Why does the club fall apart every summer ?

[Saint86]

Yep.

 

And for all those bemoaning the predictability of my thread, perhaps its worthwhile pointing out that their responses are always the same over-spun "the club knows what its doing" postivity too.

 

We finished 8th last season because the rest of the middle-tier clubs were even more sh*t. We failed to get out of a god-awful Europa League group. Yes we got to the League Cup final, granted, but it wasnt THAT great a season, compared to beating all the top clubs and finishing 6th the year before, ahead of Chelsea and Liverpool. Last summer we did poor business on players and manager.

 

There is nothing wrong with this post guys. I know you want to laugh at him. But this post is one of the more balanced on here regarding the season just gone...

[Nordic Saint]

Les Reed.

[captainchris]

We signed them all on long term contracts, paying bigger wages than ever before. We tell everyone they are not for sale. We even hold one or two to their contracts, despite potentially losing resale value. We increase the attractiveness of the club by investing in improved training facilities and even have the audacity to improve final league position each year. Is there much else the club can do to try and make the players stay?

 

The fact is we are way down the pyramid and top quality players will be bought by those higher up. Always have done, always will. If you have a solution to this problem, I'd be interested to hear it and if that response includes the phrase "just hold them to their contract" or "make them sit in the stands" then you will be wasting your breath.

 

Activity? By that do you mean announcing the signings? I say that because scouting and negotiating with a player's club and agent can often start months (even longer for scouting) before the deal goes through. Often the transfer relies on the selling club having a replacement lined up. Deals fall through, others become available. Another factor is cash flow. Sell Mane, real money is available to pay off debts and make down payments on the next player. Its not championship manager. Things take time. If you are at the top of three pyramid like Man City you can lead the way, but as ManU showed a few season back, even with their money and clout, there is no guarantee that targets will be got and got quickly.

 

Not sure Saints are any worse than the next club. What's you ideal scenario. Sack manager before the media get a hint of whats going on. Tie up all lose ends in a day. Announce the new guy the following day? Good luck with that.

 

Hope so. As it seems to annoy squinnying fans.

 

Yep. That's the plan...

 

Not that it matters but ..... I can't think of one club that has the chaos and turmoil we have had for last few consecutive summers or even one summer even?

That is the perspective you need to consider. Nobody loses players like we do continuously every summer. We contrive to engineer a total lack of control over the exodus every year...

[patred44]

It's tiresome, it's like trying to walk up an esculator thats coming down, stop to take a breath and we find were right back where we started. Every summer FFS.

This is not stability, we are putting our PL status at risk every season.

Well. that's my perception FWIW

Edited 7 June, 2017 by patred44

[Pamplemousse]

This will be an amusing thread to bump at the end of next season

[alpine_saint]

This will be an amusing thread to bump at the end of next season

 

What justifies that smugness ?

 

You've made it persistently clear you see Puel as the right manager, and we've made it clear we will only stick with him if we find nothing better. Hardly a ringing endorsement..............

[OttawaSaint]

Where's the British bulldog spirit?

 

Acting like a bunch of surrender monkeys!

[trousers]

Alps me ol' mucka.... out of curiosity, since the Liebherrs took over in 2009, which would you say has been the most disastrous season? Yes, I know, I know... every season has had a dreadful outcome due to the poor way we've gone about our business every summer, but just wondering if one stands out above the others in your opinion? Much obliged sir.

[GGalpin]

Alps me ol' mucka.... out of curiosity, since the Liebherrs took over in 2009, which would you say has been the most disastrous season? Yes, I know, I know... every season has had a dreadful outcome due to the poor way we've gone about our business every summer, but just wondering if one stands out above the others in your opinion? Much obliged sir.

 

Been all downhill since start of 12/13, haven't been promoted since then

[Pamplemousse]

What justifies that smugness ?

 

You've made it persistently clear you see Puel as the right manager, and we've made it clear we will only stick with him if we find nothing better. Hardly a ringing endorsement..............

 

You make the same comments every summer, and every time, you are proven wrong.

 

The club knows what it's doing, so relax.

[Dalek2003]

Because its always the fecking same

 

Groundhog day, as I said last year and the year before that an the year before that and the year before that and...

[View From The Top]

It comes somewhat as a shock that Thrush's has beaten his new kit rant regarding lack of very fat bast_ard sizes with his usual meltdown dirge.

 

In future please get them the right way around again, some of us lose track of where we are in the meltdown season when you're not as predictable as normal.

 

See you in Austria for the pre-season games tubbsy.

[Redslo]

Yep.

 

And for all those bemoaning the predictability of my thread, perhaps its worthwhile pointing out that their responses are always the same over-spun "the club knows what its doing" postivity too.

 

We finished 8th last season because the rest of the middle-tier clubs were even more sh*t. We failed to get out of a god-awful Europa League group. Yes we got to the League Cup final, granted, but it wasnt THAT great a season, compared to beating all the top clubs and finishing 6th the year before, ahead of Chelsea and Liverpool. Last summer we did poor business on players and manager.

 

But you were complaining in advance of the 2015-2016 season too. At best you are the Southampton FC cuckoo equivalent of a broken clock who just happened to be right last summer. More likely you are the equivalent of a digital clocked that flashes 88:88. But either way a broken clock provides no actual information.

 

The title of the post is completely over the top but I do think that we are one summer of mass exodus and poor recruitment away from being in trouble. That doesn't mean the club doesn't know what its doing but there is pressure on them to get it right this summer and with several things quite uncertain, even at this early stage, it does make the job a lot harder to do.

 

That is pretty much true of every club in the Premier League.

 

Not that it matters but ..... I can't think of one club that has the chaos and turmoil we have had for last few consecutive summers or even one summer even?

That is the perspective you need to consider. Nobody loses players like we do continuously every summer. We contrive to engineer a total lack of control over the exodus every year...

 

That is because we are the only club that has consistently performed above its perceived level each of the last four years. (And yes I include this year.)

 

 

It's tiresome, it's like trying to walk up an esculator thats coming down, stop to take a breath and we find were right back where we started. Every summer FFS.

This is not stability, we are putting our PL status at risk every season.

Well. that's my perception FWIW

 

While I know it is just a metaphor, I must say that anyone who tries to go up a down escalator but keeps stopping to take a breath has only their own stupidity to blame for their lack of progress. The real question is what do you suggest the club should do differently? (Stop doing this is not a valid answer.)

Edited 7 June, 2017 by Redslo

[eelpie]

We do sod-all to keep our players.

We leave our transfer activity so damn late

We dont even handle management changes very well.

 

Is it deliberate ? Does the club deliberately leave the fan base desperate so that when cheapo replacements are brought in a few weeks before the first match of the season we are so grateful that some stability is being generated that we are too stupid to notice the huge amount of asset stripping in the sales vs buys figures ?

 

SFC waits until season tickets are purchased before selling star players?

[Chez]

Not that it matters but ..... I can't think of one club that has the chaos and turmoil we have had for last few consecutive summers or even one summer even?

That is the perspective you need to consider. Nobody loses players like we do continuously every summer. We contrive to engineer a total lack of control over the exodus every year...

 

no club of our size and position has bought and developed talent (that importantly has enabled us to shine in the prem and show off that talent), that when sold, has been successfully replaced like we have. When you have genuine talent, in the likes of Shaw, it is pretty much impossible to fight off interest form the big clubs. But to then go and bloody replace him with someone like Bertrand, that shines equally bright is actually a tremendous feat. What other club has had a Shaw then signed a Bertrand? One England fullback replaced by another? No one has. Lovren replaced by Toby then VVD. Chambers and Clyne. Lallana then Mane. Lambert then Pelle. Bloody amazing recruiting that is. That's why we and we alone have been raided in the way we have each summer for the last few years.

 

It's a perfect storm. We are a mid size club. We can attract players from smaller clubs, but attract the eye of bigger fish. We have tremendous talent, some developed like Morgan and Lallana, some bought like Lovren and VVD. By and large they are young and healthy. Critically they are proven in the prem, no actually they have proved that they can thrive in the Prem. The likes of Morgan were stand out players. These players have got international recognition - that attracts attention. They play in positions the big sides are weak.

 

What has happened has nothing to do with the club contriving to engineer a lack of control (what a total load of ********). It is simply a case of the club not being able to control things like bids from bigger clubs. They have made some errors and perhaps forcing Shaw to stay might have stopped the domino rally that followed, Toby should have been pinned down, but beyond that?

[Alwightmush]

Alpine Saint working his magic again (Van Dijk apology news) good work mate!

[Mr X]

Clearly not many will agree with Alpine's annual meltdown thread but I do think the club could be a little bit more honest about this dance we do every summer. It's a bit insulting to our intelligence to suggest that this year will be any difference from the previous summers. We will be selling multiple players again and they could be a bit more honest about what our model actually is rather than saying "this year is different, there won't be a lot of sales." It erodes trust with the fans.

Every year they could me out with the same lines "not for sell" "no need to sale" "player is happy" "not a selling club anymore" they really could do with being honest for once

 

Sent from my Moto G (4) using Tapatalk

[Hayling Saint]

Brilliant honest post

[Hayling Saint]

no club of our size and position has bought and developed talent (that importantly has enabled us to shine in the prem and show off that talent), that when sold, has been successfully replaced like we have. When you have genuine talent, in the likes of Shaw, it is pretty much impossible to fight off interest form the big clubs. But to then go and bloody replace him with someone like Bertrand, that shines equally bright is actually a tremendous feat. What other club has had a Shaw then signed a Bertrand? One England fullback replaced by another? No one has. Lovren replaced by Toby then VVD. Chambers and Clyne. Lallana then Mane. Lambert then Pelle. Bloody amazing recruiting that is. That's why we and we alone have been raided in the way we have each summer for the last few years.

 

It's a perfect storm. We are a mid size club. We can attract players from smaller clubs, but attract the eye of bigger fish. We have tremendous talent, some developed like Morgan and Lallana, some bought like Lovren and VVD. By and large they are young and healthy. Critically they are proven in the prem, no actually they have proved that they can thrive in the Prem. The likes of Morgan were stand out players. These players have got international recognition - that attracts attention. They play in positions the big sides are weak.

 

What has happened has nothing to do with the club contriving to engineer a lack of control (what a total load of ********). It is simply a case of the club not being able to control things like bids from bigger clubs. They have made some errors and perhaps forcing Shaw to stay might have stopped the domino rally that followed, Toby should have been pinned down, but beyond that?

 

Brilliant honest post

[ALWAYS_SFC]

no club of our size and position has bought and developed talent (that importantly has enabled us to shine in the prem and show off that talent), that when sold, has been successfully replaced like we have. When you have genuine talent, in the likes of Shaw, it is pretty much impossible to fight off interest form the big clubs. But to then go and bloody replace him with someone like Bertrand, that shines equally bright is actually a tremendous feat. What other club has had a Shaw then signed a Bertrand? One England fullback replaced by another? No one has. Lovren replaced by Toby then VVD. Chambers and Clyne. Lallana then Mane. Lambert then Pelle. Bloody amazing recruiting that is. That's why we and we alone have been raided in the way we have each summer for the last few years.

 

It's a perfect storm. We are a mid size club. We can attract players from smaller clubs, but attract the eye of bigger fish. We have tremendous talent, some developed like Morgan and Lallana, some bought like Lovren and VVD. By and large they are young and healthy. Critically they are proven in the prem, no actually they have proved that they can thrive in the Prem. The likes of Morgan were stand out players. These players have got international recognition - that attracts attention. They play in positions the big sides are weak.

 

What has happened has nothing to do with the club contriving to engineer a lack of control (what a total load of ********). It is simply a case of the club not being able to control things like bids from bigger clubs. They have made some errors and perhaps forcing Shaw to stay might have stopped the domino rally that followed, Toby should have been pinned down, but beyond that?

 

Brilliant honest post

 

In complete agreement and this should become the most golden of golden posts and posted as a must read as part of the t`s and c`s of the forum

[Nordic Saint]

no club of our size and position has bought and developed talent (that importantly has enabled us to shine in the prem and show off that talent), that when sold, has been successfully replaced like we have. When you have genuine talent, in the likes of Shaw, it is pretty much impossible to fight off interest form the big clubs. But to then go and bloody replace him with someone like Bertrand, that shines equally bright is actually a tremendous feat. What other club has had a Shaw then signed a Bertrand? One England fullback replaced by another? No one has. Lovren replaced by Toby then VVD. Chambers and Clyne. Lallana then Mane. Lambert then Pelle. Bloody amazing recruiting that is. That's why we and we alone have been raided in the way we have each summer for the last few years.

 

It's a perfect storm. We are a mid size club. We can attract players from smaller clubs, but attract the eye of bigger fish. We have tremendous talent, some developed like Morgan and Lallana, some bought like Lovren and VVD. By and large they are young and healthy. Critically they are proven in the prem, no actually they have proved that they can thrive in the Prem. The likes of Morgan were stand out players. These players have got international recognition - that attracts attention. They play in positions the big sides are weak.

 

What has happened has nothing to do with the club contriving to engineer a lack of control (what a total load of ********). It is simply a case of the club not being able to control things like bids from bigger clubs. They have made some errors and perhaps forcing Shaw to stay might have stopped the domino rally that followed, Toby should have been pinned down, but beyond that?

 

Mane would have stayed for another year, which is why Gareth Rogers fell out with Les over selling him to Liverpool so soon. Koeman would also have stayed for another year. I'm not sure that the sacking of Dodd and Williams from the Academy coaching staff was a good idea. I take your point but we could hang on to players and staff a bit longer than we do. Unitl now, we seem to have sold most of them as soon as we got an offer. But, to be fair, it appears Ralph is trying to stop that.

[saintwbu]

no club of our size and position has bought and developed talent (that importantly has enabled us to shine in the prem and show off that talent), that when sold, has been successfully replaced like we have. When you have genuine talent, in the likes of Shaw, it is pretty much impossible to fight off interest form the big clubs. But to then go and bloody replace him with someone like Bertrand, that shines equally bright is actually a tremendous feat. What other club has had a Shaw then signed a Bertrand? One England fullback replaced by another? No one has. Lovren replaced by Toby then VVD. Chambers and Clyne. Lallana then Mane. Lambert then Pelle. Bloody amazing recruiting that is. That's why we and we alone have been raided in the way we have each summer for the last few years.

 

It's a perfect storm. We are a mid size club. We can attract players from smaller clubs, but attract the eye of bigger fish. We have tremendous talent, some developed like Morgan and Lallana, some bought like Lovren and VVD. By and large they are young and healthy. Critically they are proven in the prem, no actually they have proved that they can thrive in the Prem. The likes of Morgan were stand out players. These players have got international recognition - that attracts attention. They play in positions the big sides are weak.

 

What has happened has nothing to do with the club contriving to engineer a lack of control (what a total load of ********). It is simply a case of the club not being able to control things like bids from bigger clubs. They have made some errors and perhaps forcing Shaw to stay might have stopped the domino rally that followed, Toby should have been pinned down, but beyond that?

 

Can we get this pinned to the top of the forum or something?

[ALWAYS_SFC]

5]Mane would have stayed for another year' date=' which is why Gareth Rogers fell out with Les over selling him to Liverpool so soon. Koeman would also have stayed for another year[/b']. I'm not sure that the sacking of Dodd and Williams from the Academy coaching staff was a good idea. I take your point but we could hang on to players and staff a bit longer than we do. Unitl now, we seem to have sold most of them as soon as we got an offer. But, to be fair, it appears Ralph is trying to stop that.

 

 

Complete hearsay... based on nothing

Edited 13 June, 2017 by ALWAYS_SFC

[St_Tel49]

He does have a point though.

 

I think that it is the fans that fall apart each summer!

[GGalpin]

Mane would have stayed for another year, which is why Gareth Rogers fell out with Les over selling him to Liverpool so soon. Koeman would also have stayed for another year. I'm not sure that the sacking of Dodd and Williams from the Academy coaching staff was a good idea. I take your point but we could hang on to players and staff a bit longer than we do. Unitl now, we seem to have sold most of them as soon as we got an offer. But, to be fair, it appears Ralph is trying to stop that.

 

If we kept Mane for one more year, he'd have one year left on his contract and you would've blamed Les Reed for only getting £15-20m for him. We had already made him wait one year, and Mane had gone on strike to get his move to Saints so would it have really been worth another year with an unhappy player losing £20m in the process?

 

You can say Ralph is trying to stop that, as though Reed does absolutely nothing of credit, but I doubt very much whether Krueger is really that involved with player contracts.

[Saint Garrett]

Lol - falling apart....what a mess we're in...!!!

 

Chill out, its the 13th June!!!!

[Saint Billy]

Just think what we could have achieved if we didn't have this annual sh!tstorm.

[saintwbu]

Just think what we could have achieved if we didn't have this annual sh!tstorm.

 

We'd probably have a 29 year old Adam Lallana, 35 year old Rickie Lambert, 33 year old Jose Fonte all needing to soon be replaced with no money to do it with. We'd also probably not have got to see Sadio Mane and the Premier League's fastest ever hat trick, or see us beat a team 8-0, or get to see two of the best CB's the Premier League has seen in recent years (in my opinion) in Toby Alderweireld and Virgil Van Dijk. There's a lot of things going round saying 'imagine if Southampton hadn't have sold all their players' but most of the great players we've seen, and have been lucky to see in recent years, only came here because we sold their predecessor.

[Harry Faz]

We'd probably have a 29 year old Adam Lallana, 35 year old Rickie Lambert, 33 year old Jose Fonte all needing to soon be replaced with no money to do it with. We'd also probably not have got to see Sadio Mane and the Premier League's fastest ever hat trick, or see us beat a team 8-0, or get to see two of the best CB's the Premier League has seen in recent years (in my opinion) in Toby Alderweireld and Virgil Van Dijk. There's a lot of things going round saying 'imagine if Southampton hadn't have sold all their players' but most of the great players we've seen, and have been lucky to see in recent years, only came here because we sold their predecessor.

 

agree. for example, when we' lost' Toby we replaced him Virgil - we wouldn't have had both here at the same time.

[Saint Billy]

We'd probably have a 29 year old Adam Lallana, 35 year old Rickie Lambert, 33 year old Jose Fonte all needing to soon be replaced with no money to do it with. We'd also probably not have got to see Sadio Mane and the Premier League's fastest ever hat trick, or see us beat a team 8-0, or get to see two of the best CB's the Premier League has seen in recent years (in my opinion) in Toby Alderweireld and Virgil Van Dijk. There's a lot of things going round saying 'imagine if Southampton hadn't have sold all their players' but most of the great players we've seen, and have been lucky to see in recent years, only came here because we sold their predecessor.

 

Dont be silly now, it's easy to discredit my comments by taking them to the upmost extreme. Put your sensible head on and try and deny that we don't have some sort of clusterf*ck every summer.

[saintwbu]

Dont be silly now, it's easy to discredit my comments by taking them to the upmost extreme. Put your sensible head on and try and deny that we don't have some sort of clusterf*ck every summer.

 

'cluster****' to you. So far this summer we haven't sold any players, have seemingly actively tried to retain our best player for once, and looks like we might be getting rid of the manager that all the moaning fans want gone, I don't see what's been so bad? The first summer, when we lost Poch, I was concerned, but every summer since has been controlled in my opinion.

[red&white56]

Can we all not wait until something actually happens before bemoaning the way the club is run??

[Saints1976]

We still finished eighth, it the supporters who fall apart.

[Toadhall Saint]

We still finished eighth, it the supporters who fall apart.

 

Some cyber space fans

[larry12]

Les Reed.

 

Good answer!

Somebody who allegedly agrees with me. Stoopid man appoints manager after exhaustive search. Tells world Saints have possibly the best midfield combo in the Premier League on 11/7/16.

That combo scores less than 6 goals between them this season gone.Sacks manager after deliberately sabotaging his ability to get the St Etienne job, behaving like a spiteful child. Gets a striker in, 6 months late,

Can we have him make another mistake again please? "In les Reed we trust" seems to be Saints mantra. 4 managers in 4 years makes a complete mockery of that mantra.

[Lets B Avenue]

Les Reed.

 

Good answer!

Somebody who allegedly agrees with me. Stoopid man appoints manager after exhaustive search. Tells world Saints have possibly the best midfield combo in the Premier League on 11/7/16.

That combo scores less than 6 goals between them this season gone.Sacks manager after deliberately sabotaging his ability to get the St Etienne job, behaving like a spiteful child. Gets a striker in, 6 months late,

Can we have him make another mistake again please? "In les Reed we trust" seems to be Saints mantra. 4 managers in 4 years makes a complete mockery of that mantra.

 

And to think this comes from a person who "Mensa" invited to join.

[Crunching]

There are two things that are causing frustration being a Saints fan.

One is the clubs 'Way' or long term strategy - incremental improvements i.e. get established in the Prem, then get top 10 finishes regularly, then Europe regularly, then CL regularly etc. Part of this might be because we've achieved those first two relatively quickly, and expectation from us has risen. This means we have to put up with slow but sustainable growth, annoying in era where Man City and leicester achieve a lot seemingly quickly.

The other is the secretive nature of out transfer activity. Again, we are victims of our own success. If the big clubs get a sniff of who we are after they are likely to go in with money we perhaps don't have. Even if they don't develop players like we do, strategically this still works as it weaken us, and we are a club gunning for them. I stress that I don't disagree with either of these policies as it seems to be working fine. But there is a lot of silence, and as ever, we are forced to put a lot of trust into Les et al. and solid things to get excited about in the summer are few and far between. But who else would you rather follow?

[View From The Top]

And to think this comes from a person who "Mensa" invited to join.

 

He's one of the dumbest fu_ckwits on here and that's in the face of tough opposition.

[Matty's Caddy]

We are a stepping stone club. We don't pay the wages the top 6 pay so our targets more than likely hedge their bets hoping the big 6 come in for them.

If it hasn't happened for them, voila, we get our man.

[Foxstone]

Yep.

 

And for all those bemoaning the predictability of my thread, perhaps its worthwhile pointing out that their responses are always the same over-spun "the club knows what its doing" postivity too.

 

We finished 8th last season because the rest of the middle-tier clubs were even more sh*t. We failed to get out of a god-awful Europa League group. Yes we got to the League Cup final, granted, but it wasnt THAT great a season, compared to beating all the top clubs and finishing 6th the year before, ahead of Chelsea and Liverpool. Last summer we did poor business on players and manager.

 

Not one word of the above is wrong at all... While I do tend to be much more an optimist and will wait to see how the next 2 months pan out, it is not an inescapable fact that last season was poor in comparison to the previous 5 or 6 seasons.

 

I had high hopes after a very good (albeit losing) performance in Milan, but that December night at SMS when we could not get by a very limited Beersheva side to qualify for the last 32 of the Europa league really hit home to me that the club was not in as great a shape as it should have been..

 

Les has much to do this summer to re-strike the balance.