Claude Puel

[miserableoldgit]

5 hours ago, Lighthouse said:

We went downhill when VvD got injured, Fonte wanted out and we decided to ‘make do’ with Stephens and Caceres, until we could replace the latter with Hoedt.

He wasn’t kicked because of anything to do with charisma, nobody sacks a manager because they give dull interviews. Not that any fans really cared about that either, it’s something of a straw-man argument.

Puel's reign was a strange one. Yes, eighth and a Cup Final, but for the only time in many, many years, I couldn't be asked to stay for the "Traditional" lap of honour at the final home game of the season, and from what I remember, I wasn't the only by a long chalk.

[OldNick]

19 minutes ago, miserableoldgit said:

Puel's reign was a strange one. Yes, eighth and a Cup Final, but for the only time in many, many years, I couldn't be asked to stay for the "Traditional" lap of honour at the final home game of the season, and from what I remember, I wasn't the only by a long chalk.

The fans had decided that they didnt like him. Thats fine,its all choice and opinion. Still doesnt get over the fact that he did very well

[miserableoldgit]

26 minutes ago, OldNick said:

The fans had decided that they didnt like him. Thats fine,its all choice and opinion. Still doesnt get over the fact that he did very well

Yes....that's why I said it was strange.......disinterest in someone who had been pretty successful.

[capitalsaint]

1 hour ago, OldNick said:

The fans had decided that they didnt like him. Thats fine,its all choice and opinion. Still doesnt get over the fact that he did very well

Weren't there rumours about the players also not being too keen, at least compared to Koeman? Maybe I've misremembered.

[aintforever]

4 hours ago, OldNick said:

The fans had decided that they didnt like him. Thats fine,its all choice and opinion. Still doesnt get over the fact that he did very well

His problem was that he followed Poch and Koeman, the fans were spoilt.

 

[OldNick]

15 hours ago, aintforever said:

His problem was that he followed Poch and Koeman, the fans were spoilt.

 

Very similar to Chris Nicholl following Lawrie

[Lighthouse]

15 hours ago, aintforever said:

His problem was that he followed Poch and Koeman, the fans were spoilt.

 

Koeman followed Adkins and Poch.

Poch followed Pardew and Adkins.

Neither of their reputations seem to have suffered from the popularity of their predecessor, if you’re doing a decent job in all likelihood you’ll be popular regardless. Losing Fonte and VvD is tough but they weren’t coming back. If Puel couldn’t do anything other than sit everyone back and hope for a 0-0 without them, he wasn’t the man to take us into the next season.

[OldNick]

1 hour ago, Lighthouse said:

Koeman followed Adkins and Poch.

Poch followed Pardew and Adkins.

Neither of their reputations seem to have suffered from the popularity of their predecessor, if you’re doing a decent job in all likelihood you’ll be popular regardless. Losing Fonte and VvD is tough but they weren’t coming back. If Puel couldn’t do anything other than sit everyone back and hope for a 0-0 without them, he wasn’t the man to take us into the next season.

I think you will find we missed penalties in the 0-0 draws towards the end of the season. We played some superb attaking , flowing football. WHU away, the games in our cup run, this without having a summer to recruit

[Whitey Grandad]

34 minutes ago, OldNick said:

I think you will find we missed penalties in the 0-0 draws towards the end of the season. We played some superb attaking , flowing football. WHU away, the games in our cup run, this without having a summer to recruit

Oh really? I didn’t see much of that.

[LuckyNumber7]

36 minutes ago, OldNick said:

I think you will find we missed penalties in the 0-0 draws towards the end of the season. We played some superb attaking , flowing football. WHU away, the games in our cup run, this without having a summer to recruit

We went six consecutive home games without scoring. That wasn't just down to missed penalties, it's because we played negative turgid football at home. Granted we were better away, but cup run aside it really wasn't a great season. 8th was a false position really with our unusually low points tally.

[Turkish]

1 hour ago, Lighthouse said:

Koeman followed Adkins and Poch.

Poch followed Pardew and Adkins.

Neither of their reputations seem to have suffered from the popularity of their predecessor, if you’re doing a decent job in all likelihood you’ll be popular regardless. Losing Fonte and VvD is tough but they weren’t coming back. If Puel couldn’t do anything other than sit everyone back and hope for a 0-0 without them, he wasn’t the man to take us into the next season.

It wasnt just VVD and Fonte too, in the summer he lost Mane and Pelle who were our two leading scorers, and Wanyama who at the time was one of the best CDMs in the league. The spine of Koemans team was gone and replaced with Boufal, Austin, Stephens, Yoshida, Redmond and Hojbjerg. Huge downgrades. Plus he also had the Europa league campaign the contend with meaning 6 more games in the first half of the season. This myth that he played for 0-0s is something that's been created on here by people who had been spoilt by the years before him.

[Saint Fan CaM]

42 minutes ago, Turkish said:

It wasnt just VVD and Fonte too, in the summer he lost Mane and Pelle who were our two leading scorers, and Wanyama who at the time was one of the best CDMs in the league. The spine of Koemans team was gone and replaced with Boufal, Austin, Stephens, Yoshida, Redmond and Hojbjerg. Huge downgrades. Plus he also had the Europa league campaign the contend with meaning 6 more games in the first half of the season. This myth that he played for 0-0s is something that's been created on here by people who had been spoilt by the years before him.

Amazing to think now that Yoshi, Redmond and Hojberg would totally outclass the level of player we’re now stuck with. It really does reveal what terrible recruitment we’ve endured over the intervening years.

[aintforever]

4 hours ago, Lighthouse said:

Koeman followed Adkins and Poch.

Poch followed Pardew and Adkins.

Neither of their reputations seem to have suffered from the popularity of their predecessor, if you’re doing a decent job in all likelihood you’ll be popular regardless. Losing Fonte and VvD is tough but they weren’t coming back. If Puel couldn’t do anything other than sit everyone back and hope for a 0-0 without them, he wasn’t the man to take us into the next season.

It wasn't just the managers though was it, wasn't he time he took over when Kat was looking to flog the club so we were already in decline, he certainly didn't have Cortese spaffing Marcus's money up the wall like it was going out of fashion, like Posh had.

Football fans always get spoilt easily, when you are used to Van Dyke and Mane you are bound not to get excited by likes of Che Adams and Jack Stephens. Puel's football was boring as hell though which didn't help which is why when he got sacked I wasn't bothered even though I thought it was harsh.

Edited Wednesday at 16:12 by aintforever

[Noodles34]

1 hour ago, Turkish said:

It wasnt just VVD and Fonte too, in the summer he lost Mane and Pelle who were our two leading scorers, and Wanyama who at the time was one of the best CDMs in the league. The spine of Koemans team was gone and replaced with Boufal, Austin, Stephens, Yoshida, Redmond and Hojbjerg. Huge downgrades. Plus he also had the Europa league campaign the contend with meaning 6 more games in the first half of the season. This myth that he played for 0-0s is something that's been created on here by people who had been spoilt by the years before him.

He didn't play for 0-0 draws but he certainly set out more on the side of not losing than trying to win. Yeah, the fans were spoiled, but doesn't make his football less dull and he paid the price for that. He did the same at Leicester and their fans wanted him gone, so I think that proves the point that his football was shit (to watch). 

[Lighthouse]

This was us at home after we lost Fonte and Virgil. It was sh*t. I watched it, it was sh*t to watch and so were the results. I remember being at the Palace game and even that was a fairly turgid experience.

[OldNick]

1 hour ago, Lighthouse said:

This was us at home after we lost Fonte and Virgil. It was sh*t. I watched it, it was sh*t to watch and so were the results. I remember being at the Palace game and even that was a fairly turgid experience.

we are polarised and so neither will change, but look at those games 2 x Arsenal, Man City, and Man utd before their decline. So not too shabby, had we gained a few more points against those sides (Man Utd I think finished 2nd)  we may have finished in the 6th place 

[OldNick]

3 hours ago, LuckyNumber7 said:

We went six consecutive home games without scoring. That wasn't just down to missed penalties, it's because we played negative turgid football at home. Granted we were better away, but cup run aside it really wasn't a great season. 8th was a false position really with our unusually low points tally.

'What did the Romans do for us'    Crikey 0-0 draws is a luxury this season lol. 

WHat a football fan craves is the herion fix of a goal, as we failed to score the pressure of not having a fix built up. It was a shame that we missed those pens, I think one was very late in a game, everything would have been so much rosy.

I dont know how long you have been going but I recall the days of Chris Nichol where we just couldt get a goal / wiin until we got the happy release by scoring a late winner. All of a sudden the world changed in a moment. Anyway I would have liked Puel to have been given a bit longer. 

[Whitey Grandad]

2 hours ago, Lighthouse said:

This was us at home after we lost Fonte and Virgil. It was sh*t. I watched it, it was sh*t to watch and so were the results. I remember being at the Palace game and even that was a fairly turgid experience.

Looks very familiar. Similar to this season.

[Lighthouse]

1 hour ago, OldNick said:

we are polarised and so neither will change, but look at those games 2 x Arsenal, Man City, and Man utd before their decline. So not too shabby, had we gained a few more points against those sides (Man Utd I think finished 2nd)  we may have finished in the 6th place 

We were miles off 6th place. In terms of points we were closer to getting relegated than finishing 7th.

[East Kent Saint]

Puel turned out to be crap , boring football and no personality .

[bangkoksaint]

16 hours ago, Whitey Grandad said:

Oh really? I didn’t see much of that.

I’m not necessarily disagreeing with you on the whole but remember Sims breaking at pace from out of his own half and feeding Shane at Anfield in the semi? Can’t help but feel if that was a Russell Martin team protecting a 1-0 lead at that stage of the game we’d have just tried to keep the ball and knock it around at the back?

[Dman]

On 11/03/2025 at 14:03, OldNick said:

No idea either, many mangers leave and dont do anything elsewhere. To me he did well for us. To a degree Kpeman failed at his next club, Lawrie failed at Sunderland and so it is just is the man  right for that team at that time.

 

Koeman done pretty well with Everton in his first season when he had Lukaku up top. Lukaku then moved on and I believe they had Giroud through the door before a late change of heart (call from Chelsea). Koeman then went on to be sacked. 

Talk about sliding doors moments - had they signed Giroud, I think Koeman would have been incredibly sucessful there. 

[OldNick]

1 hour ago, Dman said:

Koeman done pretty well with Everton in his first season when he had Lukaku up top. Lukaku then moved on and I believe they had Giroud through the door before a late change of heart (call from Chelsea). Koeman then went on to be sacked. 

Talk about sliding doors moments - had they signed Giroud, I think Koeman would have been incredibly sucessful there. 

If we had that would have been good as well