Ralph Krueger on the clubs season, trying to keep Mark Hughes and future of Les Reed

[Harry Faz]

Ralph is always unclear in his answers and arguments. I would have thought when you have made mistakes like the club has , the best thing to do is clearly admit to those mistakes, and then have a clear and simple message describing how they will fix them going forward. He doesn't do that. As for Les, not fronting up makes him look cowardly and weak. Not the best start at all from both of them if they want us to have faith in them going forward.

[tobes8]

It’s a load of PR ******** to try and generate decent season ticket sales. Nothing will change with these two muppets in charge.

[SFC Forever]

If you're incapable of admitting to mistakes after this season, you're either a psychopath or really s**t at PR.

 

 

Or just not up to the job

[Gemmel]

It’s a load of PR ******** to try and generate decent season ticket sales. Nothing will change with these two muppets in charge.

 

Season ticket sales are pretty much irrelevant in terms of revenue these days.

 

At the low end of 15,000, to the high at 25,000 the difference is 6 million quid tops.

[CB Fry]

Ralph is always unclear in his answers and arguments. I would have thought when you have made mistakes like the club has , the best thing to do is clearly admit to those mistakes, and then have a clear and simple message describing how they will fix them going forward. He doesn't do that. As for Les, not fronting up makes him look cowardly and weak. Not the best start at all from both of them if they want us to have faith in them going forward.

 

What exactly is the "clear and simple message describing how they will fix them going forward" you would like him to have said?

[saint michael]

Ralph makes out that this season’s performance has been a single event of poor performance, because where we have finished, and that this season was saved by them taking the decision to change in time to save our PL status. So from a business perspective you could say he is correct.

 

However, I haven’t heard anything that really demonstrates that they will change things enough to stop the underlying trend of decline that the on pitch performances show. He says going for more wins than draws is a learning....no **** Sherlock.

 

I believe that his complacency comes from confusing business performance numbers as lagging indicators with current reality indicators of what we have to watch on the pitch...

 

Same group making future decisions....worrying

[John B]

Ralph makes out that this season’s performance has been a single event of poor performance, because where we have finished, and that this season was saved by them taking the decision to change in time to save our PL status. So from a business perspective you could say he is correct.

 

However, I haven’t heard anything that really demonstrates that they will change things enough to stop the underlying trend of decline that the on pitch performances show. He says going for more wins than draws is a learning....no **** Sherlock.

 

I believe that his complacency comes from confusing business performance numbers as lagging indicators with current reality indicators of what we have to watch on the pitch...

 

Same group making future decisions....worrying

 

I think it is worrying that we have fans like you who expect SFC to be a consistent top 8 team it is not going to happen

 

We had four great years but why and how are we going to attract top players to St Mary's

[saint michael]

I think it is worrying that we have fans like you who expect SFC to be a consistent top 8 team it is not going to happen

 

We had four great years but why and how are we going to attract top players to St Mary's

 

I think it’s worrying that you can’t read... I don’t think I mentioned expectations of finishing top 8. I am talking about the link between what we watch on the pitch and board decision making if this isn’t sorted you can forget about any any upward trend

[shurlock]

Ralph makes out that this season’s performance has been a single event of poor performance, because where we have finished, and that this season was saved by them taking the decision to change in time to save our PL status. So from a business perspective you could say he is correct.

 

However, I haven’t heard anything that really demonstrates that they will change things enough to stop the underlying trend of decline that the on pitch performances show. He says going for more wins than draws is a learning....no **** Sherlock.

 

I believe that his complacency comes from confusing business performance numbers as lagging indicators with current reality indicators of what we have to watch on the pitch...

 

Same group making future decisions....worrying

 

While he said some positive things, I found it disappointing that he repeatedly sought refuge in averages and previous league finishes. There’s enough to suggest that recent disappointments are not just a blip from but a break in the trend. As such, looking back, as Ralph did, isn’t particularly informative about where we’re going.

Edited 16 May, 2018 by shurlock

[Heisenberg]

Did AdamBlackmore mention the momentum curve?

[eurosaint]

I get Ralph talks in classic corporate speak but for those of us who work in these environments it's pretty standard fare and his objective would be to handle the questions without getting emotional or being directly and publicly critical. I think if you listen to what he says through the filter of 'he's p1ssd at Les for screwing up the season', then what he says takes on a slightly different meaning. You need to assume that he takes guidance on footballing matters from Les, so even though Ralph is chairman it's Les that ultimately makes the football decisions and Ralph accepts his view. Bad decisions this season nearly got us relegated and I would imagine Ralph squarely blames Les for letting it get this far. Back in Jan his interview talked about how VVD going will improve things - maybe this is the bull Les was spinning to Ralph. Maybe Les was saying back in the summer "no, don't sell VVD, we can make it work" where I would imagine Ralph would have wanted him sold. Along with MoPe being appointed he is looking at a situation entirely of Les's doing to the point where he stepped in a pulled the trigger after Newcastle, hence the rush to get a new man. His emphasis on how well Sparky and his team fitted in could have been a veiled criticism of Les's previous decision making. When a boss steps in to do the job of one his team, it's not usually for positive reasons.

 

I have worked with guys like him !

Continous waffle and non commital responses indicate that he is covering his own arse ( and probably that of his cohorts ) !

Being a master of jargonistic, ‘double speak’ is nothing to be proud of IMO and talk of transparency is exactly that - talk !

I actually see him as a bigger problem than Les in that he is the chairman and the buck stops there !!

[hypochondriac]

While he said some positive things, I found it disappointing that he repeatedly sought refuge in averages and previous league finishes. There’s enough to suggest that recent disappointments are not just a blip from but a break in the trend. As such, looking back, as Ralph did, isn’t particularly informative about where we’re going.

My old man listened to it and at that point he paused it and said what relevance does our league position four years ago have on the season we have just had? Looking st average league positions over the last five years is mental and partly why we have got to this point because we are too busy living on past glories and a previously stellar reputation.

[larry12]

I have worked with guys like him !

Continous waffle and non commital responses indicate that he is covering his own arse ( and probably that of his cohorts ) !

Being a master of jargonistic, ‘double speak’ is nothing to be proud of IMO and talk of transparency is exactly that - talk !

I actually see him as a bigger problem than Les in that he is the chairman and the buck stops there !!

 

"You've been hit by. You've been hit by, A smooth crim..................." Suckers!

I have contacted the Company today and said I thought Les Reed should be sacked.

Multiply that by 2000 and who knows? Trouble is you can't be bothered. You will get what you deserve.

[Ultimatt]

Season ticket sales are pretty much irrelevant in terms of revenue these days.

 

At the low end of 15,000, to the high at 25,000 the difference is 6 million quid tops.

 

Largely irrelevant for the club, sure. But i'd be surprised if the board didn't have bonuses tied in to sales. Not so irrelevant for the individuals in charge.

[Saint_clark]

Quite - absolutely crazy to think that the club took a considered stance to spend more money on inferior players in the hope that they'd never have to sell them. Wouldn't make sense from any sort of perspective, footballing or economic. If anything, I think RK is saying that the club realise they're nowhere near as big as they thought they were, and that between the lure of bigger clubs and player power, there's no point cutting off your nose to spite your face by forcing players to stay. Obviously there are gradations there, but you should already have a good sense of which players will knuckle down (Schneiderlin, Wanyama) and which will go on strike for months (VVD, possibly Mane if we hadn't sold him.

I never said that we aimed for poorer players - I said it sounded like we made it clear to potential signings that we wouldn't be used as a stepping stone anymore and that might have meant our first choices went looking elsewhere. They may have even looked at us holding onto Van Dijk against his wishes and taken that as evidence.

 

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[jasoneuelllfanclub]

Ralph is "certain off hope les reed will attend fans forum" what ever that means lol

 

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[CB Fry]

I never said that we aimed for poorer players - I said it sounded like we made it clear to potential signings that we wouldn't be used as a stepping stone anymore and that might have meant our first choices went looking elsewhere. They may have even looked at us holding onto Van Dijk against his wishes and taken that as evidence.

 

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Difficult to work out which players you mean would have been influenced by the VVD situation as it wasn't crystal clear he wasn't going until late into the summer 2017 window, and we sold him before the Jan 2018 one opened.

 

RK was saying not much more than trying too hard to force players to stay turned out to be counterproductive.

 

You're reading too much into it and at the same time RK is over egging it because forcing Morgan and Mane to stay worked fine, and forcing Victor to stay also worked okay.

[Simon3737]

Hope people have learned about keeping unhappy players. All we have when Saints are mentioned this season was 'they sold too many players', yet last summer was the first time we didn't sell. The result was an unhappy squad and no time to reinvest when the sale did happen in January.

 

Selling and replacing got us our success. One season of struggle and the pundits just bleat on with the same generic crap, no actual insight or awareness of what's been going on.

 

Bertrand will probably go and people will moan again. Personally i'd rather just sell anyone who doesn't want to be here, get the best price and move on. If you can end up rubbish with Van Dijk in the team, there's zero point keeping anyone who'll force a move like that. Plenty of decent young talent out there. Won't get it right every time but our record has been decent. Even Tadic, Romeu, Hojbjerg were all replacements for players sold and they'd be in most people's teams despite a difficult season.

 

100% agree.

 

Les and Ralph tried taking on player power and lost.

 

Nice idea, but doomed from the start (it looks like PSG won’t be able to keep Neymar after a world record fee, so what chance do plucky little Saints ever have).

 

They tried giving players big pay rises in exchange for committing to longer contracts. The millionaire prima-donna players happily took the extra money, but still expected to be able to move “to the next level” as soon as they chose.

 

There are 4 bigger mistakes which I think have no excuse:

 

1) The shop window / stepping stone strategy was successful, both at attracting ambitious players (and managers) to sign and at getting “single digit” finishes. Why change it?

 

2) Why did we let Koeman go without much of a fight and allow Les to pick two yes men (Puel turned out less of a yes man than Les hoped). My guess is that Les had nothing to do with appointing Hughes (and thank goodness!).

 

3) Why did we stop our stategy of finding hidden gems like Mane from the Austrian league and start buying reserves from big clubs who look good on paper, but haven’t been used to playing regular first team football and gaining match toughness/fighting spirit.

 

4) Our U23 Team was relegated a year ago and no one seemed bothered. The Academy is surely a fundamental part of “The Southampton Way”. Les should lose his job for this failure alone!

[Harry Faz]

What exactly is the "clear and simple message describing how they will fix them going forward" you would like him to have said?

 

I dont understand your point , my point isnt about what I want him to change , its about what he is going to change. He is Chairman of the club, responsible for what happens next. I would like him to be clear on what he is going to change. Do you think he has been clear ? If you think he has , please explain what he believes were the mistakes made, and what they will do to fix them.

[CB Fry]

I dont understand your point , my point isnt about what I want him to change , its about what he is going to change. He is Chairman of the club, responsible for what happens next. I would like him to be clear on what he is going to change. Do you think he has been clear ? If you think he has , please explain what he believes were the mistakes made, and what they will do to fix them.

 

Mistakes in transfer policy, managerial recruitment, general football strategy from the top down to the on-pitch cautious ambition. From what I have heard and read, yeah, fine. Fixes include the appointment of Hughes in the first instance. He's a big picture guy, and he also isn't going to overpromise as other chairmen have in our recent history, and he's clever enough to make himself a hostage to fortune and the blubbering tantrums of your average football fan.

 

Interesting you can't answer my question but are demanding he (and now, hilariously, me) are specific.

 

I'll ask again - What do you want him to actually say that would satisfy your requirements?

[Ex Lion Tamer]

100% agree.

 

1) The shop window / stepping stone strategy was successful, both at attracting ambitious players (and managers) to sign and at getting “single digit” finishes. Why change it?

 

3) Why did we stop our stategy of finding hidden gems like Mane from the Austrian league and start buying reserves from big clubs who look good on paper, but haven’t been used to playing regular first team football and gaining match toughness/fighting spirit.

 

 

Depends how you define success. They thought they could go even bigger than 6th if we kept some of the great players we kept selling. Perhaps they were egged on by fans complaining about players being sold, and saying Les was in the pocket of Liverpool etc.

 

With hindsight it didn't work but that is why they did it

[Harry Faz]

Mistakes in transfer policy, managerial recruitment, general football strategy from the top down to the on-pitch cautious ambition. From what I have heard and read, yeah, fine. Fixes include the appointment of Hughes in the first instance. He's a big picture guy, and he also isn't going to overpromise as other chairmen have in our recent history, and he's clever enough to make himself a hostage to fortune and the blubbering tantrums of your average football fan.

 

Interesting you can't answer my question but are demanding he (and now, hilariously, me) are specific.

 

 

I'll ask again - What do you want him to actually say that would satisfy your requirements?

 

 

You are a strange one arent you ......this will be my last response to you - I dont care what you want changed - and havent asked you for that - my point has consistently been - I would like Ralph to be provide more clarity when he speaks - he tends to not answer the questions being asked ( like you) and waffle. That is all .

[CB Fry]

You are a strange one arent you ......this will be my last response to you - I dont care what you want changed - and havent asked you for that - my point has consistently been - I would like Ralph to be provide more clarity when he speaks - he tends to not answer the questions being asked ( like you) and waffle. That is all .

 

... but you can't think of one thing you think he could actually say that fulfils that requirement. That's pretty vague and waffle-like for someone demanding of clarity from others.

 

And in other news you haven't answered my question. I gave you the courtesy of answering yours. Funny ain't it?

[OldNick]

Mistakes in transfer policy, managerial recruitment, general football strategy from the top down to the on-pitch cautious ambition. From what I have heard and read, yeah, fine. Fixes include the appointment of Hughes in the first instance. He's a big picture guy, and he also isn't going to overpromise as other chairmen have in our recent history, and he's clever enough to make himself a hostage to fortune and the blubbering tantrums of your average football fan.

 

Interesting you can't answer my question but are demanding he (and now, hilariously, me) are specific.

 

I'll ask again - What do you want him to actually say that would satisfy your requirements?

Did he say that he was going to appoint Hughes in the interview? I didn't hear that bit. I'm going to listen to him again as I wasnt sure he was owning up to mistakes but that it all was a surprise

[Lord Duckhunter]

Why did we let Koeman go without much of a fight and allow Les to pick two yes men (Puel turned out less of a yes man than Les hoped). My guess is that Les had nothing to do with appointing Hughes (and thank goodness!).

 

 

So let’s get this straight. Les only picks yes men, but when we pick someone who clearly isn’t a yes man, he has nothing to do with the appointment.

 

 

 

 

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[OldNick]

So let’s get this straight. Les only picks yes men, but when we pick someone who clearly isn’t a yes man, he has nothing to do with the appointment.

 

 

 

 

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We don't know on what basis MH signed initially up to.He may have agreed to let Les still do all the stuff he already has been doing and he is just in charge of the first team

[charliemiller]

So let’s get this straight. Les only picks yes men, but when we pick someone who clearly isn’t a yes man, he has nothing to do with the appointment.

 

Les didnt want to Sack the clown , it was taken out of his hands .....fact ....as was the appointment

[obelisk]

A lot of corporate ass-covering waffle that basically boils down to an ongoing lack of ambition. Maybe that's all a team like Saints can hope for but I'd rather he was honest. Wonder what Hughes thinks of it.

[shurlock]

A lot of corporate ass-covering waffle that basically boils down to an ongoing lack of ambition. Maybe that's all a team like Saints can hope for but I'd rather he was honest. Wonder what Hughes thinks of it.

 

Why the f**k do I have to go to the most polluted country on the planet at the height of summer for preseason just so that these clowns can win a few more contracts building football pitches for bent local officials?

[obelisk]

Why the f**k do I have to go to the most polluted country on the planet at the height of summer for preseason just so that these clowns can win a few more contracts building football pitches for bent local officials?

 

That would be a reasonable thought.

[doddisalegend]

So let’s get this straight. Les only picks yes men, but when we pick someone who clearly isn’t a yes man, he has nothing to do with the appointment.

 

Les didnt want to Sack the clown , it was taken out of his hands .....fact ....as was the appointment

 

weird I heard it was Ralph fighting Mopes corner....either way no one at the club should be claiming the appointment of Hughes as some sort of planed masterstroke. The club put themselves in a position where he was the only realistic target available at short notice. Luckily they got away with it but it's hardly a pat yourself on the back moment

[Charlie Wayman]

“Les Reed and Ross Wilson [the recruitment chief] are excellent leaders in our football department,” he said. “We have to see the bigger picture – we don’t need a wholesale change here. We need to take a few percentage points, fix those and we can surge back up. That’s our reality"

 

Very concerned about that. The fact they don't feel that wholesale changes are needed despite regressing in almost every area from the academy to the first team show how out of touch they are. We need some serious leadership to underline how unacceptable the last two years have been and it doesn't look like the Gaos are capable of that.

 

The truth is there for all to see, these blokes are just covering each other's arses. Our only hope for something better is that Gao can see right through this fog of posture and surreality.If ever there was a case of The Emperor wearing an invisible cloak. Blackmore should have gone for the jugular, it wasn't only Reed who suddenly became dumb, where was the great Kreuger when the sh*t hit the fan and fans just wanted reassurance.

 

Safe enough to come out of hiding now Ralphie?

[Kokakole]

The central mistake, according to Krueger's interview in the Daily Echo, is that we stopped with the 'stepping stone' strategy and got too big for our britches. He then implies that we'll go back to that model.

 

I would fundamentally disagree; the problem is the 'stepping stone' strategy itself: it has a very small margin of error. All it took for us to get in trouble was to recruit poorly for one or two replacements for key players (Mane, Pelle), along with a fallow couple of years in the Academy, and we were suddenly in a relegation fight.

 

Krueger's recipe is to go back to the 'stepping stone' strategy. But that smacks of hubris to me: he believes we should restart the revolving door and that we'll keep finding excellent replacements. The thing is, it's getting harder and harder as more and more clubs invest in their scouting recruiting departments, especially for foreign players. It wouldn't be possible now for a bigger club to miss out on a Mane; I'm sure the 2018 version of him is firmly on lots of clubs' radar. Our club is aware of this, and tried to exploit another perceived 'market inefficiency' by buying big clubs' reserves that weren't getting playing time. This strategy, unfortunately, hasn't really paid off yet: the jury is still out on Lemina, but I find it hard to believe Hoedt will ever be a Premer League-average defender, while Hojbjerg hasn't really progressed even though we want him to.

 

So, what are we left with? We won't be able to buy diamonds in the rough from the likes of the Austrian league, because other clubs have wizened up, and the other approach (of buying big clubs' reserves) doesn't seem to work.

 

Why, then, does Krueger believe we'll be able to have success with that again!? Haven't we just come close to disaster precisely because of this approach!?

 

I'd focus more of our resources in finding gems for the academy and in consolidating the team with a couple of smart purchases each year while letting go our middling players, rather than our best ones. And, also, in growing a spine; VVD was emboldened to have a poor attitude because he saw that everyone that tried that approach (bar Morgan for a year) succeded in forcing a move.

[Ex Lion Tamer]

The thing is, it's getting harder and harder as more and more clubs invest in their scouting recruiting departments, especially for foreign players. It wouldn't be possible now for a bigger club to miss out on a Mane; I'm sure the 2018 version of him is firmly on lots of clubs' radar.

Is this true? It seems speculative to me. Surely the system will always be imperfect. There have always been bargains that come out of nowhere and there always will be.

 

It wasn't really even that difficult to find out about Mane. He scored 31 goals in 63 games for Salzburg. Anyone could get hold of those stats at the touch of a button, and surely most clubs did.

 

What we identified is that he had the potential to step up to the Premier League, which is the hard part. Its about judgement rather than knowing a player exists, which is why Paul Mitchell is so sought after.

 

And we were willing to take a punt which a bigger club wouldn't. How many of the top four clubs would have put up with his poor form which had everyone on here up in arms? But it was necessary for his development.

[Matthew Le God]

The central mistake, according to Krueger's interview in the Daily Echo, is that we stopped with the 'stepping stone' strategy and got too big for our britches. He then implies that we'll go back to that model.

 

I would fundamentally disagree; the problem is the 'stepping stone' strategy itself: it has a very small margin of error. All it took for us to get in trouble was to recruit poorly for one or two replacements for key players (Mane, Pelle), along with a fallow couple of years in the Academy, and we were suddenly in a relegation fight.

 

Krueger's recipe is to go back to the 'stepping stone' strategy. But that smacks of hubris to me: he believes we should restart the revolving door and that we'll keep finding excellent replacements. The thing is, it's getting harder and harder as more and more clubs invest in their scouting recruiting departments, especially for foreign players. It wouldn't be possible now for a bigger club to miss out on a Mane; I'm sure the 2018 version of him is firmly on lots of clubs' radar. Our club is aware of this, and tried to exploit another perceived 'market inefficiency' by buying big clubs' reserves that weren't getting playing time. This strategy, unfortunately, hasn't really paid off yet: the jury is still out on Lemina, but I find it hard to believe Hoedt will ever be a Premer League-average defender, while Hojbjerg hasn't really progressed even though we want him to.

 

So, what are we left with? We won't be able to buy diamonds in the rough from the likes of the Austrian league, because other clubs have wizened up, and the other approach (of buying big clubs' reserves) doesn't seem to work.

 

Why, then, does Krueger believe we'll be able to have success with that again!? Haven't we just come close to disaster precisely because of this approach!?

 

I'd focus more of our resources in finding gems for the academy and in consolidating the team with a couple of smart purchases each year while letting go our middling players, rather than our best ones. And, also, in growing a spine; VVD was emboldened to have a poor attitude because he saw that everyone that tried that approach (bar Morgan for a year) succeded in forcing a move.

 

How do you propose keeping our best ones? If they want to move and the rich top clubs are interested they won't sign new contracts with Saints and their value & motivation to perform will fall off a cliff.

[verlaine1979]

The major fault with our 'stepping stone' policy is that we only replace 1 to 1 when we sell a star. For it to work you have to sell 1 and replace with 2 (even if one of those two is just taking the opportunity to bring in a young prospect in another position), otherwise all it takes is one Nathan Redmond and your entire economic model breaks at the first hurdle.

[shurlock]

The major fault with our 'stepping stone' policy is that we only replace 1 to 1 when we sell a star. For it to work you have to sell 1 and replace with 2 (even if one of those two is just taking the opportunity to bring in a young prospect in another position), otherwise all it takes is one Nathan Redmond and your entire economic model breaks at the first hurdle.

 

Exactly.

[saints-til-i-die]

Exactly.

 

This! Spot on. Best comment I’ve read in ages. In a nutshell, that’s the problem.

[saints-til-i-die]

The major fault with our 'stepping stone' policy is that we only replace 1 to 1 when we sell a star. For it to work you have to sell 1 and replace with 2 (even if one of those two is just taking the opportunity to bring in a young prospect in another position), otherwise all it takes is one Nathan Redmond and your entire economic model breaks at the first hurdle.

 

This! Spot on. Best comment I’ve read in ages. In a nutshell, that’s the problem.

[Turkish]

And not a word on the five pledges!

[stevy777_x]

And not a word on the five pledges!

 

A proper interviewer/journalist would have asked him about that!

[Hodgey]

I get the impression that Kruger - like us - hasn’t the first clue what Gao wants, that’s why he was so unusually uptight about the questions. He’s a chairman trying to maintain a status quo from Katrina without knowing what he is supposed to be doing. Got his classic USA business interest quote in (what happened to our USA academies by the way?) which will clearly come to nothing. He’s got nothing to offer, but doesn’t know what to do - so rather than waffle around a direction we clearly haven’t achieved he’s giving us waffle about guesswork. All very concerning - he can’t even committ to Gao concentrating on saints F.C. - at best that was lip service - Gao clearly isn’t that concerned which is very odd....

[Graffito]

The major fault with our 'stepping stone' policy is that we only replace 1 to 1 when we sell a star. For it to work you have to sell 1 and replace with 2 (even if one of those two is just taking the opportunity to bring in a young prospect in another position), otherwise all it takes is one Nathan Redmond and your entire economic model breaks at the first hurdle.

 

Yes the strategy is inherently risky. Liverpool will have known about Mane and Van Dyke but will have been unsure about how they would go in the PL. Saints take a risk on these kinds of players. Some work out, some don’t.

[Ultimatt]

The major fault with our 'stepping stone' policy is that we only replace 1 to 1 when we sell a star. For it to work you have to sell 1 and replace with 2 (even if one of those two is just taking the opportunity to bring in a young prospect in another position), otherwise all it takes is one Nathan Redmond and your entire economic model breaks at the first hurdle.

 

You could argue that it failed because we changed the type of player we targeted to replace the stars. We used to go after guys playing regularly and being top players in whatever team/league they were in, to almost exclusively going after players who spent a lot of time benched. It's no surprise they didn't shine here.

[Kokakole]

How do you propose keeping our best ones? If they want to move and the rich top clubs are interested they won't sign new contracts with Saints and their value & motivation to perform will fall off a cliff.

 

I'm not naive enough to think that we're going to be able to keep our star players (to the extent that we have any). But I do think that we don't have to sell players with 3-4 years left on their contracts if we don't want to. There's a reason they sign their contracts with us in the first place: it's because they weren't wanted by the bigger clubs. VVD wasn't wanted by a bigger club when he was at Celtic; that's why he came to us. But the culture created by the club is that the contracts don't really matter and that any time someone comes in for a player, he's entitled to leave. I don't think it's impossible. How did Leicester keep Mahrez?

[Kokakole]

Is this true? It seems speculative to me. Surely the system will always be imperfect. There have always been bargains that come out of nowhere and there always will be.

 

It wasn't really even that difficult to find out about Mane. He scored 31 goals in 63 games for Salzburg. Anyone could get hold of those stats at the touch of a button, and surely most clubs did.

 

What we identified is that he had the potential to step up to the Premier League, which is the hard part. Its about judgement rather than knowing a player exists, which is why Paul Mitchell is so sought after.

 

And we were willing to take a punt which a bigger club wouldn't. How many of the top four clubs would have put up with his poor form which had everyone on here up in arms? But it was necessary for his development.

 

 

I don't think that it was that others had never heard of Mane - of course, in this day and age, they had. It was more about committing the resources to go and watch him a few times to confirm he would be worth that kind of money. Every club has limited resources and it has to choose how it uses them (see Everton's new strategy: https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/sport/football/transfer-news/everton-explore-south-america-players-14569503). I don't think it's just about Saints having better judgment than other teams; it's about how you form that judgment and come to a decision: is it on the basis of youtube highlight videos or have different scouts been to watch him a few times, talked to others about him, etc.?

[Turkish]

How do you propose keeping our best ones? If they want to move and the rich top clubs are interested they won't sign new contracts with Saints and their value & motivation to perform will fall off a cliff.

 

This ain’t what you used to say. You used to say we were the most attractive club for anyone outside of the top 4 back in our league one days!

 

I remember when you would argue until the cows come home that we were a bigger club than Everton with more match going fans, that very soon we’d be playing with a team full of superstars mixed with academy graduates in our newly expanded 50,000 capacity stadium

And anyone who said other had, what was it again? Oh that’s it, such a Dell sized mentality Matthew!

[Saint_clark]

The major fault with our 'stepping stone' policy is that we only replace 1 to 1 when we sell a star. For it to work you have to sell 1 and replace with 2 (even if one of those two is just taking the opportunity to bring in a young prospect in another position), otherwise all it takes is one Nathan Redmond and your entire economic model breaks at the first hurdle.

Not sure about that. That seems a sure fire way to end up with an over inflated squad with no stand out quality ala 2005.

 

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[CB Fry]

Not sure about that. That seems a sure fire way to end up with an over inflated squad with no stand out quality ala 2005.

 

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We signed Redmond and Boufal in the same summer we sold Mane. Didn't go great.

[East Kent Saint]

Mane was not the finished article when he started at Saints , as I remember he was noted for the sliced shot that went for a throw in or the complete air shot ! He developed into a fast unpredictable player who could score or assist . I think it was Poch who told the players that the club's ambitions were being reigned in due to lack of money so they should move if they wanted success (based on no facts ) plus the other England players whispering in their ears (Lallana etc) . I don't think any club has had to replace so many top players apart from relegated clubs.