Claude Puel (Split)

[TWar]

6 hours ago, Matthew Le God said:

 

Excellent video.

I think the outcome bias thing applies really well to Claude Puel. He had a good league position but underlying numbers weren't good. We were overperforming a number of metrics, as well as finishing high but with a low points total. Like in the newcastle case our goal difference told a very bleak story. While we only dropped a place or two from the Koeman years our goal difference went from +21 and +18 under Koeman to -7 under Puel. That is huge.

Puel gets fired and you get a bunch of fans saying "but he got 8th, that's good right? Why sack him?" some say this to this day, but like here it is outcome bias. Unsustainable results which would have dropped as soon as our luck turned. You didn't even need to know the stats, there was a reason he was so unpopular at the time despite getting good results, the fans could see we were playing like shit having looked good for years. This is why sacking Puel was a good decision. Our subsequent hires on the other hand...

[goodymatt]

10 hours ago, TWar said:

Excellent video.

I think the outcome bias thing applies really well to Claude Puel. He had a good league position but underlying numbers weren't good. We were overperforming a number of metrics, as well as finishing high but with a low points total. Like in the newcastle case our goal difference told a very bleak story. While we only dropped a place or two from the Koeman years our goal difference went from +21 and +18 under Koeman to -7 under Puel. That is huge.

Puel gets fired and you get a bunch of fans saying "but he got 8th, that's good right? Why sack him?" some say this to this day, but like here it is outcome bias. Unsustainable results which would have dropped as soon as our luck turned. You didn't even need to know the stats, there was a reason he was so unpopular at the time despite getting good results, the fans could see we were playing like shit having looked good for years. This is why sacking Puel was a good decision. Our subsequent hires on the other hand...

100% this, Puel had to go. His performances elsewhere, especially Leicester also support this.

We were clever enough to make the change, but unfortunately believed our own hype in manager recruitment following Adkins/Poch/Koeman. If only we hadn’t got that change so wrong!

[Lighthouse]

10 hours ago, TWar said:

Excellent video.

I think the outcome bias thing applies really well to Claude Puel. He had a good league position but underlying numbers weren't good. We were overperforming a number of metrics, as well as finishing high but with a low points total. Like in the newcastle case our goal difference told a very bleak story. While we only dropped a place or two from the Koeman years our goal difference went from +21 and +18 under Koeman to -7 under Puel. That is huge.

Puel gets fired and you get a bunch of fans saying "but he got 8th, that's good right? Why sack him?" some say this to this day, but like here it is outcome bias. Unsustainable results which would have dropped as soon as our luck turned. You didn't even need to know the stats, there was a reason he was so unpopular at the time despite getting good results, the fans could see we were playing like shit having looked good for years. This is why sacking Puel was a good decision. Our subsequent hires on the other hand...

I did think of Puel but didn’t want to go into it again, however since you mentioned him I’d agree with that assessment. As well as the GD we also scored 8 goals in 16 of our home games, which is very poor as an attacking output. Only four of those were from open play and one of them was a goalkeeping howler.

The question with Puel should not have been what did he achieve but what would he have achieved had he stayed. A repeat of the cup run would have been massively unlikely and 46 points, if repeated, is usually good for about 13th.

[Turkish]

25 minutes ago, Lighthouse said:

I did think of Puel but didn’t want to go into it again, however since you mentioned him I’d agree with that assessment. As well as the GD we also scored 8 goals in 16 of our home games, which is very poor as an attacking output. Only four of those were from open play and one of them was a goalkeeping howler.

The question with Puel should not have been what did he achieve but what would he have achieved had he stayed. A repeat of the cup run would have been massively unlikely and 46 points, if repeated, is usually good for about 13th.

But again this is another case where stats only tell part of the story. What they dont tell you is that Puel achieved what he did without Van Dijk and Fonte for half a season (arguably one of the top centre back pairs in the league) and Mane, Pelle (our two leading scorers from the previous season) and Wanyama for the whole season. Also Charlie Austin our leading goal scorer in Puels only made 15 league appearances. So without almost half of the team the season before that had been successful. Add in one of the replacements for those didn't even manage to play in half the league games and a rookie Jack Stephens playing half a a season maybe people should be saying how well he did under the circumstances.

So yes stats can paint a picture but they dont give you the full picture which is why relying on data alone is not a fair or accurate assessment. 

Edited 5 January, 2022 by Turkish

[Whitey Grandad]

30 minutes ago, Turkish said:

But again this is another case where stats only tell part of the story. What they dont tell you is that Puel achieved what he did without Van Dijk and Fonte for half a season (arguably one of the top centre back pairs in the league) and Mane, Pelle (our two leading scorers from the previous season) and Wanyama for the whole season. Also Charlie Austin our leading goal scorer in Puels only made 15 league appearances. So without almost half of the team the season before that had been successful. Add in one of the replacements for those didn't even manage to play in half the league games and a rookie Jack Stephens playing half a a season maybe people should be saying how well he did under the circumstances.

So yes stats can paint a picture but they dont give you the full picture which is why relying on data alone is not a fair or accurate assessment. 

Puel achieved nothing. End of story. 

[Lighthouse]

1 hour ago, Turkish said:

But again this is another case where stats only tell part of the story. What they dont tell you is that Puel achieved what he did without Van Dijk and Fonte for half a season (arguably one of the top centre back pairs in the league) and Mane, Pelle (our two leading scorers from the previous season) and Wanyama for the whole season. Also Charlie Austin our leading goal scorer in Puels only made 15 league appearances. So without almost half of the team the season before that had been successful. Add in one of the replacements for those didn't even manage to play in half the league games and a rookie Jack Stephens playing half a a season maybe people should be saying how well he did under the circumstances.

So yes stats can paint a picture but they dont give you the full picture which is why relying on data alone is not a fair or accurate assessment. 

But that in itself is a heavily weighted statement in Puel’s favour. You’re effectively arguing that he only achieved the points he did because he had the best centre half in Europe for half a season, you’re just arguing it from the other end. That kind of thinking is exactly what the TED video was all about, how Newcastle’s season was flattered by Cissé being nearly twice as efficient as Messi with chances.

Here’s a hypothesis; Fonte and Van Dijk are worth 10 points a season on any CB we’ve had since Puel left. You may disagree but I would argue that those two, over a 38 game season could turn 3 draws into wins and 4 defeats into draws (or some variation thereof) compared to Stephens, Vest, Hoedt, Danso and the other dross we’ve had since.

If we assume that hypothesis to be reasonable, taking your argument that he did well to score 46 points with only half a season of JF/VvD, then you could assume that without those two at all he’d be 5 points worse off. So you’re then left with the argument that in a season without those two defenders, which is how it was summer 2017, Puel was a 41 point manager with a GD worse than minus seven.

[Turkish]

57 minutes ago, Whitey Grandad said:

Puel achieved nothing. End of story. 

On that basis neither has any manager we've had apart from McMenemy

[Turkish]

55 minutes ago, Lighthouse said:

But that in itself is a heavily weighted statement in Puel’s favour. You’re effectively arguing that he only achieved the points he did because he had the best centre half in Europe for half a season, you’re just arguing it from the other end. That kind of thinking is exactly what the TED video was all about, how Newcastle’s season was flattered by Cissé being nearly twice as efficient as Messi with chances.

Here’s a hypothesis; Fonte and Van Dijk are worth 10 points a season on any CB we’ve had since Puel left. You may disagree but I would argue that those two, over a 38 game season could turn 3 draws into wins and 4 defeats into draws (or some variation thereof) compared to Stephens, Vest, Hoedt, Danso and the other dross we’ve had since.

If we assume that hypothesis to be reasonable, taking your argument that he did well to score 46 points with only half a season of JF/VvD, then you could assume that without those two at all he’d be 5 points worse off. So you’re then left with the argument that in a season without those two defenders, which is how it was summer 2017, Puel was a 41 point manager with a GD worse than minus seven.

Cisse is one player who was still at the club, Puel was without half the team of the previous season for at least half of it.

If you agree that Fonte and Van Dijk were worth 10 points, then in the previous season Mane and Pelle scored 9 more goals than Austin and Redmond, how many points is that worth? Potentially up to 18, so you're talking about possibly a 23 point swing, which turns usless old Claudes 46 points into 69, level on points with Manchester United. 

The point being that everyone goes on about useless Puel and how he was such a downgrade on Koeman, without taking into account the other factors. As i said, if he'd had the same players as Koeman he may have finished 23 points better off than he did. 

[Sheaf Saint]

34 minutes ago, Turkish said:

The point being that everyone goes on about useless Puel and how he was such a downgrade on Koeman, without taking into account the other factors. As i said, if he'd had the same players as Koeman he may have finished 23 points better off than he did. 

The fact that he took over a Leicester team with pretty much the same squad that had won the PL in the previous year and finished 9th with 47 points suggests otherwise.

[Turkish]

19 minutes ago, Sheaf Saint said:

The fact that he took over a Leicester team with pretty much the same squad that had won the PL in the previous year and finished 9th with 47 points suggests otherwise.

This simply isnt true. Puel took over from Craig Shakesphere in October 2017, the previous season Leicester finished 12th they were near the bottom of the table for most of the season and Raneri was sacked in the february with them one point above the relegation zone. They were a bit of a mess around then with Shakesphere coming and only lasting 8 months before being replaced by Puel.  Puel took them to 9th, 3 places higher than the previous season and Kante and Drinkwater had been sold from their title winning side. That summer Mahrez was sold to Man City and Puel was sacked in the February with them 12th. 3 seasons with 8th, 9th and 12th (when fired) tend to prove that he's a pretty decent midtable manager. Whatever he did at Leicester is irrelevant to what he did at Saints anyway.

Edited 5 January, 2022 by Turkish

[JRM]

2 hours ago, Whitey Grandad said:

Puel achieved nothing. End of story. 

Beating Liverpool in a semi final at Anfield? 

[Whitey Grandad]

13 minutes ago, JRM said:

Beating Liverpool in a semi final at Anfield? 

Is that all you've got?

I'll see you liverpool win and raise you with a feeble disappointing European campaign. 

[Turkish]

Just now, Whitey Grandad said:

Is that all you've got?

I'll see you liverpool win and raise you with a feeble disappointing European campaign. 

Better than Koemans the year before 

[CanadaSaint]

And another worthwhile thread goes off the rails with off-topic jousting that will end up with it disappearing up its own arse.

We are the Moussa Djenepo of web forums. 

Thanks to tajjuk for pointing us back in the general direction of the goal.

[aintforever]

1 hour ago, Turkish said:

This simply isnt true. Puel took over from Craig Shakesphere in October 2017, the previous season Leicester finished 12th they were near the bottom of the table for most of the season and Raneri was sacked in the february with them one point above the relegation zone. They were a bit of a mess around then with Shakesphere coming and only lasting 8 months before being replaced by Puel.  Puel took them to 9th, 3 places higher than the previous season and Kante and Drinkwater had been sold from their title winning side. That summer Mahrez was sold to Man City and Puel was sacked in the February with them 12th. 3 seasons with 8th, 9th and 12th (when fired) tend to prove that he's a pretty decent midtable manager. Whatever he did at Leicester is irrelevant to what he did at Saints anyway.

To be fair, you did say "Probably the right decision in the end" when he was sacked so he couldn't have been that good.

[Toadhall Saint]

CP was boring back then and is even more boring now.

 

future looks a lot brighter with people that use data in the right way - to highlight potential upsides as well as downsides but also realise it’s not the be all and end all.

[Turkish]

11 minutes ago, aintforever said:

To be fair, you did say "Probably the right decision in the end" when he was sacked so he couldn't have been that good.

It was because he'd lost the players and fans, that was obvious. Once that happens then it only ends on way anyway.  I dont think sacking him on results was right given the circumstances he had to deal with.

[AlexLaw76]

1 minute ago, Turkish said:

It was because he'd lost the players and fans, that was obvious. Once that happens then it only ends on way anyway.  I dont think sacking him on results was right given the circumstances he had to deal with.

What was our xG though?

[derry]

I don't care what the selective statistics said, what I do know the two seasons with Puel and Pellegrino were soul destroying and turned an exciting spectator sport into the most negative boring waste of an afternoon that I was paying good money to watch. 

[whelk]

1 hour ago, derry said:

I don't care what the selective statistics said, what I do know the two seasons with Puel and Pellegrino were soul destroying and turned an exciting spectator sport into the most negative boring waste of an afternoon that I was paying good money to watch. 

So many likes for such bs

[JRM]

4 hours ago, Whitey Grandad said:

Is that all you've got?

I'll see you liverpool win and raise you with a feeble disappointing European campaign. 

Disappointing to go out but we did beat Inter Milan so not all bad Grandad!

I called him clueless Claude but he deserves some credit. 

[Whitey Grandad]

5 minutes ago, JRM said:

Disappointing to go out but we did beat Inter Milan so not all bad Grandad!

I called him clueless Claude but he deserves some credit. 

So he won a game.

I can never forgive him for that depressing dirge of a home season. A total waste of money and time.

[Dark Munster]

Sorry, I came to the wrong place. I thought this was the Ankersen thread.

P.S. Thanks to Turkish for pointing out what Puel achieved with a squad decimated from the one prior. But for the anti-Puel mob it's like convincing anti-vaxxers to get the jab.

[whelk]

1 hour ago, Dark Munster said:

Sorry, I came to the wrong place. I thought this was the Ankersen thread.

P.S. Thanks to Turkish for pointing out what Puel achieved with a squad decimated from the one prior. But for the anti-Puel mob it's like convincing anti-vaxxers to get the jab.

Yeah they hated the league cup final. All fell asleep as they weren’t entertained enough. As you say like a fucking cult

[derry]

18 hours ago, whelk said:

So many likes for such bs

The reason Puel and his successor were sacked was enough feedback from supporters criticising the turgid style of play which the club recognised as valid.

[once_bitterne]

How can fans honestly defend Puel?  Quoting 8th is a false stat as it was a ridiculously low points total for this position.  The real stat is that we fell from 63 points to 46 in a single season which is a massive fall.

Also, the reason fans who went to games hated him was how terrible our home form was.  In 19 home games under Puel we managed a whopping 17 goals and 6 home victories which was 2 less than Hull managed and they were relegated.

His sacking was 100% justified.

[nta786]

47 minutes ago, once_bitterne said:

How can fans honestly defend Puel?  Quoting 8th is a false stat as it was a ridiculously low points total for this position.  The real stat is that we fell from 63 points to 46 in a single season which is a massive fall.

Also, the reason fans who went to games hated him was how terrible our home form was.  In 19 home games under Puel we managed a whopping 17 goals and 6 home victories which was 2 less than Hull managed and they were relegated.

His sacking was 100% justified.

Yep agreed, but also think the subsequent seasons have offered some form of a reality check.

It just really isn't possible for any club outside the Big 6 to sustain competing for a top 7 spot every season, but I think Reed was believing in the hype that we'd unearth gems on both the player and manager front year on year. 

I also can't remember if there was also the squad threw their toys out of the pram, because if they had then there was no point keeping Puel on for the subsequent season because that would only end one way. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, I think Puel did okay in the circumstances but it was best for both parties to move on. 

[whelk]

1 hour ago, once_bitterne said:

How can fans honestly defend Puel?  Quoting 8th is a false stat as it was a ridiculously low points total for this position.  The real stat is that we fell from 63 points to 46 in a single season which is a massive fall.

Also, the reason fans who went to games hated him was how terrible our home form was.  In 19 home games under Puel we managed a whopping 17 goals and 6 home victories which was 2 less than Hull managed and they were relegated.

His sacking was 100% justified.

It isn’t defending but so many sad fuckers bemoaning their lack of ‘entertainment’. Seems they only recall two turgid seasons and all other times have been in the land of milk and honey supporting Saints. We had some very entertaining away wins under Puel. It wasn’t a brilliant time but we got to a final, played well in that final and outplayed Inter in the San Siro so wasn’t all so depressing was it?

[Whitey Grandad]

2 hours ago, whelk said:

It isn’t defending but so many sad fuckers bemoaning their lack of ‘entertainment’. Seems they only recall two turgid seasons and all other times have been in the land of milk and honey supporting Saints. We had some very entertaining away wins under Puel. It wasn’t a brilliant time but we got to a final, played well in that final and outplayed Inter in the San Siro so wasn’t all so depressing was it?

What good are away wins for season ticket holders? Don’t be such an arse, that’s not your usual style. Life is never one extreme or the other but in Puel’s case the football that he served up at home was the worst I’ve ever had the misfortune to have to sit through and that goes way back to Chris Nichol.

”Outplayed Inter in the San Siro”? We lost FFS and were luck to get nil.

[Lord Duckhunter]

4 hours ago, once_bitterne said:

How can fans honestly defend Puel?  Quoting 8th is a false stat as it was a ridiculously low points total for this position.  The real stat is that we fell from 63 points to 46 in a single season which is a massive fall.

 

What a ridiculous way to judge a season. It means a team relegated with 37 points have had a “better” season than a team staying up on 36 points the following year. That teams finishing 2nd & in some cases 3rd had a “better” season than Leicester did when they won the league and Arsenals invincibles had a worse season than Liverpool when they were only runners up. We were the 8th best team that season, and got to a cup final. If Ralph did that he’s fan boys will be building him a statue. 

[Lord Duckhunter]

3 minutes ago, Whitey Grandad said:

What good are away wins for season ticket holders? Don’t be such an arse, that’s not your usual style. Life is never one extreme or the other but in Puel’s case the football that he served up at home was the worst I’ve ever had the misfortune to have to sit through and that goes way back to Chris Nichol.

”Outplayed Inter in the San Siro”? We lost FFS and were luck to get nil.

Complete and utter bollocks. You’re worse than a fucking glory hunting Man U fan. If you think that’s the worst since Chris Nichol you’re clearly clueless about all aspects of the game. It’s a sport, we’re a professional sports team, not the friggin Harlem Globetrotters. 

Edited 6 January, 2022 by Lord Duckhunter

[Whitey Grandad]

1 hour ago, Lord Duckhunter said:

Complete and utter bollocks. You’re worse than a fucking glory hunting Man U fan. If you think that’s the worst since Chris Nichol you’re clearly clueless about all aspects of the game. It’s a sport, we’re a professional sports team, not the friggin Harlem Globetrotters. 

I know what I am. And I know what you are.

[Turkish]

15 hours ago, whelk said:

It isn’t defending but so many sad fuckers bemoaning their lack of ‘entertainment’. Seems they only recall two turgid seasons and all other times have been in the land of milk and honey supporting Saints. We had some very entertaining away wins under Puel. It wasn’t a brilliant time but we got to a final, played well in that final and outplayed Inter in the San Siro so wasn’t all so depressing was it?

There were some decent home performances as well first half of the season, it started going downhill after Fonte was sold and Van Dijk injured when we had to play more defensively as we had the worst centre halves in the league. The two top scorers from the previous two seasons had been sold Plus with a Europa league campaign and our run to the cup final he had way more fixtures than Koeman or Pochetino had so you can’t play a high energy, attacking football when your playing 3 games a week most weeks. Never hear anyone talk about that. It’s that boring, useless Puels eighth cup final season was a crap season where we were all bored. 

[Turkish]

14 hours ago, Whitey Grandad said:

What good are away wins for season ticket holders? Don’t be such an arse, that’s not your usual style. Life is never one extreme or the other but in Puel’s case the football that he served up at home was the worst I’ve ever had the misfortune to have to sit through and that goes way back to Chris Nichol.

”Outplayed Inter in the San Siro”? We lost FFS and were luck to get nil.

So when Shane Long scored on 89 minutes at Anfield that season whilst 3000 or so of us in the ground were going mental you were at home sitting on your hands saying as a season ticket holder that's no good to me.

Worst since Chris Nichol, jesus wept.

[Whitey Grandad]

3 hours ago, Turkish said:

So when Shane Long scored on 89 minutes at Anfield that season whilst 3000 or so of us in the ground were going mental you were at home sitting on your hands saying as a season ticket holder that's no good to me.

Worst since Chris Nichol, jesus wept.

Don’t put words into my mouth.

Of course we were all pleased with that result, but the rest of the season at home was crap and personally I would not sacrifice a season for one game. You may feel differently, especially if you haven’t forked out well over a thousand quid for a season ticket.

Or did you?

[Lord Duckhunter]

10 minutes ago, Whitey Grandad said:

 

Of course we were all pleased with that result, but the rest of the season at home was crap 

It was not. A few games towards the end were pretty boring, but worst since Nichol is complete & utter pony. It was a damn sight better than some of the pony second half of last season. Oh I forgot, it doesn’t count unless you were there and had coughed up the wedge. Plastic support if ever I’ve seen it. 

Edited 7 January, 2022 by Lord Duckhunter

[Lighthouse]

18 hours ago, Lord Duckhunter said:

What a ridiculous way to judge a season. It means a team relegated with 37 points have had a “better” season than a team staying up on 36 points the following year. That teams finishing 2nd & in some cases 3rd had a “better” season than Leicester did when they won the league and Arsenals invincibles had a worse season than Liverpool when they were only runners up. We were the 8th best team that season, and got to a cup final. If Ralph did that he’s fan boys will be building him a statue. 

The problem with saying that is that it’s all true. What you’re advocating for is judging teams by what other teams achieve in completely unconnected matches.

That Liverpool team which finished runner up with 97 points or whatever they got WAS better than the Leicester team that won the league. They did have a better season; they won more of their games, had a better GD, better players and scored more points. By every metric Liverpool were the better team it’s just that Man City were even better that year. It’s no coincidence that Liverpool were the ones who won the title the following season and Leicester were in a relegation fight.

In Puel’s final game we were 0-0 at half time, at home to Stoke, and 10th in the live league table. In the second half we lost 0-1 and moved up to 8th by virtue of other scores. By your criteria, that’s an excellent second half performance from Saints, jumping from 10th to 8th in the league.

 

[Chez]

18 hours ago, Whitey Grandad said:

”Outplayed Inter in the San Siro”? We lost FFS and were luck to get nil.

We did murder Inter at the San Siro.

I'd argue if Hojberg hadn't kept passing to them all game long (as he did so often back then) we'd have won at a canter. How VVD didn't score I will never know.

[Chez]

Have to say, Turkish makes a pretty good argument.  Indeed 8th flattered us, but the side Puel had available to him was woeful compared to the previous teams.  The keep ball tactic was boring to watch, but it prevented our CBs from being exposed to regular attacks. Perhaps without that tactic results would have been worse. Who knows. 

Also interesting to know what he did at Leicester. I too thought he was a total failure, but those stats Turkish posted suggests it wasn't as simple as that, he also didn't have the team of earlier years and again was judged against those good sides and not on what he got out of the side he had at the time.

 

 

[once_bitterne]

18 hours ago, Lord Duckhunter said:

What a ridiculous way to judge a season. It means a team relegated with 37 points have had a “better” season than a team staying up on 36 points the following year. That teams finishing 2nd & in some cases 3rd had a “better” season than Leicester did when they won the league and Arsenals invincibles had a worse season than Liverpool when they were only runners up. We were the 8th best team that season, and got to a cup final. If Ralph did that he’s fan boys will be building him a statue. 

It's an interesting point.  Obviously any relegation season would be bad but how many wins/points your team gets when mid-table is a far better judge of how 'good' a season is than which position 8-13th you finished as that is as much as result of other teams games against each other.

I would certainly say the season we finished 11th on 52 points with 15 wins under RH was better than the one we finished 8th under Puel on 46 points with 12 wins.  The higher league position that season was more down to other teams sharing the points against each other than our own success.

As a Saints fan, if we are finishing mid-table, I would judge the 'better' season being the one where we won more games of football.

[manzo]

My main memory of Puel was the ridiculous ways we found to *not* score at the start of our run of poor form, which I'm not really sure how you can blame that on him.

I wasn't fussed about him going, to be honest, but wouldn't have been upset if he'd stayed. However, how anyone could rank the performances under him were worse than those under his two successors is beyond me.

[Baird of the land]

Was not a fan of puel’s style. Being boring and average isn’t very desirable as his time at Leicester proved. Our issue was replacing him with someone terrible.

[rallyboy]

There comes a point when you have to decide what you want from football.

I'd rather see us win a couple 3-2 and lose the other one than watch us win a couple 1-0 and draw the other one 0-0 - and I know that's a luxury you can only afford when not in a relegation battle trying to scrape every point together, but it has to be about enjoyment not just winning.

At the end Puel had sunk into the dullest style - it was mind-numbing and sucked the life out of football itself, I recall thinking how I'd rather get relegated than watch any more of that, and the way we had stopped scoring meant we were heading for a season of battling to win more 1-0 than we lost.

He had to go, for the sake of ticket sales alone.  

 

[Whitey Grandad]

5 hours ago, Lord Duckhunter said:

It was not. A few games towards the end were pretty boring, but worst since Nichol is complete & utter pony. It was a damn sight better than some of the pony second half of last season. Oh I forgot, it doesn’t count unless you were there and had coughed up the wedge. Plastic support if ever I’ve seen it. 

You obviously don't know what plastic support is.

Being there and paying for it is the cornerstone of professional football.

[TWar]

42 minutes ago, Whitey Grandad said:

You obviously don't know what plastic support is.

Being there and paying for it is the cornerstone of professional football.

Have to say, it's the first time I've heard someone called plastic for showing up and supporting the lads, normally it's the opposite...

[Dark Munster]

5 hours ago, once_bitterne said:

It's an interesting point.  Obviously any relegation season would be bad but how many wins/points your team gets when mid-table is a far better judge of how 'good' a season is than which position 8-13th you finished as that is as much as result of other teams games against each other.

I would certainly say the season we finished 11th on 52 points with 15 wins under RH was better than the one we finished 8th under Puel on 46 points with 12 wins.  The higher league position that season was more down to other teams sharing the points against each other than our own success.

As a Saints fan, if we are finishing mid-table, I would judge the 'better' season being the one where we won more games of football.

What about a great cup run, beating Liverpool twice in the semis, playing brilliantly in the final and being very unlucky to lose?

[Pamplemousse]

History has shown that to get that side as high up the table was probably one of the greatest achievements of any Saints manager in the last 20 years. He is a world class manager and I genuinely think that with Koeman's team we could have gone better than Leicester and won the league under him.

[LuckyNumber7]

Puel deserves credit for the cup run. The quarter final at Arsenal, both semis against Liverpool and the final which we should have won gave us some great memories.

Unfortunately they were the exception and most of our league performances, especially at home were utterly turgid. We failed to score in our final five home games and I think only scored more than one in three of our home games. I accept that the squad had been weakened but every week felt like we were just going in to limit the opposition rather than have a go at them, similar to Rafa at Newcastle. There was no intensity, nothing to get behind, it was just desperately dull and uninspiring. I'm still baffled how we finished 8th that season.

[stevy777_x]

On 05/01/2022 at 13:10, Whitey Grandad said:

Puel achieved nothing. End of story. 

He got us to a cup final end of.

[stevy777_x]

1 minute ago, stevy777_x said:

He got us to a cup final end of.

And i ll go as far as saying that some people hated him because he was dull in interviews, could hardly speak english and he was french (which some english people are not fond of)

They prefer an eloquent english speaking dinosaure who knows nothing about tactics and praises his team for working hard and putting crosses into the box.