Claude Puel… Again

[sadoldgit]

23 minutes ago, Whitey Grandad said:

Whoever it was, we wouldn't finishh anywhere near 8th if we only managed 46 points. As for the rest, "more than matching" is a long stretch considering that we were well beaten.

But we didn’t finish with 46 points in a vacuum did we? The point you seem to ignore is that we were the 8th best team in the EPL that season. We weren’t well beaten. We had a perfectly good goal ruled out. I watched the game with a friend of mine who is a United supporter and he said that we were the better team and they were lucky to win. We probably would have beaten them if VVD had been playing.

As for the playing style. Win first, entertain second.

[RedArmy]

We finished closer on points to 18th than we did to Everton in 7th and we only scored 41 goals. 
 

It was a shit season, it was a shit European campaign and a cup final means nothing if you don’t win it. 
 

 

[LuckyNumber7]

Of course, 8th and a cup final sounds great on the face of it, but context is certainly important.

Our finishes in the three seasons prior were 8th, 7th and 6th so it wasn't an improvement on what came before. Granted we lost some good players but he still had a decent squad including VVD, and made poor use of Caceres (playing Stephens over him)

The 46 points we got was a very low anomaly for 8th place, points wise we were closer to the relegation zone than the team above us. The fact we finished 8th was more down to how poor the other teams were than us being good.

More importantly, we were heading in the wrong direction. Our form after the cup final was poor, especially at home. Five consecutive home games without scoring, the football was dull as fuck.

The cup run was great though and he deserves credit for that, some great memories. We really should have won it.

[John Boy Saint]

14 hours ago, Whitey Grandad said:

It wasn't all that good. And don't get me started on the way he treated Fonte in our European campaign. 

A few hours late to the conversation but here goes.

Fonte was getting the short end of the stick after he came back from winning the Euros, alongside his bezzy mate Christiano, all Billy big bollocks, there was a bit of noise in the background that he might get a final pay day with the likes of Man Utd, or some other European competition club. So with all this chatter to escape generated from the Fonte camp off the back of his summer glory, Saints most likely decided not to lessen their return on him by European cup tying him, plus if he was making enough noise to say that he'll be out the door at the first chance, we had best bed in a more reliable longer term centre back pairing over one that could be broken at the drop of a cheque. Think there were a few wry smiles when his ship did come in - destination the East End of London.

 

[AlexLaw76]

I thought he was a crap manager myself.

[Harry_SFC]

Don't get me wrong, getting to a cup final was great. The league campaign was ok but the football was dire. To not qualify from that group in the Europa League was appalling. 

[franniesTache]

10 minutes ago, Harry_SFC said:

The league campaign was ok but the football was dire.

This is such bullshit, the football was not dire at all. At home it was measured and he set out not to lose, but away from home we were sharp and attacking, also in that season we drew away to Man City, beat Inter Milan at home, beat Liverpool away and didn't lose to them all season.

Watford away in the 4-3 game and Sunderland away in the 4-0 we were blistering and played brilliant counter attacking football.

To be honest i've long been convinced Puel's downfall came from the fact he didn't want to lose home games so set up to defend at home and took more risks away from home. This meant a large chunk of our support had a bizarre idea of what his team was.

Also it's worth remembering we lost our best player in the run in to the end of the season and had to adapt, which meant he had to adapt his tactics and style too.

[Turkish]

11 minutes ago, Harry_SFC said:

Don't get me wrong, getting to a cup final was great. The league campaign was ok but the football was dire. To not qualify from that group in the Europa League was appalling. 

Koeman never even got not the group stages yet you never hear anyone criticising his European campaign

 

as for dire football another myth that’s been repeated over and over again until it’s become fact with no context around it. At times we played so great stuff, he also had the top two goal scorers form Koemans era replaced by Redmond, Boufal and Austin 

[franniesTache]

2 minutes ago, Turkish said:

Koeman never even got not the group stages yet you never hear anyone criticising his European campaign

 

I'd actually argue Koeman failed worse against midtjylland than Puel did in his campaign. I was at every single one of those games home and away during the european campaign/s and the midtjylland one was the worst performance by a mile.

[Turkish]

1 hour ago, franniesTache said:

I'd actually argue Koeman failed worse against midtjylland than Puel did in his campaign. I was at every single one of those games home and away during the european campaign/s and the midtjylland one was the worst performance by a mile.

We were awful in both games against Midtiylland. I agree, that was the bigger fail. We were very unlucky in Milan, beat them at home. We went out because of the performances in Prague and home to the Israelis. Puel get shit for not picking Fonte, funny how no one mentions Koeman not picking Mane in Denmark or Tadic in either game.

[OldNick]

44 minutes ago, Turkish said:

We were awful in both games against Midtiylland. I agree, that was the bigger fail. We were very unlucky in Milan, beat them at home. We went out because of the performances in Prague and home to the Israelis. Puel get shit for not picking Fonte, funny how no one mentions Koeman not picking Mane in Denmark or Tadic in either game.

and the gilt edged chances that VVD etc missed.

[OldNick]

4 hours ago, Whitey Grandad said:

Finishing 8th was a statistical quirk.

I sum the season up as won nothing,  achieved nothing. 

Sadly that goes for 130 plus other times

Edited 29 minutes ago by OldNick

[OldNick]

If I recall correctly we didnt score in the last 5 games, this caused grt resentment but again I think we missed 2 pens in those games. We all need the rush of a goal and there was a pent feeling of frustration as we couldnt get our fix. It didnt also help that he wasnt Mr Personality in interviews, I doubt many of us would sound sparkly in a 2nd language.

I recall when we went to WHU and played magical attacking football, and name a Saints manager who has beaten Arsenal at their place, and Liverpool home and away also not letting a goal in!!! Very unlucky not to have been given another season whre he could have got his players in