What’s your unpopular opinion on Saints?

[Lord Duckhunter]

Ralph should have been sacked for blubbing on the line after hero worshipping Klopp. Made us look a right Noddy club. 

[Lighthouse]

59 minutes ago, Turkish said:

I've had this discussion on here many times and it always circles back to the "i want to be entertained" brigade chirping up moaning about the last few home games and the European campaign. Funny how they never mentioned our pathetic exit in the qualification stages under Koeman. They never give Puel any slack that he lost Mane, Pelle (who scored 30 goals between then the previous season) and Wanyama, who were replaced by Austin, Boufal and Redmond who scored 14 between them as well as a huge downgrade in ability. They also never mention second half of the season he lost Van Dijk and Fonte, went from having one of the best pair of centre backs in the league to one of the worst.  He lost 5 of the best players in the team in 6 months, yet still got us 8th and a cup final. The other thing they always pipe up with is that the 8th place was crap because we got a lot less points than the previous season. Show me a manager who'd get more whilst losing their five best players.

I don't know how often it has to be said but people got the hump with Puel because he played for 0-0s at home, including against crap teams, like Stoke, Hull, Bournemouth and Be'er Sheva. He went to Leicester and they were equally unimpressed, he hasn't been seen in England since and has also had the boot from St Etienne.

[Turkish]

17 minutes ago, Lighthouse said:

I don't know how often it has to be said but people got the hump with Puel because he played for 0-0s at home, including against crap teams, like Stoke, Hull, Bournemouth and Be'er Sheva. He went to Leicester and they were equally unimpressed, he hasn't been seen in England since and has also had the boot from St Etienne.

I couldn't give a fuck what he did elsewhere, he did well for us. I suspect he set up defensively at home because he went from having Van Dijk and Fonte to Stephens in his first season and Yoshida. Perhaps he got Be'er Sheva wrong but then so did Koeman in the two games against Midtjlland, with the away performance being as bad as anything i've seen given the quality of players he had. His crap set up also got us wins against Liverpool twice, Arsenal and Inter Milan. Funny how people are so desperate to discredit Puel they remember draws against Hull rather than wins against Europes biggest clubs 

[Chez]

19 hours ago, Oh no Mick Mills said:

As embarrassing as that was, we ended up finishing 11th that season.

Our most successful season with Ralph in charge. 

I think we won 7 out of our last 9 and at times ayed some pretty sensational football.

We somehow did this with Stephens and Bednarek and McCarthy in goal .

 

 

 

was this the covid season? I lose track. I felt that we benefitted from that closed stadiums/no fans run in to the season. I seem to recall our squad had continued to train and stay "on it"/match sharp, whilst a lot of other sides had closed down and effectively were on the beach. I might be mistaken.

[The Kraken]

1 hour ago, Chez said:

was this the covid season? I lose track. I felt that we benefitted from that closed stadiums/no fans run in to the season. I seem to recall our squad had continued to train and stay "on it"/match sharp, whilst a lot of other sides had closed down and effectively were on the beach. I might be mistaken.

No idea if that’s true but I do remember the first game back, think it was Norwich 3-0? Had friends over the house and watched the game in the garden with a Heath Robinson TV setup, we absolutely steamrollered them and could’ve won by more.

[Lighthouse]

1 hour ago, Chez said:

was this the covid season? I lose track. I felt that we benefitted from that closed stadiums/no fans run in to the season. I seem to recall our squad had continued to train and stay "on it"/match sharp, whilst a lot of other sides had closed down and effectively were on the beach. I might be mistaken.

I vaguely remember Ralph being the only manager in English league history to win Manager of the Month for July. No idea if that's actually true but we were pretty mighty behind closed doors.

[Convict Colony]

Nathan Redmond passed backwards more than he passed forwards.

[EssEffCee]

5 hours ago, Turkish said:

I've had this discussion on here many times and it always circles back to the "i want to be entertained" brigade chirping up moaning about the last few home games and the European campaign. Funny how they never mentioned our pathetic exit in the qualification stages under Koeman. They never give Puel any slack that he lost Mane, Pelle (who scored 30 goals between then the previous season) and Wanyama, who were replaced by Austin, Boufal and Redmond who scored 14 between them as well as a huge downgrade in ability. They also never mention second half of the season he lost Van Dijk and Fonte, went from having one of the best pair of centre backs in the league to one of the worst.  He lost 5 of the best players in the team in 6 months, yet still got us 8th and a cup final. The other thing they always pipe up with is that the 8th place was crap because we got a lot less points than the previous season. Show me a manager who'd get more whilst losing their five best players.

Spot on. The points comparison to the season before is daft due to the amount of players we lost as you point out.

People always say we were dull but we weren't away from home for much of the season. Didn't we score 4 goals in back to back away games at one point? Can't imagine we did that too often during the recent decade in the top fought.

Basically it amounted to that stat about failing to score in our last x home games but we did miss two penalties in that run which could have turned 0-0's into 1-0's. 

Even so to judge a manager poorly based on a dull end of season run is ridiculous. Hardly the first midtable side to be on the beach towards the end of the season, especially after playing so many games having been in Europe and reached a cup final.

[EssEffCee]

Writing that post reminded me of something else for this thread actually:

That 4 season run of top 8 finishes including Europe and a cup final has had a long term negative impact on our fanbase, giving us an entitlement which wasn't there before.

I don't think we'll recover from that either without an extended stay outside the top flight.

[Gloucester Saint]

3 hours ago, Lighthouse said:

I vaguely remember Ralph being the only manager in English league history to win Manager of the Month for July. No idea if that's actually true but we were pretty mighty behind closed doors.

Some of the Project Restart football was as good to watch as anything produced under Ronald, Poch and Adkins. 

[John B]

I would like to be in the Championship next season instead of being uncompetitive in the PL 

[Bakovnetski]

Manning is my 1st choice left back

[Whitey Grandad]

7 hours ago, franniesTache said:

And this is where my "puel was good" and "ralph should've been sacked" align.

Puel 8th and a cup final which was lost by a bad decision, beat inter milan at home & played some brilliant counter attacking football away from home is roundly thought of by many as shit.

Ralph who lost 9-0 twice and never got us higher than 11th or into a cup final is somehow a messiah who only didn't achieve domination because of things out of his control.

Surely clapping at the fans can't make that much of a difference?

That's rubbish.

It was lost because we conceded three goals. We lost that game comfortably without any help from others.

[Whitey Grandad]

7 hours ago, Turkish said:

I've had this discussion on here many times and it always circles back to the "i want to be entertained" brigade chirping up moaning about the last few home games and the European campaign. Funny how they never mentioned our pathetic exit in the qualification stages under Koeman. They never give Puel any slack that he lost Mane, Pelle (who scored 30 goals between then the previous season) and Wanyama, who were replaced by Austin, Boufal and Redmond who scored 14 between them as well as a huge downgrade in ability. They also never mention second half of the season he lost Van Dijk and Fonte, went from having one of the best pair of centre backs in the league to one of the worst.  He lost 5 of the best players in the team in 6 months, yet still got us 8th and a cup final. The other thing they always pipe up with is that the 8th place was crap because we got a lot less points than the previous season. Show me a manager who'd get more whilst losing their five best players.

He was responsible for losing Fonte. Fonte didn't figure in any of our European games. 

[Whitey Grandad]

On 02/03/2026 at 16:03, franniesTache said:

As a team we are completely irrelevant to 99% of the teams in the leagues, and that is absolutely fine.

Claude Puel was a very good manager for us and even the "boring football" tag wasn't correct.

JWP is a skate and will never be a legend.

Our away support is pretty cringeworthy these days.

Silence at a game is preferable to a lot of the songs that are sung (stared in a chapel, songs about libraries, most songs about the skates).

To many of our fans take football WAY too seriously, it should be a laugh with your mates not an exercise in stat counting.

The way away tickets are dished out is completely wrong, it should be season ticket holders + x aways first, then members + x aways, until it gets down to general sale.

As a fanbase we have a losers mentality & will put up with glorious loses far too easily.

The fans singing about championship again ole ole ole last season are part of the problem with what's gone wrong at the club, if we don't show ambition & standards why do we expect the players to?

David Armstrong is one of the best players to ever play for the club and should be held up on the same level as many of our legends

It bloody well was.

[Turkish]

16 minutes ago, Whitey Grandad said:

He was responsible for losing Fonte. Fonte didn't figure in any of our European games. 

Was he bollocks. 

[Oh no Mick Mills]

9 hours ago, franniesTache said:

And this is where my "puel was good" and "ralph should've been sacked" align.

Puel 8th and a cup final which was lost by a bad decision, beat inter milan at home & played some brilliant counter attacking football away from home is roundly thought of by many as shit.

Ralph who lost 9-0 twice and never got us higher than 11th or into a cup final is somehow a messiah who only didn't achieve domination because of things out of his control.

Surely clapping at the fans can't make that much of a difference?

We got 51 points with Ralph in charge in the 19/20 season compared to Puels 49 for the 8th spot.

Playing the high press game was much more entertaining to watch and we had the pleasure of seeing Danny Ings score 22 Premier goals.

Puel was dull and his football was often dull too but I agree he also did well with a limited squad. 

With the benefit of hindsight,  I preferred Ralph . 

It was a tumultuous love affair with lots of ups and downs and a disastrous ending but so much more exciting than safe old Claude . 

 

[Middlewordie]

Saints will be a happier club when the European Superleague is established (preferably as a franchise system). We can't compete with the biggest clubs in the Premier League and we shouldn't try to.