You reap what you sow.......

[Heisenberg]

How much of that was down to Fonte acting like a prat from day one? Fonte had a whole lot of sway in that dressing room and Puel had to deal with his childish behaviour through no fault of his own.

 

Source?

[farawaysaint]

You seem to be a particularly crap supporter and slightly deluded.

 

Did you really expect that getting in another manager would suddenly make the team a lot better.

 

It was always likely that we were going to get worse as our really good players left and we had no top class players migrating from the academy.

 

Just man up and accept the bad times .

 

I have supported the Saints probably longer than you have been alive and during that time there have been more lows than highs but that is football but I agree this squad is probably the worst one ever because it has no outstanding match winners like Paine Channon Shearer MLT Lallana Lambert Pelle or Mane but it does have some decent defenders.

 

Most of the match winners were homegrown or picked up cheaply

 

I was with you up until worst squad ever

 

 

In recent times Champ relegation squad? Now that team was shocking.

[Ultimatt]

Source?

 

Not featuring in preseason promo work.

Not playing a single minute of Europa League.

Publicly denying the club offered him a new contract when they said they had.

Handing in a transfer request.

 

There was plenty of talk on here that he got back from Euro's with a massive ego and angling for a move to Man Utd.

[Village Saint]

Stats from Premierleague.com https://www.premierleague.com/clubs/20/Southampton/stats?se=79

 

Shots (per game)

2012/13 MoPo: 516 (13.58)

2013/14 MoPo: 534 (14.05)

2014/15 Koeman: 509 (13.39)

2015/16 Koeman: 519 (13.66)

2016/17 Puel: 550 (14.47)

 

More shots last year under Puel than the previous managers, but seriously lacking the quality to convert having not replaced what Mane/Pelle offered.

 

Saves / Goals conceded

2012/13 MoPo: No stats

2013/14 MoPo: 85 / 46

2014/15 Koeman: 80 / 33

2015/16 Koeman: 94 / 41

2016/17 Puel: 76 / 48

 

Least saves. Most goals conceded. Forster was woeful last year. We had our 3rd/4th choice CB's most of the season. We no longer had a DM enforcer like Wanyama or Morgan protecting outside the box.

 

The stats say Puel was massively let down by mediocre players while his predecessors had more quality. Our fanbase was spoilt with some brilliant players that got poached by top clubs and now we have the same expectations for a much weaker side.

 

Puel was in fact (and it is a fact not an opinion) the most successful manager in Saints history. In every season he was our manager we finished 8th in the top division AND reached the Final of a major cup competition. No-one else comes close. I am betting that Pellegrino wont equal this.

[hackedoff]

I agree that the squad of players, on an individual basis, is good enough. However, as a collective, there are some key attributes that we are sorely lacking. Most of them are athletic attributes rather than technical ones - on a technical level, I think we're pretty good.

 

The only position where we are genuinely weak, IMO, is goalkeeper. Forster hasn't been of the required standard for a year now, and for him to have been rewarded in the summer with a contract extension (when he already had 4 years remaining on his existing deal anyway) sends out the wrong message that we will still reward failure. It's a shame that the money went mental in the summer, as Pickford would have been a good (albeit not infallible, as his mistake for Spurs' first goal yesterday shows) young acquisition. Forster has had no genuine competition for his place in the team since he joined the club. That is not a healthy situation.

 

Defensively, I think we're fine. We have two international full-backs who, when they're on their game (Bertrand has been hit-and-miss for a while), are among the best in the league and suit the system we've played over the last 4-5 years very well. We'd have to pay big money to find better replacements for them. In the middle, assuming van Dijk gets his head straight and decides he's going to play football, we've got one of the best centre backs in the league. Hoedt has only played one game, looked alright yesterday, but can't really judge this early. Yoshida and Stephens are not of the same level as van Dijk, but have proven themselves largely dependable.

 

Midfield is where it starts to get a bit sticky. As I said above, individually, we have plenty of good players, but for whatever reason they just don't quite work together at the moment. For me, the main reason for that is that we don't have enough variety. When we had a front three of Pellè, Mané and Tadić, we ticked all bases - Pellè had strength and aerial ability, so if we needed to go long, we could do, if we wanted to put loads of crosses into the box, he'd get on the end of them; Mané had pace, a fair bit of strength, plus an unpredictable streak, which meant that defenders were always kept on their toes; Tadić had a great understanding with both of them, and could predict with a fair degree of certainty that one or both would make the run that would take advantage of the gap he could see and play the ball through. Without Pellè and Mané, we've lost so much creativity and variety. Tadić only really has Gabbiadini to look for, and while his movement is good, it's easy for defenders to track one runner as opposed to two or three. The midfielders we have just don't provide the forward movement to fill that hole.

 

Redmond is good on his day, but those are still frustratingly inconsistent, Boufal has all the talent but a distinct lack of decision-making awareness, and the pair of them plus Tadić are now guilty of slowing the play down when in attacking positions waiting for more support, only for that support never to materialise. Up front, Gabbiadini and Austin will score goals with the right service - they need pace around them in order to get that service. At the moment, whoever is playing up front for us gets left far too isolated because the midfield doesn't get close enough to provide any support.

 

There is a lack of pace throughout the side. Our full-backs are reasonably quick, but don't make the run beyond the opposing full-back often enough to take advantage of it. Hopefully Lemina offers us a bit of speed and strength through the middle, because while Romeu is reasonably strong, he's not very quick, and tends to render his skills less valuable in the second half of games with all the bookings he collects. As much as he deserved his Player of the Year award last season, Romeu's not as good at the physical stuff as Wanyama was (when he could be bothered), and he's not as intelligent on or off the ball as Schneiderlin was. If the club expected him to fulfil both roles simultaneously, they got it wrong.

 

Agree with all of this. The galling bit is that your listed deficiencies were obvious during the end of last season and the club did NOTHING in the close season to rectify it, and it may well be very costly come the end of the season.