose. They hate us and they also had the added bonus of annoying Palace. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wadesmith Posted 27 April, 2023 Share Posted 27 April, 2023 7 hours ago, bpsaint said: I’m not sure it’s entirely down to the decisions of this season to be fair, it’s been a few years in the making. Gradual lack of investment in the squad, the need to find the next young talent we can make a profit on rather than sign older experienced players as it’s not “The Southampton Way” bullshit, purple patches of form papering over the cracks, poor management decisions and so on and so forth. We’re lucky that the fates aligned and we were able to bring in a striker like Ings who was beyond the ability level of a club our size, but needed us as much as we needed him to recover his form following injuries otherwise this relegation would have happened a long time ago. It’s why I’ve made my peace with going down, because this has been on the cards for a long time and the whole club needs a reset as with so many teams before us, particularly the playing and coaching squads. Time for the powers that be to drop this We March On, Bold is Brave PR bullshit and just focus on rebuilding the club. The trouble with the idea of a ‘Re-Set’ is it will be the same blokes who oversaw this disaster overseeing the re-set. It’s not like they are suddenly going to say, ‘Ok let’s start making good decisions now we’re relegated’ It’s a terrifying prospect with these guys in charge. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John B Posted 27 April, 2023 Share Posted 27 April, 2023 20 minutes ago, bpsaint said: Hence the gradual lack of investment part. Just because we spent a bit this season doesn’t disguise the fact that the lack of investment under Gao is still costing us. Half the match day squad is made up of cheap players signed under his watch, and most of the signings of SR can’t even get in the side. Having the worst squad in relation to the league we were playing for the last 60 years was clearly going to lead us to relegation Replacing a decent manager with Jones compounded the situation you would have thoufgt if Ralph was to be sacked that an experienced one would have been the replacement. But I do find it strange that Luton may replace us in the PL Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RedArmy Posted 27 April, 2023 Share Posted 27 April, 2023 Not sacking Ralph at the end of last season has to rank above all other reasons for me. If a manager has (by the clubs own admission) lost the dressing room then keeping him in the job until the World Cup was a catastrophic decision. Closely followed by the baffling decision to replace him with Nathan Jones when you knew the dressing room was already demoralised, it makes no sense whatsoever. The whole 5 at the back experiments with both managers were terrible. I think the lack of goals and not signing a goal scorer has been a major factor but it would have only prolonged the inevitable when it came to Ralph being sacked. We may have picked up a few better results along the way but ultimately he was on borrowed time from May onwards. I still think we’d be flirting with relegation regardless. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JRM Posted 27 April, 2023 Share Posted 27 April, 2023 I think selling Ings was short sighted, we got away with it as Broja plugged the gap for a bit but since then we haven't had a player that offers us what they did up front. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Badger Posted 27 April, 2023 Share Posted 27 April, 2023 For me our failure is explained in one word - recruitment. That applies to both playing squad, and managerial (including coaching) appointments. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Badger Posted 27 April, 2023 Share Posted 27 April, 2023 Listing out the key failings: -failure to sign a striker for Ralph -the continued obsession with buying kids off the yop schemes and not going for experience in key positions (especially GK) -manager, RH ran out of road at the end of last season and looked a broken spirit. Should have gone then. - The Nathan Jones gamble. - Rasmus dumping his philosophy on the club. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sergei Gotsmanov Posted 27 April, 2023 Share Posted 27 April, 2023 (edited) see below Edited 27 April, 2023 by Sergei Gotsmanov Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sergei Gotsmanov Posted 27 April, 2023 Share Posted 27 April, 2023 (edited) 1 minute ago, Sergei Gotsmanov said: Sacking long standing backroom coaches who loved our club and made new signings and players appreciate what playing for Saints meant. Not signing a striker - we all knew that in August. Not signing throwing everything at signing Broja. The team in the first few months of the season looked OK just short on goals. Enough in the tank to stay up anyway. Edited 27 April, 2023 by Sergei Gotsmanov Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trousers Posted 27 April, 2023 Share Posted 27 April, 2023 Les Reed not giving Kooman what he wanted #RootCauseAnalysis 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
david in sweden Posted 27 April, 2023 Share Posted 27 April, 2023 Aside from the 99 other excuses / reasons quoted above....losing 11 home games doesn't help... 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dr. Kucho Posted 27 April, 2023 Share Posted 27 April, 2023 Another reason why we are bottom of the stack, January signings, Alcarez - Started Sulemana - on the bench Bree - not in the matchday squad Onuachu - not in the matchday squad Orisic - not in the matchday squad We were in a relegation battle back in January, you need players to improve the squad, not to sit on the bench or be left out! Money well squandered. 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Badger Posted 27 April, 2023 Share Posted 27 April, 2023 50 minutes ago, trousers said: Les Reed not giving Kooman what he wanted #RootCauseAnalysis Was certainly a watershed, wasn’t it ? Didn’t expect anyone to be able to ‘out-Les’ Les, but the cunt Rasmus has managed it. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DrunkenSaint Posted 27 April, 2023 Share Posted 27 April, 2023 Not selling Elyounoussi Didnt get a striker in preseason. Doing late business as always/getting in too many youngsters/overall poor recruitment Not replacing Romeu with an experienced player to play alongside Lavia Playing the shit 4222 formation (should use a formation that plays to our strengths, 4231 would be a far better formation) Playing Elyounoussi week after week. Replacing Ralph and getting in the clown Wasted a shit tonne of money in January on more shit Not giving Orsic a chance, a quality player much better than most if not all our wingers Replacing one clown for another Jwp as captain, sorry but he's partly to blame, plays backwards to often where he should be trying to get all the players to attack more and should lead by example. Continuing to play Elyounoussi A shit board that allowed all above to go ahead Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SNSUN Posted 27 April, 2023 Share Posted 27 April, 2023 5 hours ago, wadesmith said: The trouble with the idea of a ‘Re-Set’ is it will be the same blokes who oversaw this disaster overseeing the re-set. It’s not like they are suddenly going to say, ‘Ok let’s start making good decisions now we’re relegated’ It’s a terrifying prospect with these guys in charge. I agree, and I was thinking about "How do we reset next season" before I read these posts. Everything is rotten about this club right now - yes on paper it was great that Sports Republic wanted to pump some money in to a transfer fund that had been basically sell-to-buy for years, but without any idea of what was needed. First and foremost we need to bring in a manager of experience, someone that has proven ability to get teams promoted from the Championship or has proved that they are a good Championship manager over a long period of time. Cooper would be an obvious candidate for this but I don't think he'd come here. Get the manager in place early doors and then you can think about the playing personnel. Quite frankly I'd have a team meeting, get anyone that doesn't want to be here next season to put their hands in the air and transfer list the lot. Keep the 100% committed lads then top them up with the best transfers we can feasibly afford. Get a few decent Prem loans in and bosh. That's the reset - but I can't see it happening because, as you said, we have the same people in charge that have made the shitty decisions this season. We need to be introducing the likes of Ballard, Edwards and Dibling next season though or what is even the point of the academy? The sad thing is that relegation has been coming for a few seasons and we've (probably almost) all seen it coming. - we've just bided our luck based on a couple of purple patches. The squad has been getting weaker and weaker and it has finally bitten us in the butt. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Forester Posted 27 April, 2023 Share Posted 27 April, 2023 58 minutes ago, Dr. Kucho said: Another reason why we are bottom of the stack, January signings, Alcarez - Started Sulemana - on the bench Bree - not in the matchday squad Onuachu - not in the matchday squad Orisic - not in the matchday squad We were in a relegation battle back in January, you need players to improve the squad, not to sit on the bench or be left out! Money well squandered. Yes this is a good post. Frankly the main reason we are going down is that, having had an awful striker department last season, two left and were replaced by one lad from France who may or not be a decent player in three years time, Ludicrous. Three managers have all failed to get results out of these players. And then as you point out a chaotic and panicky January window sees over the top fees paid for players who the current manager doesn’t want. The absolute accountability for our relegation sits with the Board, absolutely no question in my mind. The more we all get distracted by this or that bit if detail means we miss the bigger picture. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SaintJackoInHurworth Posted 27 April, 2023 Share Posted 27 April, 2023 Key Reasons that have been contributing factors to our relegation: 1. Failure to sign a striker (e.g. Gakpo) last summer because we were penny pinching and thought we could save money by brinkmanship - instead Leeds came in and screwed it all up and we cannot score. 2. Sacking Hassenhuttl and appointing Jones. Even keeping Hasenhuttl would have probably been enough to stay up, but why couldn't we have appointed a quality manger like Fonseca or Gallardo instead of Jones? 3. Failure to recruit an experienced player to replace Romeu. We could have played that experienced player as CDM and given Lavia and JWP more freedom to push forward and control midfield. I think there is also a fourth and maybe a fifth too!... 4. Only signing one quality centre back - ABK has been good but he got injured as did Salisu and we didn't have enough quality to cover. 5. Injuries: Livramento, S. Armstrong, Lavia, Bella-Kotchap, Adams, Walker-Peters, Perraud have all been key injuries for us at the wrong times. There have been others too that may be of less significance: Larios, Walcott, A. Armstrong, Djenepo. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
qwertyell Posted 27 April, 2023 Share Posted 27 April, 2023 (edited) When there were rumours of Ings leaving, I said we'd be comfortably relegated if we ended up with Che Adams as our first choice striker. And here we are. Four transfer windows we've had to buy a striker worth a damn since Ings left. Ultimately, that's the major failure that's killed us. Can't win games if you can't score goals. Beyond that, relegation is just a matter of time for the likes of Saints. Unless an oil rich state buys us, we're only ever going to be spinning plates, desperately fighting against the inevitability of gravity. Any good players we sign want to leave us immediately (we even encourage it as a negotiating tactic: "join us and we'll be your stepping stone to joining a proper club"). Any good players coming through the academy want to leave us immediately. If we've ever had a good manager, they've wanted to leave us immediately. It's impossible to build anything, to have a long-term vision. So we just limp along, day by day, hoping to hang on at the top table a little bit longer, for no other reason than paying the bills. There's no ambition beyond that. No sporting ambition at any rate. It's hard to care too much. Certainly no-one in the squad does. We've been circling the drain to the Championship for a number of years. Perhaps we could've staved it off for a bit longer with better decision making from the top, but so what? We've got absolutely nothing to show for a decade in the PL. We haven't invested in the stadium or infrastructure. I don't think we've even finished the training ground. We've just existed, survived for a while, and then dropped with a whimper - and barely a player worth retaining. An entirely futile existence. Edited 28 April, 2023 by qwertyell 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Galway saint Posted 28 April, 2023 Share Posted 28 April, 2023 The forward line tonight said it all. What on earth was he expecting from Adam Armstrong ? I think perhaps somewhere in there is a decent team but successive managers have not managed to find it so perhaps not. But I don’t think the team is set up right with such a gap between the front four and the rest, no width and slow dull possession football. It’s awful. I’ve barely been able to watch since West Ham it’s so turgid (Arsenal aside). You can also factor in the decision to play bazanu all season. I don’t know why he was only dropped last night as again he has not been up to it for some time. The recruitment has been dreadful now for 18 months, Lavia aside. Maybe it was just our time the same way it will be time for Brighton, Wolves etc at some point over the next few years. I have no confidence in the current board to make the right footballing decisions and the next manager makes or breaks us really. God knows who it will be. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pamplemousse Posted 28 April, 2023 Share Posted 28 April, 2023 Sport Republic trying to be too clever. A steep learning curve and hopefully that prick Rasmus will learn to take his ego out of the equation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr X Posted 28 April, 2023 Share Posted 28 April, 2023 As a general consensus what do you think the main reason that has lead to our relegation this season is? 1) Dismissing Ralph. 2) Appointing Jones. 3) Appointing Selles. 4) poor recruitment of players and relying too much on youth or players without premier League experience, combined with no natural leaders on the pitch. 5) Sports Republic being our owners. 6) Other. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FarehamSaintJames Posted 28 April, 2023 Share Posted 28 April, 2023 All of the above fall at Rasmus Ankersen. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gordonToo Posted 28 April, 2023 Share Posted 28 April, 2023 Many factors but top of the list is lack of goals. I know it's stating the bleedin' obvious but it's so damn basic that for the problem not to have been properly addressed once Ings left almost defies belief. I'm increasingly of the view that the club is populated by staff and players that are essentially milking the system at the expense of the fanbase. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neef Posted 28 April, 2023 Share Posted 28 April, 2023 1. Lack of investment in the frontline - This is the key one for me. We're starting games with AA, Ely, Walcott. It's genuinely a Championship front line. It's not suprise we rarely threaten or create anything. We needed two strikers/attackers of real quality when Broja left, yet somehow we ended up in a weaker position. The amount of games we've lost 1-0 or failed to create anything is no surprise when you consider it. If Gakpo or Ramos got over the line in the summer, you'd think we'd be in a different position. Instead we had to panic buy in Jan. The results have been disastorous. Tall Paul clearly not up to the level needed, and who knows what happened with Orisic. 2. Nathan Jones Appointment The whole thing was bizarre. We'd bought plenty of young players who were technically proficient and comfortable on the ball (Lavia, Bazunu, DCC, Mara). Then we went for a mananger who is tactically the complete opposite. Bringing in an untested Championship manager into a relegation fight was a poor, poor decision. Teams around us hired high quality, European level managers (Wolves, Villa) and we didn't. The PL is so different from the Championship. You're facing tactically astute / class managers nearly every week, it's a massive step up. If Jones ever was going to be the answer, he would've have needed a preseason and a transfer window to really shape the squad. I was a Ralph fan, but can accept him leaving. But I never imagined us letting him go and replacing him with a signifcantly inferior manager. The drop off in performance was stark. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Christophenburg Posted 28 April, 2023 Share Posted 28 April, 2023 15 hours ago, Dr. Kucho said: Another reason why we are bottom of the stack, January signings, Alcarez - Started Sulemana - on the bench Bree - not in the matchday squad Onuachu - not in the matchday squad Orisic - not in the matchday squad We were in a relegation battle back in January, you need players to improve the squad, not to sit on the bench or be left out! Money well squandered. But arguably all of them would have improved the matchday squad over who was actually on the pitch. Hard to blame this season's recruitment when mangers simply won't select players and instead stick with those who have underperformed for two years Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rallyboy Posted 28 April, 2023 Share Posted 28 April, 2023 I think Ralph, Jones and Selles have all demonstrated that if given the whole season they would have relegated us, perhaps with more points, perhaps not, but all three have been on course for disaster. We just chose to mix up some sort of vague management shitshow cocktail that blurs the issue. The squad clearly lacks quality, tactical direction, commitment, maybe even fitness, so no one escapes criticism. Some like Lavia are less responsible, but no one is innocent, everyone has contributed to what we are now, the worst team in a very poor bunch. To me it feels a bit like relief - we've been in the ring with heavyweights for too long and we've been battered so much it's no longer fun, we need to recover at a lower weight. Pity that it's the players who chucked the towel in over the rope - these fuckers have written their names into club history. But the buck stops upstairs with the guys who can change things when they are going wrong - it's been a truly dreadful performance at the very top. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BallBoy Posted 28 April, 2023 Share Posted 28 April, 2023 All of the above and mentally weak. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom & Gerry Posted 29 April, 2023 Share Posted 29 April, 2023 Is it because it's a coronation year? We've a hundred percent record in the regard since the war. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Southner Posted 29 April, 2023 Share Posted 29 April, 2023 1. Club being run by folk not knowing what they're doing. 2. Not acquiring suitable players in the required positions/heavily delaying such acquisitions. 3. We are fucking dump Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adman Posted 29 April, 2023 Share Posted 29 April, 2023 Totally self-inflicted. Got every decision wrong, whilst spending an astronomical amount of money. Imagine if we had this season’s transfer kitty during the Poch and Koeman eras. They’re incompetent or skates, or both. No one deserves to stay. We’ll only keep Lavia if Pep tells him a year in the Championship will do him good, then they can activate the buy back. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Morse Posted 29 April, 2023 Share Posted 29 April, 2023 "Southampton were a disgrace on Thursday, bearing mind they were at home and needed to win the game. I thought their performance was gutless and they offered so little in attack. The position Saints are in, I was expecting them to play with desperation and throw everything they could at Bournemouth. Instead, they looked like a team who had already been relegated. How on earth they got a point against Arsenal last week, I really don't know." Chris Sutton on BBC sport website. This is one reason we're going down. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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