themasoon

Peter Bosz would be my preferred option, being a manager that plays pressing, attacking football and keen to develop youth. However being in the relegation battle, I'm not sure he would have the experience to pull us out although nearly any manager would do better with our squad than Pellegrino.

For all the stick Les Reed is getting (and yes I dont like the Pellegrino appointment) most of our signings are a success, especially the last couple of windows, and I can't think of any other club in the premier league where in the last few years 2 of our managers have been poached by bigger clubs. Also, the Puel appointment made a lot of sense and ticked all the boxes initially it just didn't work out but I do believe that's Pellegrino is a bad choice and I'm sure the board will only be waiting as they may believe they can get a much better manager in the summer than mid way through the season. Les Reed has done a lot for us and yes he has made mistakes but he has been far more successful than most directors of football given the circumstances and we still continually find and sign top players. We just need the next manager to be good to get the best out of a very good squad. Les Reed is not the problem, Pellegrino is.

Pellegrino announced tomorrow

Saw this interesting view on Alaves. Seems like although Pellegrino likes a defensively solid team, it's not in the form of a Pulis "sit deep" but rather defending aggressively with high pressing and interceptions. Pellegrino's teams seem to always play with a high intensity which will obviously be refreshing.

Laurent Blanc would be my favourite. A big name that will command respect, plays attractive football and also looks to promote youth so clearly a good coach too. Not saying it's likely but surely ticks all the boxes.

They also spent £30 and £17 million on Sissoko and Jansen respectively as well as £20 million on both N'Jie and N'Koudou so I think we have a better recruitment team than them. Also they're in a far stronger position than us with respect to keeping players but you know that and choose to ignore it nonetheless.

If I remember last year we didn't appoint Rudi Garcia because he wanted to bring all his backroom staff with him. I wonder if after the Eric black experiment we might allow the next manager to bring all their staff with them or even re-approach Rudi Garcia for the job.

Tbf to Puel he converted McQueen into a left back and I can guarantee you when bertrand and targett were injured Koeman would have put Yoshida/Martina at left back instead of trying to make McQueen a wing back so I think that's wrong. Koeman shipped out Stephens on loan without giving him a chance in pre-season I think and the board weren't happy with that so not sure Stephens would've been chosen by other managers over the experience of Caceres. I agree that Puel will probably go and he has his flaws but he has done well with the youth so think it's unfair to say he hasn't.

Wonder if we would go for Eduardo Berizzo of Celta Vigo to replace Puel. Plays high intensity, pressing football and his contract is up in the summer. Also has done a good job with Celta Vigo and outplayed united the other week and beat Real Madrid in the cup. http://outsideoftheboot.com/2017/05/02/tactical-philosophy-eduardo-berizzo/

Saw Leeds didn't make the playoffs. Surely that improves our chances of signing Jansson if that's who we really want. Anyone seen much of him?

To everyone that thinks Marco Silva is a second coming of Pochettino his style is totally different. His sides are often very defensive and rely on a counter attack which I'm sure will excite all the fans. http://outsideoftheboot.com/2017/02/16/tactical-philosophy-marco-silva/ "Even at a side with a crowd as demanding of dominating, attacking football like Olympiakos, Silva’s priority was organisation and defensive structure. His main form of attack is counter attack – the Greeks even used to joke that his side were so eager to counter, they would often consider giving the ball to their opponents just to break on them." Not sure this will be the type of manager we would want.

If we stick to a 4-2-3-1 we might as well sell Long and J-Rod in the summer as we will have Gabbiadini, Austin, Gallagher and Seager which is plenty of cover for 1 striker

Not that I can be really bothered to go into whether Puel should stay or go but I just came across this which should dispel any ideas about us not being attacking or having enough shots with him in charge. Bet the fans at Bayern, Juventus, Chelsea and Monaco are fuming at their boring style of play too.

In all seriousness who would you suggest we bring in to replace him then?

Don't get me wrong our run of form has been disappointing. But if we get away from the emotion of it all and look at it pragmatically then Puel could be the best thing for this club as he gives our academy players a chance and promotes them as well as doing well in the cups as well as being a manager for the long term. If I was les reed, I would let Puel go back to the diamond for the next couple of games and the cup final and see how that goes. If not then I would consider replacing him. I do think we pass the ball well but we don't dominate games like we should. Feel sorry for Puel as I don't think he's had it easy and this may be a case of a few factors that has led to this form rather than him being a bad manager. Relegation has become a worry for the first time in years but I'm sure Les Reed knows what he's doing we and have to trust the club and give them a chance to turn this around.

Hopefully this signing will see us return to the diamond formation with gabbiadini on the right and Jay on the left with boufal just behind. Both jay and gabbiadini don't seem to be the traditional number 9 strikers and I personally think we played our best football with the diamond. This may be les Reeds' way of giving puel the players he needs to return to this formation

I'm not trying to get regionised I really don't care. I just got told by a youth player at Colchester that we are in for Southampton we its 2 players. Idk who before you ask but my guess Is gabbiadini and Sakhalin. I'm sure they'll both do well

An African BBC broadcaster on Twitter yesterday said that we will sign him in January as cover for Boufal when he goes to AFCON (he's a verified account btw)

A statistical analysis can only analyse the sample and variables it is given , obviously, what this means is that you cannot necessarily claim this will happen in another scenario outside of those variables. For example, if I tested this for last season I can't assume that it will be the case for this season or whether it would apply to another league as they would be different environments and contain different variables and outside factors that we wouldn't be able to account for. Again a statistical conclusion is subject to the constraints of the test, and I agree with you a statistical review using only 3 games is no where near a large enough sample size but I would say those numbers are promising. A test such as this would require a model that would compute the numbers and state the points/goals gained per possession point over 50% (for example), just looking at the data is not enough. There have been many times in research when I've seen something and assumed a result would occur and after programming it I actually get a different conclusion. Also the interpretation of data is a seperate issue, we could all look at a dataset and see different things and infer different results. Finally, a big issue in statistical analysis is the mis use of the word "correlation" as correlation DOES NOT mean causation. Many people will look at a correlation and incorrectly assume that this means that possession (or lack of) means goals but you would need to test for causation and that gets complicated. An easy example of this issue would be seeing a correlation between me wearing shorts and Southampton winning, just because they may win on the occasions that I wear shorts and there's a correlation that does not mean that me wearing shorts causes saints to win. Hope this helps.

I agree that in a perfect world that the players will easily slot into a new system however it may be the case that Puel and the coaches see a better way of playing and a style that will improve us but for us to adapt to it we may require time. Almost like 1 step back and 2 steps forward. As Puel would likely see this as a long term "project" he would want to equip the team to be the best in the long run rather than look for immediate results and playing the same way as before without ever improving and evolving significantly.

I think the Euros hurt Puel as a lot of his players weren't there to adapt to this style of play, which doesn't allow us to hoof it up to Pelle. Also the two up top with 1 at the tip of the diamond when fluid doesn't differ much from a 4-3-3 formation. It was frustrating to see our players static at times with a lack of movement but I believe that will come, we don't need to panic just yet I remember it taking Pochettino about 6 games to win his first one in the league and he wasn't too bad.

I would say that the difference between a 4-4-2 diamond and a 4-3-3 is very minimal, especially when Puel played with a very fluid 3 up top at Nice (2 strikers and top of diamond). He did say that the team were tired following a tough weeks training and I'll expect to see the three up top to be much more flexible with Redmond and tadic moving around, similar to what we did with Lallana lambert and Rodriguez under Pochettino. My one worry with this is whether it suits tadic but a fluid and flexible attack would hopefully give him more freedom like Ben arfa had at nice. With our preferred full backs providing the width as well I think this formation could be a success.

http://www.birminghammail.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/aston-villa-reasons-remi-garde-10783980 Interesting about Eric Black

It's crazy how many different favourites there have been for the job. Although Puel wasn't my initial favourite I think he's probably the best "fit" for our club. Btw whoever first posted that one article about him is a genius (check my profile you're welcome)

I would've preferred "La Liga Relegation hipster manager" I know Fry was a huge fan of his.