CSA96

Part 3 - which focuses on transfer strategy - is now live: https://www.dailyecho.co.uk/sport/23560359.southampton-owners-reflect-january-recruitment-outline-plans/ Key quotes... Dragan Solak: “We also changed the game model [after the January window shut] unfortunately, we did the January window and then changed the manager. “Suddenly the new manager came in with new ideas and those players were basically brought in like a week ago. Hopefully, we will not have this situation again.” Rasmus Ankersen: “January is always very tough, it is tough from a financial perspective. Nobody wants to lose their best players in January, players need to hit the ground running – it’s tough when there is no pre-season, so there is always a risk on recruitment. “I think a couple of the players like (Charly) Alcaraz and to an extent Sulemana have done well, but there have clearly been some mis-hits where the players haven’t had an impact for one reason or another. "There will be some turnover because the squad is too big but there are some very talented football players in that group which we will be intending to keep. I think it’s more an exciting job for the manager and director of football, if I was the manager that looked into the dressing room, I wouldn’t be too worried.” “We are not going to go back in (the Premier League) and compete on money, we will invest, but that is why we are building the club network we are – to try and get the players into our system before they cost £30million. Time will tell whether that will be successful or not but I think there is some good evidence from other clubs that it is possible to do. “There is also a lot of talent there in our squad that can improve, hopefully we can get a good pre-season, play some exciting football, entertain fans and win football matches.” Henrik Kraft: “First of all, what we have said is that we are fully committed to the club and it is a long-term project. "There are other things that we are building with Sport Republic. This is to be able to create an infrastructure that actually gives us what we want long-term, bringing players through in a different way so we’re not fighting on the last day of the transfer window. “We believe that over two or three years we will move towards a much more sustainable business model. Obviously, we believe in the investments we have made and continue to make.”

Part 3 of the Sport Republic sit down with the Echo - focusing on transfers - is now up: https://www.dailyecho.co.uk/sport/23560359.southampton-owners-reflect-january-recruitment-outline-plans/ Key quotes from Ankersen: “January is always very tough, it is tough from a financial perspective. Nobody wants to lose their best players in January, players need to hit the ground running – it’s tough when there is no pre-season, so there is always a risk on recruitment. “I think a couple of the players like Alcaraz and to an extent Sulemana have done well, but there have clearly been some mis-hits where the players haven’t had an impact for one reason or another. "There will be some turnover because the squad is too big but there are some very talented players in that group which we will be intending to keep. I think it’s more an exciting job for the manager and director of football, if I was the manager that looked into the dressing room, I wouldn’t be too worried.” “We are not going to go back in (the Premier League) and compete on money, we will invest, but that is why we are building the club network we are – to try and get the players into our system before they cost £30million. Time will tell whether that will be successful or not but I think there is some good evidence from other clubs that it is possible to do. “There is also a lot of talent there in our squad that can improve, hopefully we can get a good pre-season, play some exciting football, entertain fans and win football matches.”

Yeah - but: https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https://www.dailyecho.co.uk/sport/23558281.southampton-fc-owners-explain-key-incomings-amid-championship-target/

Part two of the interview is now out there: https://www.dailyecho.co.uk/sport/23558281.southampton-fc-owners-explain-key-incomings-amid-championship-target/ Some of the key quotes... Rasmus Ankersen: “Jason [Wilcox] will have day-to-day contact with the head coach and we will be here more often. We will have a presence here but that is mainly to support everyone and show that Sport Republic is behind the club and wants everyone to be successful. “We want to support them but won’t be here executing day-to-day operations, that is their job. Jason will support the manager every day, be involved in key decisions and make sure we have that alignment. “We want to build a larger system of clubs and fuel player development through that so we have enough on our plate building that and that is our focus but, clearly, this is our flagship club, so we will give whatever attention it needs to be successful.” “You don’t want to sign a player the head coach doesn’t want. There is a lot of waste there, so that is one part,” Ankersen said. “But on the other hand, people from the outside sometimes forget that being the head coach is a hard job and they don’t have much time to watch players and that is why you have a big scouting team that doesn’t do anything else but find the right players. “The head coach is very important in identifying the type of player we want and the final process when we have three candidates, he can help choose which one he prefers. Jason will overlook this and it’s a collaborative effort. “You want to have multiple views on a player to make sure every stone is turned. It’s a big operation, modern football. There is a whole system that operates that.” Dragan Solak: “The new manager, the suggestion, the analysis and the reason why will come predominantly from Jason, not from us - because he is the director of football. “We hope to be consulted and to be involved in decision-making but we truly believe in the people we will give power to run the club and will do everything we can to support them and enable them to do better. “He [the new manager] is always capable of staking his desires [for transfer targets] but they have to be checked over and there has to be a discussion and a joint decision. “Nobody is going to just buy players and tell the coach, here is the team! He needs to like the players and know their role in the team. “We will not send him a bus load of players, it’s not one man’s decision but it is in the domain of Jason, the manager, their team and scouts and us on the transfer committee.” Henrik Kraft: “The goal is to win the Championship, the goal is very clear, the goal is to get promoted. “We are trying to shape the organisation to make sure it is fit for purpose and absolutely achieves that goal. I think we will have a lot more resources in reality than most of our competitors this season so we are in a very good position.”

I think that theory is probably nonsense. Far more likely that they’re waiting for Wilcox to be around for the Martin announcement, for the optics of presenting him as the new regime’s choice and both of them being able to speak about the new season and summer ahead. Didn’t somebody say Wilcox’s official first day is June 1? If so…

Leeds United trying to hire West Brom boss Carlos Corberan.

I think the NJ questions are pretty impossible for them to answer, really. Everyone knows it was a clusterfuck at this point. If they get a press officer to shut down questions = media get to use a 'Sport Republic refused to comment' and they get piled on If they talk about him but only to say they won't be talking about it further = they get piled on for dodging questions about their failure If they talk about him but don't hammer him = they get piled on for not hammering him, because he was a disaster Ultimately, it is bad for business to go out and hammer a LMA member in public. They're not going to do it, nor should they. Especially when he's their one and only permanent hire I thought they were relatively fair in offering an explanation of what led them to NJ, and I also thought Dragan was relatively fair in his appraisal of Jones being unable to handle the scrutiny of being a PL manager. That said, he was a complete fucking lunatic narcissist and should never have been brought within a mile of St. Mary's because all of this information was obvious with some solid background checks.

Paywall passer on the article from The Times: https://archive.ph/nUmfb

June 14

Suppose now that we know all the teams in the division, we should get a thread going to track what goes on... Any teams people are particularly looking forward to facing or grounds that people want to tick off?

Saints confirm further senior appointments at Staplewoodhttps://www.southamptonfc.com/en/ne...irm-further-senior-appointments-at-staplewoodSouthampton Football Club is pleased to confirm two further senior appointments at Staplewood Campus, with Mark Bitcon joining as Director of Performance and Darren Mowbray as Head of Recruitment.Bitcon moves to Saints from England Rugby, where he has been Head of Athletic Performance and Innovation for the past two years, working across both the men’s and women’s programmes. He previously spent four years as Director of Performance Services at Manchester City’s academy and prior to that held similar roles at Wigan Warriors and across international sport.He will oversee all performance areas including science, medicine, psychology and performance analysis at Southampton and across all Sport Republic teams.Mowbray arrives from Aberdeen, having joined the Scottish Premier League side – who finished third in this season’s table – as Head of Recruitment in 2021. Prior to that, he held senior roles at Burnley, Middlesbrough and Leeds.Bitcon and Mowbray will join the club later this summer, with Mowbray serving his notice at Aberdeen until 1st July. They will both work as part of the team under incoming Director of Football Jason Wilcox.

That’s the problem with Southampton, they always try to walk it into the net.

Well, thank goodness that's over.

Yeah, there’s a piece on The Athletic saying they’ve got the 7th biggest wage bill in the PL. They’re basically in the situation we would’ve been in the first year or two of Gao, had we gone down.

I have absolutely no idea how anyone has looked at the last four years and concluded that we've been playing possession-heavy football under RS, NJ and RH. This season alone, we rank second-last for possession (44.4%) and sixth-last for passing completion (77.4%) across the campaign.

Oh Christ, that's brought back something I'd tried to forget about... I genuinely cannot believe Saints looked at that footage and went ahead with publishing. It was... painfully amateurish. One of the worst things we've ever put out there willingly, maybe? Would be interested to know if it was driven by them or if it was some sort of PR idea from the powers that be. No surprise when The Athletic story came out some time later by highlighting that some players/staff felt the sessions were far too basic.

With the drop in quality of opponents and Martin's preference to dominate and have his strikers making runs for, God forbid, progressive passes - he could play a role. The question at this point is really whether he is the same player and whether he and the club both want to work at it over the summer. He wouldn't be one of the names I am pushing out the door immediately and I suspect he'll be around for pre-season at least.

Context will always decide the shade of grey. I don't think it's ever black or white with possession, tbh. If you're performing to expectations or above expectations, say at the top end of the league, but you take a chunk of each game as possession for possession's sake (Man City, Burnley, Arsenal in years gone by etc) to keep the opponent at arm's length and protect your advantage, then fine. But if you're chasing a playoff/promotion spot and losing valuable time while you're chasing a result, then possession for possession's sake would be a waste, yes. We don't know who the squad is yet, let alone how we are shaping up relative to the rest of the division. I just hope that the manager is backed properly, with the players that he wants to work with, not players that we end up with because somebody at board level knows the agent or has a prior connection. It's clear Shields was doing a bit of this in the summer and Ankersen certainly was too with the Onuachu deal and links to Rasmus Højlund and Morten Hjulmand in January.

Probably about the same as he infers from Arsenal having 82% possession yesterday and losing 1-0? Which was Lighthouse's entire point.

Amen. Time to blow it up and totally reset the spine of the team. I hope SR realise that (I think they do) and don't expect Martin to just tweak a couple of bits here and there and get us going like Burnley in this season just gone.