Saints Fans Forum - Thursday, 6th May - 6-7pm

[Roo1976]

On 05/05/2021 at 07:25, CB Fry said:

League 1/Championship was ten years ago. We've had sustained investment in our youth for all that time. I think you're putting too much value on innate, natural ability of 8 year olds.

I'd say the main issue is more to do with it being much harder to establish a young player in a Premier League squad.

A young Adam Lallana would never make our first team as he did in L1. 

LALLANA WOULDNT GET A SNIFF WITH RALPH AROUND

[captainchris]

On 05/05/2021 at 07:06, wild-saint said:

The current crop would have been taken on as youngsters around the time we were in championship / league 1 and as such we probably didn’t have first pick of the top talent. Stands to reason we are going to have a bunch of duffers in the current wave. 
 

We returned to the prem 8/9 years ago so I would expect the 13-16 year olds will start to see better talent going through as opposed to 16-20 age group are likely to be mainly shit.

just my logic being applies but sounds plausible 🤪

Not plausible .... Our recruitment of youngsters has been abysmal. Recruiting too young is a waste of time for a start. 
Certainly our recruitment of 14-16 year olds not long ago was non existent locally. 
Unless things have changed Tyro league standard certainly Saints were nowhere to be seen but other top clubs were all over the place locally ...

However we love talent spotting babies still in womb ! Lol 😂 

Edited 6 May, 2021 by captainchris

[captainchris]

On 05/05/2021 at 10:20, woodsaint1 said:

While I accept that injuries have been a big factor, the u23 team had probably their best team available last time out (Tella, Obafemi, Jankewitz, N'Lundulu, Ferry to name a few) and still lost 5-0. We arent the only club who've had to deal with injuries this season and yet other u18/u23 sides continue to perform at a decent level.  In the u18 league we're way behind some of the London clubs like Palace, Fulham and Reading who face serious competition from bigger clubs in the capital in terms of attracting/keeping their talent. To me, you can have the best scouting/recruitment in the world, but if the coaching isnt good enough it wont matter. We need a serious overhaul of the coaching setup in the academy because a total of 6 wins across 46 u18/u23 games is absolutely dreadful

Well put Sir or Madame ... 

[Dusic]

I thought Crocker was very good on the Academy performance and was very clear that its not been run well and the players are largely not good enough, which is proven by the dreadful results and lack of anyone coming through of late.

Will take time to resolve but he spoke about some of what is already planned and it didnt need much reading between the lines to know its had a big shake up with more to follow.

Scouting and recruitment - being revamped

Coaching - being revamped

Attitudes and desire - needs to change.

He made no excuses. Good to hear.

Edited 6 May, 2021 by Dusic

[Dusic]

Also Ralph strong on Valery and Vokins - saying they have made no impact in the Championship or L1 so basically going to be extremely difficult for them to have a place at Saints next season.

Overall between Ralph, Semmens and Crocker I really feel they get it and have a lot of trust in them to do the most they can within the obvious limits we have - which they seem to enjoy the challenge of.

[woodsaint1]

48 minutes ago, Dusic said:

I thought Crocker was very good on the Academy performance and was very clear that its not been run well and the players are largely not good enough, which is proven by the dreadful results and lack of anyone coming through of late.

Will take time to resolve but he spoke about some of what is already planned and it didnt need much reading between the lines to know its had a big shake up with more to follow.

Scouting and recruitment - being revamped

Coaching - being revamped

Attitudes and desire - needs to change.

He made no excuses. Good to hear.

Good to hear him not making any excuses and already making steps to address the problems.

Interesting on the transfer front about some signings potentially being nearly completed already (not withstanding Walcott). Hopefully we can get some business done early window and not need to be scrambling around on deadline day like we've done all too often. Deadline day is for great deals which present themselves late on, not for trying to cover needs you've been looking to address for months

[Daft Kerplunk]

6 hours ago, Dusic said:

I thought Crocker was very good on the Academy performance and was very clear that its not been run well and the players are largely not good enough, which is proven by the dreadful results and lack of anyone coming through of late.

Will take time to resolve but he spoke about some of what is already planned and it didnt need much reading between the lines to know its had a big shake up with more to follow.

Scouting and recruitment - being revamped

Coaching - being revamped

Attitudes and desire - needs to change.

He made no excuses. Good to hear.

Does this signal the end of the Matt Hale West Country cartel! 🤔

[wild-saint]

9 hours ago, captainchris said:

Not plausible .... Our recruitment of youngsters has been abysmal. Recruiting too young is a waste of time for a start. 
Certainly our recruitment of 14-16 year olds not long ago was non existent locally. 
Unless things have changed Tyro league standard certainly Saints were nowhere to be seen but other top clubs were all over the place locally ...

However we love talent spotting babies still in womb ! Lol 😂 

Jwp, Luke shaw, oxlade chamberlain all recruited as 7/8 year olds.  Not much of a stretch to suggest their parents would have put them at a London clubs academy if we had been going through admin and playing in L1 at the time. Why is that not plausible?

[The Cat]

9 hours ago, captainchris said:

Not plausible .... Our recruitment of youngsters has been abysmal. Recruiting too young is a waste of time for a start. 
Certainly our recruitment of 14-16 year olds not long ago was non existent locally. 
Unless things have changed Tyro league standard certainly Saints were nowhere to be seen but other top clubs were all over the place locally ...

However we love talent spotting babies still in womb ! Lol 😂 

Saints certainly do look at Tyro, my son's friend was signed at the beginning of last season from Sholing U14's. 

Saying that other clubs like Chelsea take a more scattergun approach, around the same time they invited a load of kids at that age up to Cobham for 6 weeks to look at them, think they only took 1 though and he's now left for Bournemouth. I haven't known of Saints to go for that mass approach at older ages as they tend to look more extensively at 7-9 age group. There were always scouts hanging around during mini soccer times and that's when most of them got picked up.

There's still some decent local players at what is now U15, believe me I've probably seen all of them play at some point in the last few years in Tyro, JPL or for district schoolboys. There's probably 2 or 3 who I am surprised aren't in an academy.

Going back to the content from the fans forum it sounded like some good information came from it, and definitely interesting comments about investment.

[The Cat]

1 hour ago, Daft Kerplunk said:

Does this signal the end of the Matt Hale West Country cartel! 🤔

There's certainly a lot of kids from around Bristol in the academy.

[Turkish]

44 minutes ago, wild-saint said:

Jwp, Luke shaw, oxlade chamberlain all recruited as 7/8 year olds.  Not much of a stretch to suggest their parents would have put them at a London clubs academy if we had been going through admin and playing in L1 at the time. Why is that not plausible?

Spot on. When they were 7/8 we were in the premier league with a lot of back slapping how we were a model club with a great academy. During our downward journey it’s obvious that young players wouldn’t join a club with much publicised finance issues, selling anything that wasn’t nailed down and boardroom civil war going on.

Edited 7 May, 2021 by Turkish

[Mowgli]

On 04/05/2021 at 17:45, JustinSFC said:

I've been to all of them including the private ST holder invite only one and at all of them the Mic runner isn't allowed to let go of the microphone, so if you ask anything remotely to close to the bone they'll pull the microphone away.

Although, the one with Toby Steele, Toby to his credit did accept some difficult questions and answered them.

The one with Krueger & Reed some old bloke started laying into certain club policies the microphone got pulled but he continued yelling.

These forums are basically useless as you aren't going to get answers to proper questions.

Like the club suspect club sponsor farce got heckled and our sell to buy policies etc..

There's a clue in your description of the event.  A forum is about questions.  No one really wants to hear a rant unless there is a question there to answer.  We can come on here for that.  They answered the point on the sponsor.  They got a lot of money (a record deal in) year 1 and replaced them with SportsBet in year 2 with another decent deal.  I suspect we lost a bit on shirts but hardly a disaster.

Edited 7 May, 2021 by Mowgli
To stop AleHouseBoys having a heart attack :)

[Mowgli]

10 hours ago, captainchris said:

Not plausible .... Our recruitment of youngsters has been abysmal. Recruiting too young is a waste of time for a start. 
Certainly our recruitment of 14-16 year olds not long ago was non existent locally. 
Unless things have changed Tyro league standard certainly Saints were nowhere to be seen but other top clubs were all over the place locally ...

However we love talent spotting babies still in womb ! Lol 😂 

At what age do you think we signed Lallana, Bale, Walcott, Ox, Shaw and Bridge?

Edit: Should have read down - Wild Saint already made same comment  

Edited 7 May, 2021 by Mowgli

[supersonic]

1 hour ago, The Cat said:

There's certainly a lot of kids from around Bristol in the academy.

The best U16 is from Bath as well, so I can't see us closing that. 

[Dusic]

Given how firm Crocker was on the underachievement within the Academy both results wise and structurally it does make you wonder about Matt Hale's future at the club, given he is the Academy Manager and the standards seem to have slipped during his reign.

[Scottish-Saint]

13 hours ago, Saint Garrett said:

In one of the other breakout rooms, it was mentioned to me a few things that haven’t been mentioned…

Next years kit is “fantastic” and Hummel don’t run off templates and then stick a club badge on it.  It’s been completely designed for Saints and there are plenty of little bits of it that go back to Southampton. Confirmed as stripes (no surprise there)

Learnt a lot from 2 home games in December, hoping and expecting about 8,200 there for the Leeds game, same criteria as before, with those that have been go back to the back of the queue for tickets. Trying to work on ways to improve the “experience” for that Leeds game, including having the Brass band outside. Will still be “lanes” on entry to the stadium similar to those home games against Sheff Utd and City. 

Preparing for a full house in August. 

Stadium is going to have a bit of a clean and revamp, has barely been touched for 20 years. New screens, loads more personal touches in the concourse. Few of the suites getting full upgrades.  The “pink” seats in the Itchen will likely get a revamp at the end of next season

Doesn’t really concern me, but food upgrades - hope to have new “Hampshire” pies available next season from local supplier.

Club is stupidly excited to have fans back. 

Any mention if Covid test results will be required to gain entry to the Leeds game or has enough been learned from the test games to negate the need?

[alehouseboys]

3 hours ago, Mowgli said:

There's a clue in your description of the event.  A forum is about questions.  No one really wants to hear a rant unless there is a question there to answer.  We can come on her for that.  They answered the point on the sponsor.  They got a lot of money (a record deal in) year 1 and replaced them with SportsBet in year 2 with another decent deal.  I suspect we lost a bit on shirts but hardly a disaster.

😱

[Saint_lambden]

1 hour ago, Scottish-Saint said:

Any mention if Covid test results will be required to gain entry to the Leeds game or has enough been learned from the test games to negate the need?

In the breakout session I was in, the Leeds game was talked about. 

The club are awaiting the green light from the government next week that England is proceeding to next stage of easing restrictions from 17th May. 

They said they don't have all the detail yet on entry requirements etc. but will be prioritising firstly those that were allocated a ticket for the West Ham home match that then got put back behind closed doors at short notice. Then it'll be remaining season ticket holders who didn't get to go to either the Man City or Sheff Utd games. 

[Saint Garrett]

2 hours ago, Scottish-Saint said:

Any mention if Covid test results will be required to gain entry to the Leeds game or has enough been learned from the test games to negate the need?

Was no mention, just that they're going to prioritise those that had tickets for West Ham, and those that have already been this season, go to the back of the queue.
Mentioned they're expecting a larger takeup, as a lot of people took themselves out of the hat back at the end of last year, due to personal concerns, but a lot of those people have now had atleast 1 maybe 2 vaccines.

[John D]

7 minutes ago, Saint Garrett said:

Was no mention, just that they're going to prioritise those that had tickets for West Ham, and those that have already been this season, go to the back of the queue.
Mentioned they're expecting a larger takeup, as a lot of people took themselves out of the hat back at the end of last year, due to personal concerns, but a lot of those people have now had atleast 1 maybe 2 vaccines.

Any mention of how many season ticket holders we ended up with? 

Due to local lockdowns I wasn't eligible for any of the games played in Dec but as a s/t holder I must be in with a decent chance if they allow around 8k fans in.  Already booked a half day off work in hope!

[qwertyell]

Pretty disappointing that everybody hid behind the stock excuse of "injuries and bad luck" as the predominant reason why we have been record-breakingly appalling in 2021 - as though no other side has faced any adversity this season without utterly capitulating.

What they say in public and behind the scenes may differ, but on the face of it it doesn't suggest much self reflection has gone on. Which doesn't bode well.

[Chapel End]

30 minutes ago, qwertyell said:

Pretty disappointing that everybody hid behind the stock excuse of "injuries and bad luck" as the predominant reason why we have been record-breakingly appalling in 2021 - as though no other side has faced any adversity this season without utterly capitulating.

What they say in public and behind the scenes may differ, but on the face of it it doesn't suggest much self reflection has gone on. Which doesn't bode well.

Liverpool did by their standards and Klopp admitted as much on a sky sports interview earlier today

[Saint Garrett]

1 hour ago, John D said:

Any mention of how many season ticket holders we ended up with? 

Due to local lockdowns I wasn't eligible for any of the games played in Dec but as a s/t holder I must be in with a decent chance if they allow around 8k fans in.  Already booked a half day off work in hope!

No mention John, My guesstimate would be about 16k?
4k went to the Sheff Utd / City games, so would think you've got a 2/3 chance.  Possibly 1,000 or so who aren't bothered or cant make it. Think you've got a decent chance

[Convict Colony]

1 hour ago, qwertyell said:

Pretty disappointing that everybody hid behind the stock excuse of "injuries and bad luck" as the predominant reason why we have been record-breakingly appalling in 2021 - as though no other side has faced any adversity this season without utterly capitulating.

What they say in public and behind the scenes may differ, but on the face of it it doesn't suggest much self reflection has gone on. Which doesn't bode well.

To be honest i think those are major factors this season.

I would phrase it as fixture congestion combined with our high energy style of play with a small squad with a lot of key players injured at the same time and some poor VAR officiating has impacted our season.

[TWar]

2 hours ago, qwertyell said:

Pretty disappointing that everybody hid behind the stock excuse of "injuries and bad luck" as the predominant reason why we have been record-breakingly appalling in 2021 - as though no other side has faced any adversity this season without utterly capitulating.

What they say in public and behind the scenes may differ, but on the face of it it doesn't suggest much self reflection has gone on. Which doesn't bode well.

It's not that no other team has faced adversity, it's that we have had the third most injuries in the league (missed matches) only less than Liverpool and Sheffield united, and look how much they have fallen off since last season. I know people don't like "excuses" but sometimes there is a reasonable explanation for a team going from europe quality to relegation quality in under a month other than "we've been found out" or "the manager has lost his mind". In our case we have a thin squad and haven't been injury-free for our first choice 11 since early December and had 7-10 first team players out for a lot of January and February. We have most people back now but they are obviously a bit rusty having been out for a while.

If you'd like Ralph to tell you "well I don't know what to say, we became shit overnight and I completely forgot what I was doing after a few too many drinks on new years day" then I guess he could, but it wouldn't be honest. The injury thing plus the poor ref decisions feeding into a lack of confidence is far more accurate which is what they said.

Edited 7 May, 2021 by TWar

[VectisSaint]

10 hours ago, wild-saint said:

Jwp, Luke shaw, oxlade chamberlain all recruited as 7/8 year olds.  Not much of a stretch to suggest their parents would have put them at a London clubs academy if we had been going through admin and playing in L1 at the time. Why is that not plausible?

Rules for academy recruitment were different back in those days, you could only recruit at that age from the "local" area (because of the Solent we were given dispensation to recruit further afield, hence the Bath Satellite). Nowadays, Tier 1 Academies can recruit far and wide, hence the big clubs hoover up talent much more than they used to, although we have the same rights, there is clearly a draw for parents to more glamarous clubs, so its not difficult to see why kids end up at Chelsea rather than Saints.

[S-Clarke]

20 hours ago, Dusic said:

Also Ralph strong on Valery and Vokins - saying they have made no impact in the Championship or L1 so basically going to be extremely difficult for them to have a place at Saints next season.

Overall between Ralph, Semmens and Crocker I really feel they get it and have a lot of trust in them to do the most they can within the obvious limits we have - which they seem to enjoy the challenge of.

That's pretty much how I saw it. I was actually surprised how candid Matt Crocker was in particular, didn't hold any punches.

None of them really held back, no excuses made and some genuine recognition for things we haven't been doing too great over the last few years. They all speak a lot of sense to be honest, they seem to have the same feelings as we do so no doubt they are as frustrated.

Doesn't make any sense to rip up the book and start again, there's clearly a plan here and they're trying to correct the mistakes and bulk the squad up in order to try and make it sustainable over a season.

Edited 7 May, 2021 by S-Clarke

[Baird of the land]

21 hours ago, Dusic said:

Also Ralph strong on Valery and Vokins - saying they have made no impact in the Championship or L1 so basically going to be extremely difficult for them to have a place at Saints next season.

Overall between Ralph, Semmens and Crocker I really feel they get it and have a lot of trust in them to do the most they can within the obvious limits we have - which they seem to enjoy the challenge of.

Didn't realise Vokins contract runs to 2024 and Valery's to 2023.

[Daft Kerplunk]

On 07/05/2021 at 08:04, The Cat said:

There's certainly a lot of kids from around Bristol in the academy.

Getting kids from the west is fine. The coaches, especially those that have joined in recent years, are the real problem, nowhere near good enough but given jobs because they’ve been at Bath or know Matt personally/played for Bristol or Yeovil. Fine if they are brilliant but not if they aren’t. Need to take on the best coaches to get the best results. 

[The Cat]

1 hour ago, Daft Kerplunk said:

Getting kids from the west is fine. The coaches, especially those that have joined in recent years, are the real problem, nowhere near good enough but given jobs because they’ve been at Bath or know Matt personally/played for Bristol or Yeovil. Fine if they are brilliant but not if they aren’t. Need to take on the best coaches to get the best results. 

Good point.

One thing I heard about our academy is that we don't have ex-pros from the club involved. The kid I know said he's played against West Ham whose coach was Carlton Cole and Chelsea who had Ashley Cole.

Being an ex-pro doesn't automatically make you an excellent coach but it's surely good to have people like that with top level pro experience around the academy for the kids to look up to and gain knowledge from. 

[Give it to Ron]

1 hour ago, The Cat said:

Good point.

One thing I heard about our academy is that we don't have ex-pros from the club involved. The kid I know said he's played against West Ham whose coach was Carlton Cole and Chelsea who had Ashley Cole.

Being an ex-pro doesn't automatically make you an excellent coach but it's surely good to have people like that with top level pro experience around the academy for the kids to look up to and gain knowledge from. 

Few years ago Murty was coaching Norwich u16s with Darren Huckerby as assistant. Battered Saints.

Murty was great Huckerby a pr1ck doesn’t always work but they understood the game and players whereas Saints  too lightweight and technical theory.

[rooney]

We seemed to do better in this Dept when we had Dodd and Williams looking after the youngsters and they had the sack.