Southampton's wretched home form a recipe for relegation

[SuperSAINT]

Depressing read, but can't fault it.

 

https://www.thenational.ae/sport/football/southampton-s-wretched-home-form-a-recipe-for-relegation-1.784236

[saints-cris]

It's going to be a very dark place on here if we don't win.

[OttawaSaint]

That was painful to read. Hope we can somehow find a way out of this funk and get the feelgood factor back again.

[bjk]

This has to be Hughes last chance,lose and he has to go.

[OttawaSaint]

This has to be Hughes last chance,lose and he has to go.

 

My main worry with that is that it doesn't change that much. It might give us a lift for a few weeks but what if it doesn't (like when Hughes arrived). We got no new manager bounce and basically eeked out the couple of wins needed to stay up because Swansea were so utterly dreadful (a team that DID get a new manager bounce but then fell off a cliff).

 

The problem is so much deeper than that. The recruitment has been so poor that the talent has been diluted and diluted until we have what we have now. A very average squad. We need change from the very top.

 

Hopefully Hughes has now tightened up the defense. The next job is to get us scoring again without disrupting that. That's the big challenge.

[Turkish]

My main worry with that is that it doesn't change that much. It might give us a lift for a few weeks but what if it doesn't (like when Hughes arrived). We got no new manager bounce and basically eeked out the couple of wins needed to stay up because Swansea were so utterly dreadful (a team that DID get a new manager bounce but then fell off a cliff).

 

The problem is so much deeper than that. The recruitment has been so poor that the talent has been diluted and diluted until we have what we have now. A very average squad. We need change from the very top.

 

Hopefully Hughes has now tightened up the defense. The next job is to get us scoring again without disrupting that. That's the big challenge.

 

It's been said before but the familiarity with our decline now and our decline 2003-2005 is striking. We peaked with a European campaign and a narrow cup final loss. We sold off our best players and replaced them with squad fillers, resulting in us having a big squad full of players of the same, average level. We had a leadership team that believed they had the magic touch and oozed arrogance and complacency and we went through a succession of managers each one worse than the one before it (Perhaps Hughes is a better manager than Pellegrino but as things stand his record is worse). It really is quite remarkable that history could repeat itself. in fact if we go down this season it will be exactly the same time period of two season between 8th place and a cup final to relegation the last time it happened.

[rooney]

Th last three managers could not get us scoring goals, so it must be the players and behind that the recruitment team. We are sleepwalking into the Championship again.

[InvictaSaint]

It's been said before but the familiarity with our decline now and our decline 2003-2005 is striking. We peaked with a European campaign and a narrow cup final loss. We sold off our best players and replaced them with squad fillers, resulting in us having a big squad full of players of the same, average level. We had a leadership team that believed they had the magic touch and oozed arrogance and complacency and we went through a succession of managers each one worse than the one before it (Perhaps Hughes is a better manager than Pellegrino but as things stand his record is worse). It really is quite remarkable that history could repeat itself. in fact if we go down this season it will be exactly the same time period of two season between 8th place and a cup final to relegation the last time it happened.

 

Can’t really argue with any of that; the similarities between the two periods are worryingly similar. The question will be whether Ralph and Les notice the iceberg before it’s too late....

[saint1977]

It's been said before but the familiarity with our decline now and our decline 2003-2005 is striking. We peaked with a European campaign and a narrow cup final loss. We sold off our best players and replaced them with squad fillers, resulting in us having a big squad full of players of the same, average level. We had a leadership team that believed they had the magic touch and oozed arrogance and complacency and we went through a succession of managers each one worse than the one before it (Perhaps Hughes is a better manager than Pellegrino but as things stand his record is worse). It really is quite remarkable that history could repeat itself. in fact if we go down this season it will be exactly the same time period of two season between 8th place and a cup final to relegation the last time it happened.

 

Yep, I’d thought that as well. Can’t think of another club that has done that and been so ignorant and inward looking that it hasn’t clocked it and addressed the causes.

 

Newcastle also struggle to score but don’t concede many. One goal could win it on Saturday, imperative Saints score first assuming there is a goal.

 

Despite his appalling record, I’d play Long with Ings, they may force a mistake. It won’t be a classic but frankly if it leads to 3 points - and to stay up it needs to - that’s sufficient.

[madge]

Th last three managers could not get us scoring goals, so it must be the players and behind that the recruitment team. We are sleepwalking into the Championship again.

The recruitment has been a shambles... we lack pace and power. How reed and Wilson can’t see this is unbelievable. Absolutely no creativity since loosing Tadic. How the hell are we going to score enough goals to keep us up. Don’t get me started on the defence.

[austsaint]

This has to be Hughes last chance,lose and he has to go.

 

Yet replacing Hughes would be addressing just a small part of the malaise Saints have slipped into. As the article points out, it's been the loss of quality - particularly Mane, and a decline in the quality and recruitment of replacements which is at least as important as the quality of Manager. A painful read indeed; but hard to argue against any of it.

[norwaysaint]

How do we compare the mediocrity of our current squad with Cedric, Long, Austin, Redmond, Mo, PEH, Romeu, JWP, Stephens, Yoshida, Hoedt, etc against the medicrity that got us relegated last time, Prutton, Telfer, McCann, Jakobssen, Nilsson, Ormerod, Delap, Higginbotham, Kenton and Quashie?

[Pilchards]

The painful thing is we all hope things will turn around.

Seriously this mess will not fix itself as it’s broken badly. Someone needs to act and do anything soon or we will be doomed much further than just relegation.

[ChiefScummer]

I just want gao to sell us to someone with actually money to invest and someone who is passionate about the game. I'm really not happy with him as owner at all. If we go down, hopefully hell think his investment is in the toilet and sell up. Get kat out too so she takes Ralph and les with her. New owner and new board needed before new manager. I wouldn't mind championship football for a few seasons if it meant we came back like last time and challenged for Europe again with an owner who had ambition and didn't want to sell his best players every season.

[Pilchards]

I just want gao to sell us to someone with actually money to invest and someone who is passionate about the game. I'm really not happy with him as owner at all. If we go down, hopefully hell think his investment is in the toilet and sell up. Get kat out too so she takes Ralph and les with her. New owner and new board needed before new manager. I wouldn't mind championship football for a few seasons if it meant we came back like last time and challenged for Europe again with an owner who had ambition and didn't want to sell his best players every season.

 

Spot on but we can all dream can’t we.

[CB Fry]

I just want gao to sell us to someone with actually money to invest and someone who is passionate about the game. I'm really not happy with him as owner at all. If we go down, hopefully hell think his investment is in the toilet and sell up. Get kat out too so she takes Ralph and les with her. New owner and new board needed before new manager. I wouldn't mind championship football for a few seasons if it meant we came back like last time and challenged for Europe again with an owner who had ambition and didn't want to sell his best players every season.

I'm not sure that's a bargain that can be relied on to happen. We can drop down and stay down for 10-15 years, like Forest or Leeds or Bolton or Ipswich.

[SFC Forever]

A new owner and board is no guarantee of improvement to a degree where we can safely look over our shoulder without fear. We need a new board where the people in there care about the club, and not seemingly for their own self importance. We seem determined to drop into the Championship with the current board as they seem incredibly ignorant as to our plight. Reed should have been removed after last season's fiascoes but wasn't.

Nobody seems capable of ascertaining the suitability of prospective players before they arrive. Our scouting set-up is nowhere near as good as it was since Reed began removing peope and replacing with his own group of yes men.

 

All in my own honest opinion.

[Cabbage_Face]

I blame the fact we haven't expanded the stadium. Needs to be bought up at higher level.

[John Boy Saint]

Still reckon we should get the White Witch back to top up what she got rid of when we first moved to SMS - she did her stuff back then and away we went. The arrival of Markus was a positive force of good to re energise the place.

............anything has to be worth a go, no matter how far fetched it might sound: there are many sensible folks wary of messing about with Ancient Briton sites like the one the Stadium is sat on.

 

With regard to the players coming in, whilst for a while we were without doubt a stepping stone to the big club big bucks. Its like the recent lot through the door believe all they have to do is pull on the Red and White striped shirt and hey presto they are on the fast track super highway to riches beyond their wildest dreams at another team. Right now there only seems one player where the penny has dropped that whilst the magic Red & White cloak helps, sprinkling on a bit of effort and endeavour makes you stand out.......actually he's probably worked out that he doesn't need to waste too much effort and endeavour to stand out with the current crop of ordinariness: Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg.

[tajjuk]

'A club once praised for it's vision'.

 

Yep, where has that gone? The drive for constant improvement and boundary pushing does not seem to be there from top to bottom throughout the club.

 

When we came back up we seemed to be a club that was trying to squeeze every little extra percent out of everything we did, recruitment, training, youth development, coaching, playing style etc. People from the club were going around the world linking up with other clubs to see how they did things and how we could learn to improve.

 

Now we just seem to be stumbling along.

 

We have gone from the club that ruthlessly sacked Adkins despite him doing a very good job because the ambition was burning for us to do better and he wasn't thought as the right man for the job, to appointing a footballing dinosaur in Hughes on a 3 year deal. The Southampton football club of 3-4 years ago would have never touched Hughes with a barge pole.

 

Turkish has it right, there is complacency and arrogance at the top for a job well done now 2-3 years past and an owner who seems to have neither the passion, interest or even the presence to change that.

 

As the article says we look very much like Villa, Newcastle, Swansea etc. a few years of highs with a steady decline towards the championship mid table with terrible managerial appointments, recruitment decisions and general club apathy.

[saints-til-i-die]

Just because the last 3 managers didn’t make much difference, it doesn’t mean another change wouldn’t. It’s been down to the fact that the last 3 managers have been poor choices. They’ve not fit our supposed (now forgotten) ‘style’ and we’ve moved further and further away from using the academy. Hughes was an awful appointment for a club that aims to bring through youth players.

The club has lost the plot and moved so far away from what brought us success.

However, a new manager could revive our fortunes. Average players can be made to play above their level. Dyche, Howe, Benetiz last year, Wagner last year...

The issue is that I’ve lost faith in Les to pick a decent manager. The club need to be brave, go back to their old philosophy and aim, bring in a younger, up and coming manager and trust in the youth team more, attack teams.

If we go down we’ll be in a better place than we would be currently. We are dying a slow and painful, directionless death.

 

I’d roll the dice.

[Brumsaint]

How do we compare the mediocrity of our current squad with Cedric, Long, Austin, Redmond, Mo, PEH, Romeu, JWP, Stephens, Yoshida, Hoedt, etc against the medicrity that got us relegated last time, Prutton, Telfer, McCann, Jakobssen, Nilsson, Ormerod, Delap, Higginbotham, Kenton and Quashie?

 

I actually feel that the current crop are better, but then so is the standard of the league. Cedric is not a top 4 RB, but he's a good Premier League player, as I believe are a good half of those. Long & Austin are not good enough for a team aspiring to challenge for Europe, or even to stay up IMO, as both seem in decline, whereas many of the others, with the right coaching, are capable of playing at a high level and certainly better than the dross we had when we went down last time.

[tajjuk]

I am not sure our players are as bad as people make them out to me, many have come from good clubs and were performing well for those clubs at a young age, I just don't think the team has any real shape, discipline or particular style of play, identity etc.

 

Often I feel that good play breaks out in games because the players forget that Mark Hughes is their manager and actually start remembering how to play some good football despite his instructions and set up.

 

Top managers meticulously work on the training ground on the team shape and the jobs each of the players is supposed to be doing for the team, we do not look like a team that does that.

 

We look like a team that spends most of the week playing head tennis and then 11 players get randomly selected.

 

You only have to look at Arsenal to see how much improvement a new manager can make, especially when that manager knows how he wants his players to play.

[austsaint]

I'm not sure that's a bargain that can be relied on to happen. We can drop down and stay down for 10-15 years, like Forest or Leeds or Bolton or Ipswich.

 

This is the doomsday outcome which is scarily close.

[saints-til-i-die]

I’m trying to work out where it all started. Was it even with Koeman?

 

Adkins- passing style. Youth given a chance.

Poch - passing/high pressing/energy. Youth given a chance.

Koeman - style began to become a little more direct. Had no faith in the youth players. Limited use.

Puel- introduced a slow, plodding game (argued he needed to die to lots of matches to save energy) Young players generally not utilised much.

Pellegrino- defensive, defensive, defensive. Still no energy. Low tempo. Young players used sparingly.

Hughes- no real identity. More direct. Chips and changes. He seems desperate to prove he’s not past it. Smacks of panicking in a desperate attempt to find a system that works. Young players? What are they?

 

Mostly done from memory so the Puel record may be better with the youth players than I imply.

[conaero]

You may not like Gao but he is a businessman and a very successful one at that. I dont think he is simple going to accept failure again this season.

 

Things will change at the end of this season or he will sell up and leave. Either way you get your wish.

[saints-til-i-die]

due* chops* haha

[shurlock]

You may not like Gao but he is a businessman and a very successful one at that. I dont think he is simple going to accept failure again this season.

 

Things will change at the end of this season or he will sell up and leave. Either way you get your wish.

 

Being successful at business in China is very different from being successful at business over here.

[Cabbage_Face]

Being successful at business in China is very different from being successful at business over here.

 

 

You're right, harder in China.

[John Boy Saint]

Being successful at business in China is very different from being successful at business over here.

That's why its amazing that we don't hear a peep out of the bloke, Chinese are materialistic, the more successful they are the more they push for more, the more bangles they have shows everyone how successful they are. Our Chinaman seems very private and secretive, very Swiss. Which is probably why Kat sold to him.

[Nordic Saint]

You may not like Gao but he is a businessman and a very successful one at that. I dont think he is simple going to accept failure again this season.

 

Things will change at the end of this season or he will sell up and leave. Either way you get your wish.

 

Unfortunately, Gao is not a very successful businessman, which is why his business is only worth a fraction of what it once was and why he had to borrow the money to buy the club. Wolves, on the other hand, really are owned by a successful businessman, who is one of the wealthiest men in China: a description which cannot be applied to Gao.

[Saint-Fred]

You may not like Gao but he is a businessman and a very successful one at that. I dont think he is simple going to accept failure again this season.

 

Things will change at the end of this season or he will sell up and leave. Either way you get your wish.

 

Isn't going to accept failure? He already has...last season was an abismal failure..and what did he do? Nothing ....Read is still here...Ralph continues peddling his ****e and fat Kat keeps on munching the mars bars...

He bloke appears to have no clue about running a successful club so he is leaving it to the idiots who have run the place into the ground.

The sooner he goes the better..we don't need someone with money, we need someone who has a clue what he or she is doing.

[OldNick]

This is points to Reed and Wilson’s inability to pick decent replacements. It seems to me that the last decent influx were when RK had the input. We may end up being lucky that MH persuaded the club to sign Ings at the last minute

[Dark Munster]

Isn't going to accept failure? He already has...last season was an abismal failure..and what did he do? Nothing ....Read is still here...Ralph continues peddling his ****e and fat Kat keeps on munching the mars bars...

He bloke appears to have no clue about running a successful club so he is leaving it to the idiots who have run the place into the ground.

The sooner he goes the better..we don't need someone with money, we need someone who has a clue what he or she is doing.

Actually we need someone with both. Gao seems to have neither.

[pimpin4rizeal]

Isn't going to accept failure? He already has...last season was an abismal failure..and what did he do? Nothing ....Read is still here...Ralph continues peddling his ****e and fat Kat keeps on munching the mars bars...

He bloke appears to have no clue about running a successful club so he is leaving it to the idiots who have run the place into the ground.

The sooner he goes the better..we don't need someone with money, we need someone who has a clue what he or she is doing.

 

It's starting to look like selling to gao, was ideal for keeping their own feet under the table. I'm sure he was sold the idea of the successfull behind the scenes team on the board and look at our record of finding bargains and selling for a profit etc.

[tajjuk]

Report on the BBC website today about Wolves behind the scenes talking about how much attention to detail they have, fitness, nutrition etc. I remember similar stories about us back in the day and I don't fee that same high level is there anymore.

[CB Fry]

Report on the BBC website today about Wolves behind the scenes talking about how much attention to detail they have, fitness, nutrition etc. I remember similar stories about us back in the day and I don't fee that same high level is there anymore.

I think it's all steak and chips pre match, card school on the coach then a few pints post match and those towers of champagne flutes come midnight.

[ChiefScummer]

I'm not sure that's a bargain that can be relied on to happen. We can drop down and stay down for 10-15 years, like Forest or Leeds or Bolton or Ipswich.

 

I know mate. Tough pill to swallow but I've become so disenfranchised with the prem I would take championship football, if only for the fact we may actually win games. It costs me a fortune to travel to England for games and I always feel I should have just stayed at home instead. Conceding a goal in injury time meaning we lose is a lot harder to get over when you've spent over a grand to watch that game. Maybe I'm thinking selfishly but I'd take anything else than our current situation mate. Maybe not 10-15 years though lol. Championship is tough but it is enjoyable at least. What would you like to see happen mate? Realistically.