Director of Football Operations Replacement Thread

[Gordon Mockles]

I type too much. I’m beat. Goodnight

[Gordon Mockles]

Not a chance. You think she fought that hard to liquidate the largest part of her inheritance, only to lock up the vast majority of her capital in the same place a couple of years later? She supported Gao's legal appeal against the league's initial finding that he wasn't a fit and proper owner, despite her due diligence (undertaken by UBS) surely revealing that the person she was selling to was having to borrow the money to buy the club.

 

Those are not the actions of someone who thought she was securing the club's legacy - they're the actions of someone who really wanted to get her hands on the best part of £300m. And I don't blame her really - if I inherited a baseball club that I didn't care about and that didn't make me any money, I'd be desperate to get rid of it too.

 

But please enough with the amateur hour PR briefings - not a single one of them passes the most basic sniff test. Gao is potless, KL just wants to enforce the purchase of her remaining 20%, and we are in the sh*t with very few options.

 

I hadn’t read this before my previous reply. Good response. More inline with how I see it but I’m interested into the comment about Kat helping us this month. Conjecture or not?! I’m reluctant to believe anything positive under this dynasty. Crocker is good but I fear he’s only been brought in to turn it into a bigger and better feeder club and I won’t be coming back if they are the plans for Saint Mary‘s. It’s a torturous business model for the fans and the club. You will never grow enough to compete as it undermines the entire foundation of ambition, success and progression. I have better things to do with my life rather than constantly having my hopes built up and smashed back down. Watching exciting displays from new, world class footballers and the subsequent positive results, only to see each player hitting form and being sold off to our competitors at the first enquiry. That would be like living in some sort of sporting hell. I guess the pondering into oblivion allows me to at least begin to understand what life must be like as a Portsmouth FC fan. #GaoOut

[niceandfriendly]

The others here who know Matt personally will be able to confirm him as a true gentleman. Amazing to have him back in Southampton. Of course he never wanted to leave in the first place, but that's a story not for me to tell

[Avenue_Saint]

You are not alone at all & it’s refreshing to read comments from a person with standards. The only leaders in the club’s recent history that seemed to get the picture was Markus & Cortese and that was tragically short lived. It seems our standards as a club are now so low, so many of our fans have forgotten what ambition is and berate anyone for wanting or expecting more, such is our forlorn mindset. We are all p*ssed off and we are all a little hurt but we don’t need to constantly bicker about it.

 

Compete with the best (the top 5/6 clubs) & also compete with your closer level of competitor like Leicester, as you mention. Even our local rivals seem to have ever surpassed us. If you do fall short, at least you are trying and improving your standards.

 

We - as a club - have consistently & systemically deteriorated. We have been deconstructed. Swapping quality for crap. Our club is akin to rebuilding a quality piece of well engineered (possibly Liebherr) industrial machinery and replacing the majority of the components with inferior and poorly built Chinese, counterfeit parts. Eventually, something will go pop because it’s not built for purpose and your multi million pound machinery will be destroyed through narrow minded & ill advised cost cutting. It’s a false and stupid economy. You get what you pay for in life.

 

Ralph, I believe through no fault of his own, has been forced to keep the same defence (aside from the lanky totem pole that can’t jump) the club have endured for a third successive relegation battle. I can’t think of any Premier League clubs that has done that, not adding to the defence for 3 successive relegation battles but I am too lazy to check (does Danso count if he never plays & when he does, it’s out of position?!). It is stupid to continue to compete with clearly inadequate defenders plus the midfield has been neglected and gone to seed. You don’t keep running into a wall and hoping the bricks fall down.

 

To have had such poor results for 3 consecutive seasons & having recorded the league record defeat followed by the worst GD in the league while sat at the foot of the table is depressing enough. To then constantly lie to your fans with hollow promises THEN intimate you will likely not strengthen the squad amidst traumatically pitiful displays of football is the epitome of disrespect and a massive middle finger to the fans. Our boardroom do not give a flying f**k about the fans in any way, shape or form. The donation of scarfs is almost the ultimate p**s take and shows how outrageously out of touch the board really are. They are absolutely clueless about this business, social grace and entirely devoid of intellect relating to English football.

 

If we do not reinforce in January, we are gone. We may well be relegated anyway, even with decent additions to the squad. That’s the cold truth. Yes, it really is that bad. If I'm brutally honest, we do not deserve to stay up. The way our club has been run is humiliating. It’s quite a feat to undo a PL football club as badly as our board have done over the past 2-3 years. Decimated. Clubs need constant attention. Gao should hang his head in shame as he is an absolute joke and he is completely aware of what is going on. He just doesn’t give a f**k. God knows why he bought the club and why the state got involved but it was certainly not in the interests of the club and if they had good intentions, they would have said. Kat ruined her dad’s legacy and she should hang her head in shame for the speed in which she unravelled and destroyed so much success built carefully and lovingly over 3 or was it 4 years?! I will remember those happy times with Wembley and the huge smile on Markus’ face while he fumbled with his digital camera. Happier times. #GaoOut #SOS #BringAmbitionBack

 

Excellent post.

[Professor]

I'm not really having a pop at him, my beef is really with the owners/ board who seem reluctant to change course. More buying young prospects with the idea of selling on at a profit; which is what got us into this mess on the first place.

 

The accusation that the club has had a policy of selling players on at a profit is pure fantasy. Players are free to decide for themselves if they will accept a new contract and how much effort they'll put into their game. Lallana, Mane, Shaw, etc., made their own decisions to move to clubs such as Liverpool or Man U where they could expect to win trophies during their career and bolster their international opportunities. Southampton cannot match those prospects or pay the kind of wages that players receive at the one of the high spending clubs. The attempt to prevent Lovren and then Van Dijk moving, showed that a player can force a move simply by going through the motions on the pitch until picking him to play is pointless.

These attacks on the club we all love by people who claim to be supporters are very sad.

[Monk]

 

The irony; leading a talent ID conference around disruptive thinking and referencing his time at Saints.

[Saint86]

I was defending her until recently (on here or elsewhere, I forget) but I decided by researching a little & chatting with some people I know and trust, she sold off an awful lot of inheritance extremely quickly. No crime in itself but it may reveal a little about her behaviour and what are her real motivations? I still believe that the good work she has overseen was part of a plan and will of her father. I’d be reticent to discount credit to her readily. Whilst I’m not irrationally spiteful towards her as is common place with some of the morons in this city, she’s overseen a record breaking demise and sold us to a dead duck who was flagged up by the Premier League fit and proper persons and she overturned that ruling by appeal. A huge mistake and for that, I

hold her solely responsible. She was the custodian and she sold us out. No-one else did. I also remember the warning and words of NC prior to him leaving and if you look at the actions since, Les seizing power, the club selling all our top players, twice consecutively, it’s hard not to be resentful. The best card the club pulled was hiding behind the great wall of silence so we didn’t really know to whom to aim our frustrations. Who authorised selling all our best assets, twice. Everyone automatically assumed it was Les. Some assumed Kat.

 

All that remains our the facts. We went from three top eight finishes to losing our arguably best ever manager. We recruited well and got in Koeman. Les then (allegedly) forced out RoKo for refusing to sign a longer contract abd compromise wasn’t one of autocratic Les’ strong points. Then it spiralled downhill. Les (or Ross) appointed rubbish. Poorer and poorer managers. A monumental waste of millions in paying off a series of inadequate managers and many more millions wasted in long player contracts and recruiting p*ss poor players.

 

I think the crux of this situation was the football management were not managed or monitored well enough by Kat. She was inexperienced and never asked to own the club. All pointless conjecture but I suspect Les and many others may have taken advantage of the situation. I know Les had his son as an agent for many of the academy players. I’m unsure how a multi -millionaire heiress runs a football club but our management weren’t shy with splashing the cash, foolishly.

 

Ultimately, Les was left at the helm and assumed too much power and was (I’m guessing) largely unmanaged & I assume left to run things. He seemed to p**s off a lot of players as we lost a whole load more and then Les may have gone crazy with someone else’s money and absolutely decimated the stability and finances and well being of our club. Don’t ever get me started on Kruger.

 

All I know is, Kat took the reigns and someone in charge turned us into a feeder club. We lost all our best players over 2 1/2 years and we replaced them with lack lustre, sub-standard cr*p.

 

Liverpool hoovered up many of our A-team.

 

Liverpool have now won the Champions League and look set to win the Premier League this season.

 

Saints were asset stripped and we sold all of our quality.

 

Saints now sit Second from bottom in the Premier League with the joint worst goal difference, having recently recorded the league’s highest ever defeat to a club away from home. The club were universally condemned for one of the worst performances in PL history. Third time lucky for Saints in the relegation game and we look prime candidates to be relegated this season having back tracked on our club’s previous transfer reassurance back in late October. Saints rode their luck and barely survived under an out of his depth Pellegrino and a lack lustre & fairly useless Mark Hughes combined with a decreasing quality coaching set-up and an abjectly failing transfer policy. Buy lots of semi expensive cr*p rather than more expensive, more selective quality. Then overly rely on a non-producing academy purely out of desperation. Talk about not learning from your previous mistakes.

 

Irrespective of blame. We may never know the world-class pitch Gao orchestrated. He may have just made a disinterested offer and Kat leapt at it. All we know is that sale made her one fat cat. Much to our detriment.

 

The more time passes and the more I notice the club’s very different social media tactics, the more I dislike our owner and the dishonest & manipulative behaviour he brings. I will not buy any suggestions he is unaware of what is going on at our club. Then I look at his track record and corruption case and what he did to his business partners to save his own skin, I have grown a severe dislike to the man consorting this but galvanised by his inherent and total neglect to our club over the past 2 years. I want him gone.

 

How do you know Kat has helped us this month? What are you alluding to? I’m interested to know more but would like some background. If she has, fair play to her. Guilty conscience perhaps?! Even so, remorse can be a wonderful thing. The best she can do is help fund a couple of decent defenders and a midfielder, whether permanent or loans. Otherwise, they look set to lose a lot of money. I’d love to believe the greater good but if she does put money in, I can’t help but feel this is protecting her investment but really, it’s incidental the reason. We desperately need funds and it’s a darn sight more than that f***in’ lying waster major shareholder has done.

 

I don't think you can say we were asset stripped. We've spent a fortune on players over the past couple of seasons. With multiple £15m+ buys proving to be utterly terrible. A little bit of perspective is required when levelling around those accusations - they carried a lot more weight before we started panic splashing the wonga.

 

As some of us have always said, we just had incredibly inept people making the business decisions and an owner that did want to minimise outlay with the ambition (probably naively) that the club could be self sufficient.

[Batman]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]2853[/ATTACH]

 

The irony; leading a talent ID conference around disruptive thinking and referencing his time at Saints.

 

Was it this disruptive thinking that not only brought Pellegrino here but kept him in place until it was almost too late?

[the saint in winchester]

So, from the lunchtime news today :

 

* Jeremy Corbyn was at St Mary's Stadium

* Russell Osman was interviewed as an expert on Indian football

 

!!!

[Morse]

The accusation that the club has had a policy of selling players on at a profit is pure fantasy. Players are free to decide for themselves if they will accept a new contract and how much effort they'll put into their game. Lallana, Mane, Shaw, etc., made their own decisions to move to clubs such as Liverpool or Man U where they could expect to win trophies during their career and bolster their international opportunities. Southampton cannot match those prospects or pay the kind of wages that players receive at the one of the high spending clubs. The attempt to prevent Lovren and then Van Dijk moving, showed that a player can force a move simply by going through the motions on the pitch until picking him to play is pointless.

These attacks on the club we all love by people who claim to be supporters are very sad.

The club have said in the past that selling players at a profit is policy. That's a fact. And yes players will leave for bigger clubs and more money, you cant stop that . But when the club assembles a group of players based on what they think they can sell them on for, rather than assembling a group of players to create an effective team you're going to run into problems, and we have.

[woodsaint]

Didnt one of the ITKs post about Buvac, the former Liverpool assistant? Whats the deal with that? Recruitment role, assistant manager role?

[pimpin4rizeal]

Newsflash: that is the stated approach...and it got us to 6th in the PL so can work well if executed correctly, which includes having the right expertise at the club.

 

It also got us to where we are now and is not sustainable, a lot of the core behind our good period was put in place over years where we also had ambition under cortese including mitchelll, but bit by bit we got taken apart and found out we haven’t got some god given right or formula to replacing better every time we sell.

I’m not completely deluded and can see we are not that high up the food chain and it’s gonba be hard to keep our top stars but I dunno this Southampton way bs just seems a bit like trying to brainwash us into embracing us being a feeder club.

Wonder how Leicester fans would feel if they sold Maddison tielemans Ricardo vardy next summer then they got fed how this is a great thing and it’s the Leicester way ?

[benjii]

Selling the “conveyor belt” mode to players is fine, but it is to be balanced.

 

When we sold everyone that summer then brought Korean in, our signings were a mixture of young players and more experienced players. Pelle and Tadic were mature players that we were never going to make a big profit on. Whereas Mane was a young guy with potentially huge profit.

 

The last few years, we haven’t signed any Tadic or Pelle, with the recent exception of Ings. It’s all been young players looking to make their way, particularly at centre back. And it’s a false economy.

 

Also, when you sign someone to a long term contract but plan to sell them anyway, don’t feed bull to the fans about securing their services for five years etc.

[benjii]

Selling the “conveyor belt” model to players is fine, but it is to be balanced.

 

When we sold everyone that summer then brought Koeman in, our signings were a mixture of young players and more experienced players. Pelle and Tadic were mature players that we were never going to make a big profit on. Whereas Mane was a young guy with potentially huge profit.

 

The last few years, we haven’t signed any Tadic or Pelle, with the recent exception of Ings. It’s all been young players looking to make their way, particularly at centre back. And it’s a false economy.

 

Also, when you sign someone to a long term contract but plan to sell them anyway, don’t feed bull to the fans about securing their services for five years etc.

[SKD]

Selling the “conveyor belt” mode to players is fine, but it is to be balanced.

 

When we sold everyone that summer then brought Korean in, our signings were a mixture of young players and more experienced players. Pelle and Tadic were mature players that we were never going to make a big profit on. Whereas Mane was a young guy with potentially huge profit.

 

The last few years, we haven’t signed any Tadic or Pelle, with the recent exception of Ings. It’s all been young players looking to make their way, particularly at centre back. And it’s a false economy.

 

Also, when you sign someone to a long term contract but plan to sell them anyway, don’t feed bull to the fans about securing their services for five years etc.

 

This is absolutely spot on. You need a mixture of experience and youth. Currently, we have a relatively young, inexperienced squad and it shows with our inability to hold a lead or shut up shop.

 

We simply should have signed Cahill in the summer, our strategy of only targeting players under 25? Is a ridiculous one and it will / has cost us.

[Toadhall Saint]

Selling the “conveyor belt” model to players is fine, but it is to be balanced.

 

When we sold everyone that summer then brought Koeman in, our signings were a mixture of young players and more experienced players. Pelle and Tadic were mature players that we were never going to make a big profit on. Whereas Mane was a young guy with potentially huge profit.

 

The last few years, we haven’t signed any Tadic or Pelle, with the recent exception of Ings. It’s all been young players looking to make their way, particularly at centre back. And it’s a false economy.

 

Also, when you sign someone to a long term contract but plan to sell them anyway, don’t feed bull to the fans about securing their services for five years etc.

 

This

[Dusic]

Interesting from David Ornstein via The Athletic:

 

- Several DoF interested candidates couldn't find anyone at the club to communicate their interest to, so ended up going via the Club Secretary. One translated his CV to mandarin and sent it to Gao instead. Unheard of for a PL setup, but the executive team lack football experience.

 

- Steve Walsh helping as a recruitment consultant in the interim, presumably instigated by Martyn Glover as they worked together at Everton. Some in the game feel Glover should get the recruitment role.

[SKD]

Interesting from David Ornstein via The Athletic:

 

- Several DoF interested candidates couldn't find anyone at the club to communicate their interest to, so ended up going via the Club Secretary. One translated his CV to mandarin and sent it to Gao instead. Unheard of for a PL setup, but the executive team lack football experience.

 

- Steve Walsh helping as a recruitment consultant in the interim, presumably instigated by Martyn Glover as they worked together at Everton. Some in the game feel Glover should get the recruitment role.

 

If that first point is true, it’s absolutely shocking. Just shows the disorganisation at the club, at present.

[Saint Pete]

This is absolutely spot on. You need a mixture of experience and youth. Currently, we have a relatively young, inexperienced squad and it shows with our inability to hold a lead or shut up shop.

 

We simply should have signed Cahill in the summer, our strategy of only targeting players under 25? Is a ridiculous one and it will / has cost us.

 

I agree. The club have become too obsessed with its "model" of only signing young players with the aim of maximising sell on value. That is fine as a general strategy to aim for but you need to maintain a balance within the squad and recognise that sometimes you need more experience and know how in key positions to get wins in the premier league. We clearly haven't done that and have allowed serious weaknesses in our team to develop unchecked, most notably at centre back. Whether Cahill was the right man I don't know, but we definitely needed (and still need) someone in that more experienced mould with the know how to help the younger players while they develop. We still haven't really replaced Fonte in that regard in my opinion!

 

Sent from my moto g(7) play using Tapatalk

[Suhari]

Interesting from David Ornstein via The Athletic:

 

- Several DoF interested candidates couldn't find anyone at the club to communicate their interest to, so ended up going via the Club Secretary. One translated his CV to mandarin and sent it to Gao instead. Unheard of for a PL setup, but the executive team lack football experience.

 

- Steve Walsh helping as a recruitment consultant in the interim, presumably instigated by Martyn Glover as they worked together at Everton. Some in the game feel Glover should get the recruitment role.

 

I don't believe this.

 

The name of the CEO is public knowledge. It would be easy enough to get a CV to him for such a senior role in his organisation.

[rooney]

I don't believe this.

 

The name of the CEO is public knowledge. It would be easy enough to get a CV to him for such a senior role in his organisation.

 

I do. My grandson is at Loughborough Uni studying Sports Management and wrote to Southampton amongst others, to see if they had a vacancy for a years internship as part of his degree requirements. Bournemouth and Exeter replied but not a squeak from Southampton. Not only unprofessional but bad manners too.

[benjii]

I had some business dealings with the club about two or three years ago and it seemed like a mess. The bloke I was dealing with was nice and did his best but he seemed to be covering about three different roles at once and didn't have the support, time or budget to handle them all.

[Greenridge]

I do. My grandson is at Loughborough Uni studying Sports Management and wrote to Southampton amongst others, to see if they had a vacancy for a years internship as part of his degree requirements. Bournemouth and Exeter replied but not a squeak from Southampton. Not only unprofessional but bad manners too.

 

It might seem ‘unprofessional’ but it’s a welcome to the real world experience for your grandson. When he applies for full-time jobs in the future he will find that in the vast majority of cases a company will not reply to applicants they are not interested in.

[Sheaf Saint]

So he's due to start "Early 2020".

 

Does anyone have any insight as to how early this might be?

[revolution saint]

Bit of a bump on this one but seeing as we've had a couple of transfer links with potential Brentford targets does this mean Phil Giles is the fella they had in mind as a player trading expert?

Transfer links:  Arsenal kid: https://tbrfootball.com/report-southampton-one-of-many-clubs-interested-in-arsenals-folarin-balogun/

Ljubicic: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-8489905/Brentford-weigh-Rapid-Vienna-midfielder-Dejan-Ljubicic.html

Would seem to tick the boxes in terms of what we want and presumably wants to stay at Brentford until the season is over.  I don't know much about him and it's speculation on my part but he seems to have a pretty good record at finding decent players.

[SuperSAINT]

15 minutes ago, revolution saint said:

Bit of a bump on this one but seeing as we've had a couple of transfer links with potential Brentford targets does this mean Phil Giles is the fella they had in mind as a player trading expert?

Transfer links:  Arsenal kid: https://tbrfootball.com/report-southampton-one-of-many-clubs-interested-in-arsenals-folarin-balogun/

Ljubicic: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-8489905/Brentford-weigh-Rapid-Vienna-midfielder-Dejan-Ljubicic.html

Would seem to tick the boxes in terms of what we want and presumably wants to stay at Brentford until the season is over.  I don't know much about him and it's speculation on my part but he seems to have a pretty good record at finding decent players.

Ah, interesting... I saw their 'Head of recruitment' Lee Dykes was being lined up by Leipzig to replace Paul Mitchell.

Brentford are doing something right.

I don't know if we still want somebody to fill the role, or if we will attempt to go as we are.

Edited 8 July, 2020 by SuperSAINT