SKD

Simple. Selling your best proven talent year after year and replacing with untested potential is very high risk. Add to that losing the man who found all the potential.

The meltdown predicted when Cortese / half the first team left has finally come around, and that has to sit at the door of Les Reed.

Unfortunately the rot has set in throughout the whole club. I've been saying for a while that they are worried as there is very little coming through.

That's because he's absolute dog ****. Worse signing I can remember. What a waste of £5/£6m

You seem to continue to ignore the fact that he lost the dressing room. I don't think anyone believes he was sacked on the basis of finishing 8th, that by itself represents a good season. However, the players didn't want to play for him. The board wanted him to change tactics and we were pretty much in free fall since the cup final. Puel had to go. I've no doubt we would be in the same position as we are if he had stayed. If we have a poor season this year, that is down to Reed not appointing the right man (personally I think we should have gone for Silva and Saturday demonstrated to me why) and Wilson not signing the right players. IMO of course.

It depends on what you would consider 'run properly' to be. He was very good at getting results, selling a dream and not being afraid to make key decisions. However, we were spending other peoples money, getting into debt which it would have come a time where it would have been unsustainable and he ****ed off a number of ex and current staff. If you consider running properly as win at all costs and don't worry about being sustainable, then yeah, you're bang on. FWIW, I liked the bloke at the club. I thought he done a great job and you cannot argue with his results. Although it has to be said he was becoming out of control.

They looked better than we did at the weekend

Should not be anywhere near our starting 11. Very very average and brings nothing, other than set pieces we don't score from. Not good enough defensively to play holing midfield, offers nothing going forwards to play AM. Too weak and slow to make it successfully at this level. I said it last year, I'll say it again, the bloke belongs in the championship. If it wasn't for the fact he's our poster boy for the Academy then I think that's where he'd probably be.

The little Italian done many bad things in his time, but you cannot argue with the results he achieved. I know it wasn't his money but the reality is our ambition died the day he left. It's a shame he wasn't a decent bloke who done business in the right way!

Forster JWP Redmond Long And arguably (not in my particular opinion) Davis & Austin. All average at very best. Need shipping out and replaced with genuine quality asap (January) as they're taking up spaces in the squad. The trouble is, who would actually want any of them? Jury is still out on Boufal and PEH but I'm happy to give them a bit more time.

That's all If and buts, but it's something that I don't disagree with. From what I've seen of Silva, he's a very good manager, who organises teams well and plays at a high tempo. He seemed the natural replacement of Puel, but Les and Co saw otherwise. Personally I think we put all our eggs in the Tuchel basket (that's just speculation on what I've been told.. I.e us talking to both Silva and Tuchel). Recruitment has been poor for a number of windows now. This summer on paper looked alright, but we failed to address our lack of creativity.

Yep, same. Very average coach with a poor reputation in football. We should have sacked him when we had the chance with the telegraph stuff. Not sure he's the problem though as he's actually been 'demoted' this year, hasn't he.

Something has to change. We can't persist with 4-2-3-1/4-3-3 so I'd go for --------------Forster------------- - Yoshida -- Stephens -- Hoedt - Cedric---------------------Bertrand -------Romeu----Lemina---------- Redmond--------------------Boufal --------------Gabi----------------- They are a very very very average side, Watford are actually pretty decent, so if we lose this it really is time to start worrying.

It was neither. His first choice was Tuchel, he turned us down and if I'm honest I don't blame him. You can't blame Reed to sacking Puel, it was the right thing to do. What you can blame him for is a clear lack of creativity brought in the market and Puels replacement, if he carrys on like this.

The worse thing is that we spoke to him, then dismissed him. You've got to ask why. Was he not happy with only being a 'coach' and relying on the black box? Did he not want to play the way Les see's us? I don't know, but early days would suggest it was a mistake.

Agree completely with this, unfortunately Puels style just didn't suit the PL. Build up play was far to slow and predictable. Unless you've got exceptional creative players, PL sides will stick 2 banks for 4 and hit you on the counter. For me, if you're a team of our size/ability you either have to pres high and counter quickly I.e poch, or sit deeper have good orginaisation and counter with pace I.e Koeman (and Leicester when then won the league)

Many said last season that we should go go for Silva. They were of course shot down by a the few idiots on here (the usual happy clapping suspects) who claimed he wasn't any better than Puel. Their evidence was that he had just been relegated with (a terrible) Hull. I'm not sure today result is the managers fault, it's more that we have a few very bang average players, but they beat us all over the park today. Would it have been any different under Silva? I don't know. But from what I've seen, Silva was the better manager out there today.

1. No he's not. He's right footed so will work fine. 2. No he's not. Yoshida is a considerably defender than Stephens.

Not really surprising. He is one of, if not the best, CB in the league - he could and should earn over double the reported £60k a week.

Nope, I take everything with a pinch of salt and verify it against things i'm told by people I trust, who I know are correct. I don't claim to be 'ITK' though. I get told little bits by a couple of people who work at the club (senior positions). You seem to continue to reference the fact that I said Bertrand would be leaving... At the time of that post that was correct. Things change, as I've explained on a number of occasions, if Puel had remained and we had let him go, he would have. As it happens (and credit to the board) we refused to sell players we wanted to keep. Is he happy about that, not really, but he's acting like a professional should. Believe it or not, to be honest I couldn't really give a *****, but I promise you, it was 100% accurate (at the time and his representatives had spoken to other clubs). But well done for both proving my point in belittling those who try and provide what info they have

No, what I'm saying is that if you don't believe what someone has to say, ignore it. Let people judge for themselves what they do / don't believe, we don't need the usual suspects (always, pamplemousse & MLG) trying to belittle people for sharing their 'snippets'. As I said, only a very small number of people are truely 'ITK' and I can guarantee you that they don't post on here. As Eric has said, I bet everyone / anyone who posts snippets on here or else where will be second hand information and most probably based on rumours and/or old information.

Ignore the idiots pal, you'll get used to who they are. As others have said, things change very quickly and only a handful of people know exactly what's going on inside the club, everyone else has to feed off scraps. Unfortunately the real trolls on here are scaring away those with useful information.

Saints have entered a team into the Southampton Senior Cup - The squad will be made up of mostly U18's but can include anyone who is registered to the club. Give him (VVD) a game or 2 against a couple of teams from the Southampton League on Millbrook Rec and watch big Phil kick lumps out of him for 90 minutes. Hopefully that will bring him down to reality a bit. In fact, whilst they should clearly **** it in terms of ability, it should be a good learning curve and a chance for the youngsters to see how privileged they really are.

I'll correct you, you're wrong.

I hope he goes to City if i'm honest - it seems as if they respectfully accepted that he wasn't for sale and backed off (similar to united when they were in for Shaw the window before they got him).