Sport Republic

[AlexLaw76]

3 minutes ago, Smirking_Saint said:

My understanding was and still is that he isn’t necessarily taking the lead in a similar vein to how he did in January

But that isn’t to say he isn’t going to be involved in the short term, we need a new manager, we effectively have a scouting team thats all over the place and Wilcox thats just coming in, Im not even sure when his start date is

I tend to find thinking about realities before coming to conclusions works well my friend

The reality is, we should have a manager that is in-tune with the DoF, the scouting system and general vision of the club.

The reality is, Anskerson has been front and centre of atrocious decisions made, and despite the 'initial' message of taking a backward step, it aint (for obvious reasons).

Going on evidence of his performance thus far, we have someone out of whack with reality and fully expect a season like Stokes, not Burnley, thanks largely to Rasmus

[the saint in winchester]

On 13/05/2023 at 22:23, Smirking_Saint said:

This is how I read it tbh… I know we’re all angry, we all know its a fucking shambles, internally they know its a shambles

Those words were the closest we’ll ever come to an apology.. what we need to see now is improvements and things learnt

They did say it was just an interim statement, and that a full statement will follow at the end of the season, outlining the way forward.

[Smirking_Saint]

4 minutes ago, AlexLaw76 said:

The reality is, we should have a manager that is in-tune with the DoF, the scouting system and general vision of the club.

The reality is, Anskerson has been front and centre of atrocious decisions made, and despite the 'initial' message of taking a backward step, it aint (for obvious reasons).

Going on evidence of his performance thus far, we have someone out of whack with reality and fully expect a season like Stokes, not Burnley, thanks largely to Rasmus

Agree, but Im not fully convinced all of the blame lies in his lap, a significant amount agreed, but its not his completely alone

I do believe the club had for one reason or another got complacent and disjointed under the Gao reign, relegation was seen as a when, not an if, and the excuses for that eventuality would have already been written due to the incumbent ownership model, or basically the lack there of of one

Scouting had become lazy and we were very lucky that Ralph was happy to carry on with his continued ‘rescue’ even if he was spent towards the end

We recruited a head of recruitment, who then absolutely abandoned us when we needed him, Id happily go as far to say this was also, in part, on SR because you only have to look at how Shields carries on on social media to see the bloke is a narcissist and hardly professional but it still caused us significant issues

Rasmus stepped in, he has a significant arrogance about him, Ive met him, but I wouldn’t of said his tenure as our DoF would have been as disastrous as it turned out to be, in part this is on him, in part our scouting network and in part the previous board team trying to pull in different directions

Im told he has learnt, whether this was internal viewership of his own performance or a Solak back hand Im not sure… but realistically he is what we have at the moment, the blokes not an idiot, he just tries to be too progressive… so my hope is Wilcox can tame things or else we are fucked

[Wurzel]

2 hours ago, Smirking_Saint said:

It’ll be difficult, in fact the Championship looks like it could be as competitive as I ever remember it next year but from what I hear around the club the motivation is to attempt to spring back on the first attempt, so I don’t necessarily expect any firesales or cost cutting to an extent yet

SR aren’t Venky’s… I think Rasmus was pushed into a position that he didn’t fit and was probably arrogant enough to think he could achieve what he needed but with a club that had very little joined up thinking we got what we got really

The old guard wanted the ‘SFC playbook’, SR followed their metrics and we had a window that tried to appease both but achieved very little

What we need now, is whats coming, a clear out and a club that is following a single vision, now whether that ‘vision’ is correct or not we will see but at the very least it will be consistent 

Thank god they're not. Vrenky's were so clued up and diligent they had no idea that relegation was actually a thing in the EPL. They assumed it was a franchised closed shop like  the Americans have. I think we can credit SR with a bit more credibility than that

[Weston Super Saint]

1 hour ago, AlexLaw76 said:

The reality is, we should have a manager that is in-tune with the DoF, the scouting system and general vision of the club.

The reality is, Anskerson has been front and centre of atrocious decisions made, and despite the 'initial' message of taking a backward step, it aint (for obvious reasons).

Going on evidence of his performance thus far, we have someone out of whack with reality and fully expect a season like Stokes, not Burnley, thanks largely to Rasmus

Hasn't Mangey told us that Rasmus IS NOT involved and that the new DoF has been working diligently for weeks now - despite not actually working for us yet....

[saintant]

2 hours ago, Smirking_Saint said:

Who else is there to do it ?

The tea lady might have more idea.

[FarehamSaintJames]

1 hour ago, Weston Super Saint said:

Hasn't Mangey told us that Rasmus IS NOT involved and that the new DoF has been working diligently for weeks now - despite not actually working for us yet....

Something like that.

I don’t believe for a second though that Rasmus’ hasn’t been involved in transfers last summer alongside Joe Shields, he opening took ownership of the winter window, signed off on most of the ridiculous off field ideas such as the disco at half time, and also a monumental fuck up in terms of appointments for two managers.

Key staff leaving along with new hires that were agreed ages ago screams of desperation and reactive.

[Weston Super Saint]

2 minutes ago, FarehamSaintJames said:

Something like that.

I don’t believe for a second though that Rasmus’ hasn’t been involved in transfers last summer alongside Joe Shields, he opening took ownership of the winter window, signed off on most of the ridiculous off field ideas such as the disco at half time, and also a monumental fuck up in terms of appointments for two managers.

Key staff leaving along with new hires that were agreed ages ago screams of desperation and reactive.

If the light show was his idea, then all is forgiven as far as I'm concerned.  Fucking genius idea.

[S-Clarke]

27 minutes ago, Weston Super Saint said:

If the light show was his idea, then all is forgiven as far as I'm concerned.  Fucking genius idea.

I think that was one of Ralf Kruger's 5 pledges. They found it down the back of the desk.

[Dman]

Off the back of all this talk around SR wanting us to move towards a ‘possession based style’ has really got me questioning if these clown actually have a plan. It feels like they’re just completely winging it at the moment. 

We obviously want to move away from a ‘high press / counter press’ philosophy, the ‘numbers’ probably suggest keeping the ball is better % of winning, or something silly. But we kept Ralph in the summer, then we went back to Ralph v2 in selles. 

I think it’s clear, from our summer transfer activity and senior appointments in Shields then Wilcox, that we want to base ourselves on the way in which city operate, which is fair enough. But why on earth did we appoint Nathan ‘anti football’ jones? 

You’d hope that the new DOF will have the autonomy to structure the club in the way in which he wants, so we’ll have a degree of a plan (I hope), but at the minute we’re just throwing shit and hoping it’ll stick. 
 

We’ll obviously never know who else was interested in us and on the face of things, these looked like a solid ownership group, but as things currently stand, semmens has royally fucked us by hand picking these idiots. (Excluding Dragan from that, he’s also been fucked probably worse than us). 

[Suhari]

28 minutes ago, Dman said:

Off the back of all this talk around SR wanting us to move towards a ‘possession based style’ has really got me questioning if these clown actually have a plan. It feels like they’re just completely winging it at the moment. 

We obviously want to move away from a ‘high press / counter press’ philosophy, the ‘numbers’ probably suggest keeping the ball is better % of winning, or something silly. But we kept Ralph in the summer, then we went back to Ralph v2 in selles. 

I think it’s clear, from our summer transfer activity and senior appointments in Shields then Wilcox, that we want to base ourselves on the way in which city operate, which is fair enough. But why on earth did we appoint Nathan ‘anti football’ jones? 

You’d hope that the new DOF will have the autonomy to structure the club in the way in which he wants, so we’ll have a degree of a plan (I hope), but at the minute we’re just throwing shit and hoping it’ll stick. 
 

We’ll obviously never know who else was interested in us and on the face of things, these looked like a solid ownership group, but as things currently stand, semmens has royally fucked us by hand picking these idiots. (Excluding Dragan from that, he’s also been fucked probably worse than us). 

So much this.

And the strange 3CB efforts at various times in the season, including the full pre-season trying it.

It takes my mind back to the article in The Athletic which indicated lack of agreement, behind-the-scenes in direction. So maybe that's sorted now, which would be a good thing.

Don't wan't us to stop the high press though. It's a great watch when it clicks.

[lambtiss]

2 hours ago, Suhari said:

So much this.

And the strange 3CB efforts at various times in the season, including the full pre-season trying it.

It takes my mind back to the article in The Athletic which indicated lack of agreement, behind-the-scenes in direction. So maybe that's sorted now, which would be a good thing.

Don't wan't us to stop the high press though. It's a great watch when it clicks.

Aren't they waiting to see what style Manchester City are going to play next season?

[Smirking_Saint]

Wilcox is coming in because we want a multiclub model similar to CFG, thats why we have prioritised senior ex City backroom staff

As per possession based systems, it makes sense, high press isn’t really sustainable unless you have a squad large enough to do it… and we don’t, possession systems are also usually more likely to achieve promotion from the championship, so all of that makes sense

Agree with Ralph to Jones to Selles… to be fair I said at the time a mid season complete change of tactical philosophy was likely suicide… it was, it made sense to go back to Selles, he knew the players and the systems.. he was just shit

[Whitey Grandad]

4 hours ago, Suhari said:

So much this.

And the strange 3CB efforts at various times in the season, including the full pre-season trying it.

It takes my mind back to the article in The Athletic which indicated lack of agreement, behind-the-scenes in direction. So maybe that's sorted now, which would be a good thing.

Don't wan't us to stop the high press though. It's a great watch when it clicks.

When we turned up for the Luton match and saw five at the back we knew that someone had lost their marbles.

[Wade Garrett]

1 hour ago, Smirking_Saint said:

Wilcox is coming in because we want a multiclub model similar to CFG, thats why we have prioritised senior ex City backroom staff

As per possession based systems, it makes sense, high press isn’t really sustainable unless you have a squad large enough to do it… and we don’t, possession systems are also usually more likely to achieve promotion from the championship, so all of that makes sense

Agree with Ralph to Jones to Selles… to be fair I said at the time a mid season complete change of tactical philosophy was likely suicide… it was, it made sense to go back to Selles, he knew the players and the systems.. he was just shit

Fucking brilliant idea to stick to a system that doesn’t fucking work and has almost sent me to fucking sleep at times this season.

[Daft Kerplunk]

Dear Sports Republic, here is your strategy:

Win football matches playing entertaining football as much as possible. Some matches may require neutralising tactics but to win is always the first objective. 

To achieve this, we will sign or develop players who can help us achieve this outcome. Coaches, players and staff will understand that winning matches in an entertaining fashion is the priority for football departments. 

We will represent the city of Southampton positively with our step of play and how we interact with our fans, and commercial partners.  The first answer to community and commercial activity should be yes and how do we make it work. 

We will be a can-do organisation that has an emphasis on action. 
 

 

[FarehamSaintJames]

Sports Republic “We have money aside and are in a strong financial position”

Potentially hire Russell Martin.

Like hosting a dinner party for the wealthiest people in the world and serving them up Co-Op’s own baked beans and toast.

[lambtiss]

1 hour ago, Daft Kerplunk said:

Dear Sports Republic, here is your strategy:

Win football matches playing entertaining football as much as possible. Some matches may require neutralising tactics but to win is always the first objective. 

To achieve this, we will sign or develop players who can help us achieve this outcome. Coaches, players and staff will understand that winning matches in an entertaining fashion is the priority for football departments. 

We will represent the city of Southampton positively with our step of play and how we interact with our fans, and commercial partners.  The first answer to community and commercial activity should be yes and how do we make it work. 

We will be a can-do organisation that has an emphasis on action. 
 

 

Excellent work 

[Smirking_Saint]

2 hours ago, Wade Garrett said:

Fucking brilliant idea to stick to a system that doesn’t fucking work and has almost sent me to fucking sleep at times this season.

My point was, when, as a club, and players have been trained to act on instinct it made little sense to me, to then change to a guy with a vastly different philosophy, the only time that really works is if you broke the glass and dug out a footballing dinosaur that specialises in defensive action.

If we wanted to mess around with the wally from thr valleys then do it in pre season

I’m not saying Selles was the answer because clearly he fucking wasn’t but for me, get someone like Marsch, Jaissle, Tedesco etc that play a red bull/bielsa disciple based system but can make the changes needed

[Badger]

So when Sports Republic arrived, in a blaze of glory and optimism, did anybody expect the names of Nathan Jones, and Russell Martin to be linked ? 

[FarehamSaintJames]

9 hours ago, Badger said:

So when Sports Republic arrived, in a blaze of glory and optimism, did anybody expect the names of Nathan Jones, and Russell Martin to be linked ? 

First and foremost I didn’t expect to be relegated fifteen months later. More so after our 9/10 summer window. 🤣

[The Cat]

Apparently there was a big boardroom bust up around the Nathan Jones time between new regime and the ones left from the old one.

Semmens won't be here next season from what I was told this afternoon.

 

[Badger]

4 minutes ago, The Cat said:

Apparently there was a big boardroom bust up around the Nathan Jones time between new regime and the ones left from the old one.

Semmens won't be here next season from what I was told this afternoon.

 

Over the appointment of, or dismissal?

I’ve criticised Semmens  for things over the last couple of seasons, but when it comes to fuckwittery  he seems eclipsed by  Rasmus W. Ankersen. 

[OnceaSaintalwaysaSaint]

On 13/05/2023 at 18:15, SambaMaverick said:

Not sure if this is new, but it's really fucking grim reading:

https://archive.ph/WLTvG

Thanks for this. Interesting read. For me, this is one of the most positive things I've seen or read about our club in recent weeks. The powers that be have been trying things - hiring a psychology coach to make the players more positive worked wonders! - they've just been making the wrong decisions. Perhaps they should listen to some on here who predicted chaos with the summer signings, who predicted NJ would be useless (even I predicted that) and who said one game against Chelsea should not mean giving the job to Selles to save us from relegation.

But it seems SR are in for the long term. They're businessmen so at the very least they'll need time to recoup some of their investment. Now is an opportunity to start afresh and have a wholesale clearout of the negative sods that currently play for us. 

The concern is SR's motivation. It seems they've bought our club as a project and us fans don't matter. Their website looks like its been done by some junior school students. They've pumped hundreds of millions in to the club and even someone as wealthy as Dragan has taken the money from somewhere (probably another company in his empire) and will want it back. At what point do they say enough is enough? 

[Miltonaggro]

On 18/05/2023 at 21:58, Badger said:

So when Sports Republic arrived, in a blaze of glory and optimism, did anybody expect the names of Nathan Jones, and Russell Martin to be linked ? 

A salient point. Not likely to be the managerial trajectory any of us would have anticipated. 

[The Cat]

4 hours ago, Badger said:

Over the appointment of, or dismissal?

I’ve criticised Semmens  for things over the last couple of seasons, but when it comes to fuckwittery  he seems eclipsed by  Rasmus W. Ankersen. 

Mainly during Jones and since because the old board members were given the chance to appoint Selles after SR sacked Jones.

Now this has gone just as badly they are being cleared out, as we've seen some have already gone and pretty much anyone left from the old lot will be leaving at the end of the season.

[Daft Kerplunk]

12 minutes ago, The Cat said:

Mainly during Jones and since because the old board members were given the chance to appoint Selles after SR sacked Jones.

Now this has gone just as badly they are being cleared out, as we've seen some have already gone and pretty much anyone left from the old lot will be leaving at the end of the season.

Needs to happen.  Club needs a total re-fresh.  It'll be interesting to see how far down it goes.    

[Dark Munster]

So in summary, the clowns who chose Selles are gone, but the clowns who chose Jones remain.

[Wade Garrett]

1 hour ago, The Cat said:

Mainly during Jones and since because the old board members were given the chance to appoint Selles after SR sacked Jones.

Now this has gone just as badly they are being cleared out, as we've seen some have already gone and pretty much anyone left from the old lot will be leaving at the end of the season.

Good.  Semmens thought his job was just to generate profits in the transfer market.

[ErwinK1961]

13 minutes ago, Dark Munster said:

So in summary, the clowns who chose Selles are gone, but the clowns who chose Jones remain.

Well the ones that remain own the club, so they’re obviously not going to go.

[Dragon_man]

2 hours ago, ErwinK1961 said:

Well the ones that remain own the club, so they’re obviously not going to go.

Don't hold your breath.

They have no allegiance to the city, don't particularly respect the fans and may likely realise football club ownership isn't for them.

If Dragan is a successful business man, he may well know when to cut his losses and head for the hills. He'll know things could get worse from here. 

He had investment risk when he bought in January last year. I'd say his investment risk is much higher now.

 

 

 

[Saint Matty 76]

"In addition, we are strengthening our Board of Directors with the appointment of Andy Young as our first independent Director. Andy was previously the Chief Financial Officer of City Football Group, the private owner and operator of some of the world’s top football clubs. Andy will chair our Audit Committee and brings huge experience of operating at the highest level of the football industry."

Semmens gone as well.

[beatlesaint]

Presumably Dragan is now on the Board so he can oversee these idiots and stop them, Rasmus in particular, pissing his money away !

Edited 22 May, 2023 by beatlesaint

[obelisk]

"Sport Republic confirm lead investor Dragan Šolak has been appointed chairman of Sport Republic and will play a more active role "in overseeing the activities of the group and supporting the leadership of the club."

[Turkish]

Semmens has gone!

[Miltonaggro]

4 minutes ago, Saint Matty 76 said:

"In addition, we are strengthening our Board of Directors with the appointment of Andy Young as our first independent Director. Andy was previously the Chief Financial Officer of City Football Group, the private owner and operator of some of the world’s top football clubs. Andy will chair our Audit Committee and brings huge experience of operating at the highest level of the football industry."

Semmens gone as well.

I was sincerely hoping that Marty Semmens would get a testimonial, show our appreciation.  Expect him to be overseeing doughnut operations at Krispy Kreme Westquay soon.  Rasmus survives, but the board has a much more Spectre quality about it following the reshuffle - tick tock

[ecurnew02]

We've hired City Football Group's Chief Financial Officer. Time to do some shady business! 

Edited 22 May, 2023 by ecurnew02

[Turkish]

Just now, ecurnew02 said:

We've hired City Football Group's Cheif Financial Officier. Time to do some shady business! 

Insane signing.

[AlexLaw76]

I think it is only fair Semmens has been let go.  The sheer pain and agony of being forced away from his family every week, to fluff around with the riff raff at soccer-ball

The Mental Health Industrial Complex needs to wrap its arms around Martin, ASAP

[FarehamSaintJames]

Semmens doesn’t deserve half the stick he’s got.

SR froze him out and relegated us. Not Semmens.

[SotonianWill]

1 minute ago, FarehamSaintJames said:

Semmens doesn’t deserve half the stick he’s got.

SR froze him out and relegated us. Not Semmens.

Didn’t our ITKs reveal to us semmens’ blind love for ralph kept him in the job when Eddie Howe was ready to sign?

[S-Clarke]

I think last summer they went half-way with their changes, but it's always risky in my opinion when you have a new ownership group mixed with previous parts of the old ownership group and previous management etc.

Now they are having the clean sweep you could argue they needed 12 months ago, all the appointments at every level will be their appointments so the chances of everything being joined up is much higher as from where I'm sat everything looked a bit disjointed behind the scenes this year, different people wanting different outcomes etc.

I'm pleased we're moving quickly and aren't dawdling, which we have been prone to do. So that's a positive, I just hope the replacements do the job we need them to do.

[LaptopSaint]

1 hour ago, Turkish said:

Insane signing.

He's a Southampton boy and went to school here

[FarehamSaintJames]

26 minutes ago, SotonianWill said:

Didn’t our ITKs reveal to us semmens’ blind love for ralph kept him in the job when Eddie Howe was ready to sign?

The same Eddie Howe that back then people were laughing about at Bournemouth.

Opinion on Eddie Howe have only changed this past year and having spent £150m.

[AlexLaw76]

Just now, FarehamSaintJames said:

The same Eddie Howe that back then people were laughing about at Bournemouth.

Opinion on Eddie Howe have only changed this past year and having spent £150m.

Which is not a great deal of money really

[Turkish]

Just now, FarehamSaintJames said:

The same Eddie Howe that back then people were laughing about at Bournemouth.

Opinion on Eddie Howe have only changed this past year and having spent £150m.

He cant spend money though,  that's was what people said he was at Bournemouth. Cant spend money and gets teams relegated. 

[Turkish]

1 minute ago, AlexLaw76 said:

Which is not a great deal of money really

Only a bit more than we've spent in the last year. He's taken Newcastle from bottom 3 to top 4. We've gone from 15th to bottom.

[FarehamSaintJames]

1 minute ago, AlexLaw76 said:

Which is not a great deal of money really

You’ve missed the point entirely; back then he was deemed way below par for our club, given Bournemouth’s form.

It’s laughable when people say we should’ve got him.
We may as well say we should’ve got Sir Alex all those years back, or Pep, or Klopp etc.

Hindsight means relatively fuck all and just kills the argument straight away 🤣

[Turkish]

Just now, FarehamSaintJames said:

You’ve missed the point entirely; back then he was deemed way below par for our club, given Bournemouth’s form.

It’s laughable when people say we should’ve got him.
We may as well say we should’ve got Sir Alex all those years back, or Pep, or Klopp etc.

Hindsight means relatively fuck all and just kills the argument straight away 🤣

Whats laughable about it? We could have had him.

[Ball boy]

Andy Young is a good guy. I’ve met him a couple of times.