Nordic Saint

Watching our captain, Jose Fonte, playing for West Ham tonight as they beat Spurs said a lot about Les Reed's lack of ambition for the club. Cashing in at every opportunity on players is more important to him than our team winning games.The money wasted on Caceres would have been more than enough to keep Fonte here, and probably would have been enough to win us the League Cup Final and help us finish higher in the league.

Jose Fonte was magnificent again. He was never fully appreciated by many Saints fans and certainly not by Les Reed (but who is apart from his latest signing?). But he is deservedly a reigning European champions and, for me, the best central defender and captain we ever had. I wish we'd kept him.

By all measures (average gates, social media followers etc), our fan base and attendances are the 12th biggest in the country. So, fans who think we should expect to be in a relegation struggle or even in the Championship and that anything better than that is overachieving are far from the mark. It is true, however, that, for our size, in terms of trophies won over our entire history, we are possibly the most underachieving club in the country and that has lowered fans' expectations. We have had plenty of blips taking us below where a club of our size ought to be, but precious few taking us above it. We probably need the break at least once in our history of getting a wealthy owner investing in success, like Leicester and Blackburn, for example, had.

That's what he seems to be doing nowadays. Maybe he feels his mission at Liverpool has been achieved.

Next season, could Les Reed finally have built a title winning team at Liverpool, with Bertrand and van Djk as the final pieces of the jigsaw? It would be a remarkable achievement if he manages to pull it off. Has anyone in the history of football ever done so much to build a rival team?

""Eric Black has an excellent pedigree as a coach and vast experience domestically and internationally." Les Reed. http://www.dailyecho.co.uk/sport/14590538.Les_Reed__Puel_was_top_choice_on__very_impressive__shortlist/?commentSort=newest

It doesn't matter what we think. None of us would have picked Puel. Even if Reed does decide to replace him, the new manager will be not be anyone high profile or in demand, the main criteria being that he'll be prepared to do as Reed tells him, and most of the names you mention would not be prepared to take orders from Reed.

We didn't and we wouldn't have; Les Reed did. Our next manager will have to meet the same requirements Puel did: to do as Reed wants him to do and to be prepared to accept a job where he is not 'the boss' where football matters are concerned. In the end, neither Pochettino nor Koeman could accept those limitations. So, it's unlikely Reed will appoint a strong character with his own ideas again.

Off the top of my head: Forster, Long, Hojbjerg, Reed, Targett, Boufal, Martina, Tadic, Gardos, Austin, Rodriguez, Pied, Caceres, McQueen, Hassen, Isgrove etc... most of the squad, basically, for one reason or another, although some of them were simply Les Reed's overhyped buys who've been found out.

You are just agreeing with a quote you wrote yourself. How desperate is that? There is no mention whatsoever of our fanbase in any of the comments, let alone anyone making fun of it. One poster simply says, "Do you think Southampton should play the big 4? I think they are in their place in the top 10."

Les Reed.

It feels like we're just treading water until Kat manages to sell the club and I can't see any significant changes taking place at the top or any major investment in players until she does. The atmosphere at the Club is so different to this time last year. What a difference a year makes.

On today's evidence, Andrea Ranocchia would be ideal. Hull have only got him on loan from Inter so he's available.

I assume whoever started this poll must be a Pompey fan: https://footballleagueworld.co.uk/portsmouth-v-southampton-are-saints-really-a-bigger-club-than-pompey/

How quickly things can change. Under Pochettino and Koeman we regularly beat top 6 sides and we expected to; under Puel we don't. I'm not sure it's all his fault. The squad has been severely weakened by the sake of our best players and the failure to replace them with players of a similar calibre, although perhaps we have also failed to appoint a manager of a similar calibre to the last 2. As you say, we can expect more of the same this summer.

Well, they certainly can't defend themselves.

If we had a decent goalkeeping coach, he would surely tell Forster to stand in front of his goal line instead of behind it. The recurring problem of Forster standing behind his line happened yet again for City's first goal. When the oppostion are pressing for a goal, he often retreats more than a foot into his goal, from which position he can save nothing.

A Saints fan running on the pitch, winning the ball during the game and attempting to score the winning goal v QPR during the Mick Channon Testimonial, at which the referee abandoned the game.

ALL of them aren't: just the ones it was fairly obvious from their recent form and injury record, were dodgy buys.

He seems to have found some form: http://www.hitc.com/en-gb/2017/04/11/southampton-flop-juanmi-scores-again-was-he-sold-too-soon/

I doubt many people have. He hadn't played for a year before we signed him. I'd class him as semi-retired. At the other end of the career spectrum is, as others have said, is Josh Sims: one of the most promising youngsters we have ever had at Southampton.

I was pleased to see that the Chapel kop did actually sing and chant a couple of times during the Palace game. If some of the singers tucked away in the corners of the away end, where nobody notices them, moved to the Chapel end next season, it would, of course, vastly improve the atmosphere and help the team.

A good win against an in-form Palace side. Redmond, Ward-Prowse, McQueen and Stephens are all improving, which bodes well for the future. We never used our 3rd sub and it would have been good to see Sims come on.

Thank God we got a point today but we're still only 7 points off the bottom 3 As in many games this season, we dominated possession for the first 60 minutes and created lots of chances but had no goal scorer to finish them then Bournemouth's superior fitness began to show and we were just hanging on at the end As well as the penalty, they missed the 2 easiest chances of the game and fluffed a free-kick right in front of the goal. Let's hope Gabbiadini comes back soon We need his goals to get another win

If they did retrospective video reviews of past season, it would be interesting to see how many trophies would have to change hands. We might even have a couple more. In the interest of fairness, video technology can only be a good thing. The sooner it comes, the better, except for the 'big clubs'. who might lose some of their advantage.