Saints and Sinners Southampton FC

[Sciss0rhands]

Southhampton have such a high player turnover... can’t be good for team cohesion. Any ideas why that is? Is it just money / profit oriented?

Good Recruitment and coaching most of the players are moving on to bigger teams fro higher wages and more chance of tropheys

True, their good players are always poached by bigger clubs. They need to recruit worse players haha... or just pay ‘em more

[Ironside]

cant pay them more as we cant generate the same sort of money as a top 6 side

[Mark_Porter]

It's hard to be brimming with confidence on Saints this year with Mark Hughes in charge. Whilst you can never read too much into pre-season, results have been:-

Schalke 3-3 Saints
Jiangsu Suning 2-3 Saints
Derby 3-0 Saints
Dijon 0-2 Saints
Saints 3-2 Celta Vigo
Saints 0-3 Borussia Monchengladbach

Long gone are the days of Fonte and Van Dijk in defence and they have never been replaced. I can't see how this team is going to avoid shipping goals.

Tadic's replacement is unproven. We missed out on the CAM we wanted although Stuart Armstrong looks OK. Still not convinced where the goals will come from. Would be nice if Austin could stay fit.

Need the younger players to start stepping up - Redmond, JWP, Lemina, Hoedt.

8/1 for relegation.

[arbboy]

It's hard to be brimming with confidence on Saints this year with Mark Hughes in charge. Whilst you can never read too much into pre-season, results have been:-

Schalke 3-3 Saints
Jiangsu Suning 2-3 Saints
Derby 3-0 Saints
Dijon 0-2 Saints
Saints 3-2 Celta Vigo
Saints 0-3 Borussia Monchengladbach

Long gone are the days of Fonte and Van Dijk in defence and they have never been replaced. I can't see how this team is going to avoid shipping goals.

Tadic's replacement is unproven. We missed out on the CAM we wanted although Stuart Armstrong looks OK. Still not convinced where the goals will come from. Would be nice if Austin could stay fit.

Need the younger players to start stepping up - Redmond, JWP, Lemina, Hoedt.

8/1 for relegation.

Enjoy watching Hughes' defensive formations!   They are fun to watch.  You do look a big price to go down to me.

[Ironside]

It's hard to be brimming with confidence on Saints this year with Mark Hughes in charge. Whilst you can never read too much into pre-season, results have been:-

Schalke 3-3 Saints
Jiangsu Suning 2-3 Saints
Derby 3-0 Saints
Dijon 0-2 Saints
Saints 3-2 Celta Vigo
Saints 0-3 Borussia Monchengladbach

Long gone are the days of Fonte and Van Dijk in defence and they have never been replaced. I can't see how this team is going to avoid shipping goals.

Tadic's replacement is unproven. We missed out on the CAM we wanted although Stuart Armstrong looks OK. Still not convinced where the goals will come from. Would be nice if Austin could stay fit.

Need the younger players to start stepping up - Redmond, JWP, Lemina, Hoedt.

8/1 for relegation.

got my £2.31 @1000 for the EPL title and £4 at 60.0 for top 6 might start thinking of laying them off when we win our first 5 games

Come on the Saints

[Mark_Porter]

45 goals in last 51 league games.

It's also now 30 league games against top half PL clubs without a win.

This Saints squad with Hughes in charge is a 15th-17th place team. Much like Swansea after their initial Premier league berth, this is a side that completely lacks any form of identity. Realistically that has been the case for the last 2 and a half years.

[Mark_Porter]

Pellegrino managed 37 points from 34 games before getting sacked.

Hughes now has 21 points from 21 games.

He is getting nothing from this team and is surely on borrowed time. A terrible appointment in the first place. A huge game for him this weekend against Newcastle.

Given the above stats, it does surprise me that there are still SIX sides that are shorter odds to go down than Saints. We will probably get around 38 points and have to hope that's enough again.

[Ironside]

Pellegrino managed 37 points from 34 games before getting sacked.

Hughes now has 21 points from 21 games.

He is getting nothing from this team and is surely on borrowed time. A terrible appointment in the first place. A huge game for him this weekend against Newcastle.

Given the above stats, it does surprise me that there are still SIX sides that are shorter odds to go down than Saints. We will probably get around 38 points and have to hope that's enough again.

we were too quick to get rid of Puel IMHO he was building a side might not have been playing the best football but was building for the future. Hughes is reluctant to bring any youth into the squad never mind the team. We need more hunger.

[Ironside]

Finally Les Read gets the tintack

[Mark_Porter]

Les Reed has done a magnificent job at Southampton.

He has been pivotal from the club going from League 1 to the Premiership. Let’s not forget that for a good few years, we were touted as the “model” premier league club for others to aspire to.

For so long he got all the big football decisions right. A string of successful managers Adkins, Poch, Koeman that each took us up a level. Recruitment was very good for many years – Mane, Van Dijk, Alderweireld, Wanyama. The youth system continued to churn through players that went for big money. The football on the pitch was exciting and the results were good.

Unfortunately, rather than one thing falling over, it all fell over at one. A string of unsuccessful managers – Puel, Pellegrino, Hughes. Recruitment turned sour – Boufal, Carillo. The youth system dried up almost completely with no players coming close to breaking into the squad, let alone the first team. 

When all this happens at once and you almost get relegated then you have to learn from your mistakes. Unfortunately, 6 months on and things have worsened rather than improved. Les Reed and the senior leadership team has had to take responsibility for that.

His legacy won’t be forgotten though. He joined Saints when our yearly revenue was £14 million. This year we turned over £182 million. Unfortunately, turnover is not something you can cheer about on the terraces.

[Mark_Porter]

A couple of other thoughts on Saints ownership structure.

Saints are now owned by Lander Holdings – a Chinese real estate group.

A fairly in depth interview last week fell under the radar a little as much of the conversation was around Les Reed. One of the interesting points was that the Chinese investors intend to continue to run Southampton in a “self sustaining” manor. Money will never be taken out but it will also not be pumped in. That’s wonderful when you sell a player for £70million every Summer but not quite so good when your squad is very poor with little resale value. You essentially spend some of the TV money every year and try and exist as a mid table side.

Thinking about the other teams in the premier league, there are a not really that many clubs left that are forced to operate like this.

Bournemouth
Brighton
Newcastle
Burnley
Palace
Cardiff
Huddersfield

In the long term, it's tough for this model to take you anywhere bar a bottom half relegation battle. You might get the odd outlier where you generate a shit load of money for a few years but you just can't really compete without significant investment - Everton, West Ham, Wolves etc.

You are starting to see it more and more this season as the gulf widens.

At the moment, Saints have a clear plan for January. They don't intend to spend any money - a big reason being, they just don't have it to spend.   

[Mark_Porter]

Feeling so jaded with Saints this year.

Not going to games at the moment. Football is awful and, even worse, we just aren't competitive any more.

I used to love the big games against the top teams as always felt like we had a chance. Now, it's just the expectation of being humiliated.

It's hardest to support your team when they are not doing very well. There are times when you wonder whether being in the premier league is really worth it - especially given the above financial restraints of the club. Your season essentially boils down to 20 games where you have to try and scrape 38 points.

The Charlie Austin rant is highlight of the season so far. 

[Mark_Porter]

Hughes given the boot this morning.

No big shock, writing has been on the wall for a month now.

[Karabiner]

Will Hasselhoff be bringing Pamela Anderson as his assistant?

[Ironside]

looks like we are hiring colin firth as our new manager

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