Dummies Guide to Trashing a Football Club

[Chez]

11 minutes ago, St Louis said:

I'm sorry, but footballers do not turn down Man Utd to stay and play for Southampton. It's just as simple as that, there is no way he was staying once Man Utd (and others) wanted him, and that's not Southampton's fault, its just modern football.

Sure, I appreciate that, and you are absolutely right, but if we'd given him a five year £100k a week deal a while before United came in, maybe it signals that we intend to really go for it and possibly Pochettino stays. IMO, as soon as Pochettino signalled to the players that he was going, they all realised what they had built together was coming to an end, so they welcomed moves. I think there was a small chance, with Nik Nak and Pochettino there that the players as a group bought into the dream of CL with Saints and stayed for another year. 

[Lord Duckhunter]

19 minutes ago, Chez said:

Sure, I appreciate that, and you are absolutely right, but if we'd given him a five year £100k a week deal a while before United came in, maybe it signals that we intend to really go for it and possibly Pochettino stays. IMO, as soon as Pochettino signalled to the players that he was going, they all realised what they had built together was coming to an end, so they welcomed moves. I think there was a small chance, with Nik Nak and Pochettino there that the players as a group bought into the dream of CL with Saints and stayed for another year. 

Are you nuts, or Peter Risdale?
 

if we gave Luke Shaw that sort of contract the players wouldn’t be calling up their agents saying “they mean business, get me an extension to my contract”, they’d be saying “I’ll have some of that”. Poch would have wanted a fortune to stay, the cost of our new signings would have gone through the roof. One players deal isnt done in a vacuum, the knock on effect would have been catastrophic. Leicester won the league & were in the champions league and couldn’t keep 3 of their best players. Let’s see how Brighton get on keeping their manager & players, I doubt they’ll be giving Mcallister a ridiculous contract they can’t afford to show  De Zerbi they mean business. 

We should just be grateful that afterwards, the club had people that managed to somehow make us even better . 

Edited 10 May, 2023 by Lord Duckhunter

[Chez]

16 minutes ago, Lord Duckhunter said:

Are you nuts, or Peter Risdale?
 

if we gave Luke Shaw that sort of contract the players wouldn’t be calling up their agents saying “they mean business, get me an extension to my contract”, they’d be saying “I’ll have some of that”. Poch would have wanted a fortune to stay, the cost of our new signings would have gone through the roof. One players deal isnt done in a vacuum, the knock on effect would have been catastrophic.

Neither. As I said in my earlier post, `I have no idea how that would be funded' and it obviously couldn't, so they didn't do it.   

 

 

 

[CB Fry]

1 hour ago, Chez said:

Sure, I appreciate that, and you are absolutely right, but if we'd given him a five year £100k a week deal a while before United came in, maybe it signals that we intend to really go for it and possibly Pochettino stays. IMO, as soon as Pochettino signalled to the players that he was going, they all realised what they had built together was coming to an end, so they welcomed moves. I think there was a small chance, with Nik Nak and Pochettino there that the players as a group bought into the dream of CL with Saints and stayed for another year. 

We finished 7th the following year and 6th the season after.

I know it's a massive inconvenience to this counter factual story but there's nothing to suggest that Luke Shaw staying results in anything better than that. 

And we're dishing out £100k to a full back so how much are we paying Jay Rod in that scenario? How much are we paying Morgan and Lallana and Lambert?

I worry we would be spending far more to not really do any better than we did anyway.

 

Edited 10 May, 2023 by CB Fry

[Chez]

1 hour ago, CB Fry said:

We finished 7th the following year and 6th the season after.

I know it's a massive inconvenience to this counter factual story but there's nothing to suggest that Luke Shaw staying results in anything better than that. 

And we're dishing out £100k to a full back so how much are we paying Jay Rod in that scenario? How much are we paying Morgan and Lallana and Lambert?

I worry we would be spending far more to not really do any better than we did anyway.

 

You've got me there. We improved, so whatever decisions we made, must have been the right ones...either that or we got a little bit lucky. No, they were great decisions.

By the way, it's more of a `counter fictional story' I was telling than a counter factual story. But continuing my `look what we could have been' tale, we finished 8th the season before (2013/14) under Poch. Had we retained all those guys and added a couple, maybe we get top 4 in 2014/15. In 2015/16 Leicester won the league. Who's to say that could not have been us if our squad had stayed together? 

But at what cost? Shaw £100k a week. Lallana £100k a week. Morgan and JayRod not too dissimilar. That's £20m a year in wages right there. But so what? Fag packet maths: we spend £50k a week more on our top six players and that's £15m a year extra on the wage bill. Not good news for a club our size, but in 2017/18 we finished 17th. That's 10 or 11 places lower and well over £20m less in prize money. Going cheap can be a false economy. That's the end of my fanciable/mythical story. I will keep dreaming though.

You are right though. We could have spent all that extra money on wages and achieved little more, not to mention saddling the club with a lot of debt.  

 

 

[CB Fry]

30 minutes ago, Chez said:

You've got me there. We improved, so whatever decisions we made, must have been the right ones...either that or we got a little bit lucky. No, they were great decisions.

By the way, it's more of a `counter fictional story' I was telling than a counter factual story. But continuing my `look what we could have been' tale, we finished 8th the season before (2013/14) under Poch. Had we retained all those guys and added a couple, maybe we get top 4 in 2014/15. In 2015/16 Leicester won the league. Who's to say that could not have been us if our squad had stayed together? 

But at what cost? Shaw £100k a week. Lallana £100k a week. Morgan and JayRod not too dissimilar. That's £20m a year in wages right there. But so what? Fag packet maths: we spend £50k a week more on our top six players and that's £15m a year extra on the wage bill. Not good news for a club our size, but in 2017/18 we finished 17th. That's 10 or 11 places lower and well over £20m less in prize money. Going cheap can be a false economy. That's the end of my fanciable/mythical story. I will keep dreaming though.

You are right though. We could have spent all that extra money on wages and achieved little more, not to mention saddling the club with a lot of debt.  

 

 

Counter-factual does mean an alternative reality scenario so it does imply "fiction" because it is can only ever be assumptions (counter to the facts). So it is the right word.

Leicester is an irrelevence to be honest - they did not "build up" to winning the league, they finished 14th on 41 points the season before, they'd just come up and subsequently changed their manager that summer. They won the league out of nowhere. We finished 7th that season under Koeman so were far better placed to win the league than Leicester were when that season kicked off.

We finished 14th on 41 under Adkins/Poch so our league winning season should have been the season after that, 2013-14....funny really because at that time we had a driven ambitious Champions League focused chairman but got nowhere near achieving what little old Leicester did from exactly the same starting point. Ain't it strange? 

 

[Dark Munster]

7 hours ago, Chez said:

I'm with you here. I think that summer (and perhaps the 6 months running up to it when negotiations really took place) was pivotal. Offer Luke Shaw a £100k a week five year contract and maybe, just maybe, he stays and then Pochettino thinks we really mean business here and he stays, possibly along with Lallana and Lovren etc.

Perhaps I'm dreaming, but I think retaining Shaw on a monster contract would have been a major statement of intent. No idea how we would have actually financed that contract and perhaps the others, but for me there was a window of opportunity there to stake a claim at the top table - that probably will never happen again. 

 

There was no way Poch was going to stay. He saw us as brief stepping stone, and as soon as Spurs lifted up her skirt and showed him some leg he was off as fast as a pitbull over a pork chop dropped on the floor.

[Chez]

4 hours ago, CB Fry said:

Counter-factual does mean an alternative reality scenario so it does imply "fiction" because it is can only ever be assumptions (counter to the facts). So it is the right word.

Leicester is an irrelevence to be honest - they did not "build up" to winning the league, they finished 14th on 41 points the season before, they'd just come up and subsequently changed their manager that summer. They won the league out of nowhere. We finished 7th that season under Koeman so were far better placed to win the league than Leicester were when that season kicked off.

We finished 14th on 41 under Adkins/Poch so our league winning season should have been the season after that, 2013-14....funny really because at that time we had a driven ambitious Champions League focused chairman but got nowhere near achieving what little old Leicester did from exactly the same starting point. Ain't it strange? 

 

How Leicester actually won league matters little. The opportunity was there for all sides that season (whether they were flash in the pans or had gradually improved year on year). We finished 7th, but maybe we could have challenged if we had retained the nucleus of the side and the manager. I doubt it, but that's the alternative reality. 

[Chez]

1 hour ago, Dark Munster said:

There was no way Poch was going to stay. He saw us as brief stepping stone, and as soon as Spurs lifted up her skirt and showed him some leg he was off as fast as a pitbull over a pork chop dropped on the floor.

I think you are probably right there. The thought process though, is if the owner had thrown a shed load of money at it, some of which he got, some of which he got to spend, maybe `his own wife would be prettiest' (to steal Wenger's line) and his head wouldn't have been so easily turned. But our limitations were obvious and breaking the stranglehold of the big clubs is impossible.  Not something we need to worry about now. 

[CB Fry]

28 minutes ago, Chez said:

How Leicester actually won league matters little. The opportunity was there for all sides that season (whether they were flash in the pans or had gradually improved year on year). We finished 7th, but maybe we could have challenged if we had retained the nucleus of the side and the manager. I doubt it, but that's the alternative reality. 

We spent huge chunks of that season in the top four, and followed it up by doing it again the following season and finishing sixth. 

The best Premier League squad we ever had and probably ever will have. Ever.

But yeah, lets work up "alternative realities" to those seasons. 

Jesus wept.

[Chez]

18 minutes ago, CB Fry said:

We spent huge chunks of that season in the top four, and followed it up by doing it again the following season and finishing sixth. 

The best Premier League squad we ever had and probably ever will have. Ever.

But yeah, lets work up "alternative realities" to those seasons. 

Jesus wept.

calm down lad. I was just having a bit of fun. 

[pimpin4rizeal]

On 29/04/2023 at 21:12, S-Clarke said:

It was all well and good being visionary, but he was using someone else's money and had no means to fund the plans himself. He couldn't keep running to Kat to beg and borrow more of Markus wealth, thus his plan wasn't sustainable. 

I also know people who worked at the club when Cortese was around, he was absolutely HATED. People dreaded going into work, it was a dictatorship. The bloke was a loose cannon playing games with someone elses dosh and it was always going to end the way it did.

I notice he never turned up at AC Milan.

Same way ankersson and semmens use dragons money ..

I think it’s shocking cortese gets no credit he was the one that talked Markus into the deal and Markus admitted he’d only buy if cortese run it 

you guys are there with avatars of Markus but all he did was invest. cortese ran the club from top to bottom and was absolutely phenomenal at it .: people working for him probably didn’t like it as he took no shit and was a complete perfectionist ..

id welcome him back with open arms it’s the only time in my saints supporting career we really had any ambition and not acting like a soft touch yts team for the bigger clubs :.his reign took a few years to dismantle and that’s where we have reached completely now 

[AlexLaw76]

On 29/04/2023 at 21:12, S-Clarke said:

It was all well and good being visionary, but he was using someone else's money and had no means to fund the plans himself. He couldn't keep running to Kat to beg and borrow more of Markus wealth, thus his plan wasn't sustainable. 

I also know people who worked at the club when Cortese was around, he was absolutely HATED. People dreaded going into work, it was a dictatorship. The bloke was a loose cannon playing games with someone elses dosh and it was always going to end the way it did.

I notice he never turned up at AC Milan.

Ankerson is using Solaks money, Ralph Kruger & Les Reed used someone elses money

How often does the money man run a club?

Edited 11 May, 2023 by AlexLaw76

[CB Fry]

6 hours ago, pimpin4rizeal said:

I think it’s shocking cortese gets no credit he was the one that talked Markus into the deal and Markus admitted he’d only buy if cortese run it 

you guys are there with avatars of Markus but all he did was invest. cortese ran the club from top to bottom and was absolutely phenomenal at it .: people working for him probably didn’t like it as he took no shit and was a complete perfectionist ..

id welcome him back with open arms it’s the only time in my saints supporting career we really had any ambition and not acting like a soft touch yts team for the bigger clubs :.his reign took a few years to dismantle and that’s where we have reached completely now 

So "phenomenal" that he never worked for any other football club anywhere on the world ever again.

Spending a fuckton of money to get promoted out of League One is not actually "phenomenal". Teams like Burton or Peterborough or Rotherham or Bristol City can do that without smashing transfer records to buy in players from the division above.

Ditto the Championship, it's not that "phenomenal" to do what Swindon or Barnsley or Blackpool or Wigan or Brentford have also achieved. It was great, Adkins and the team did great, but hardly mould breaking. Club spending loads of money goes up. Yep, great. Not phenomenal.

He got found out once he hit the big leagues, crashed and burned and was never heard from at any football club ever again. In fairness that bit is phenomenal - pretty impressive to fuck it up quite so much that no one in the sport gives him another job.

We went from strength to strength after he left. So good to finish 7th then build on it to finish 6th and then 8th again, great. A great job from the club leadership to rebuild and take the club into a much stronger place. Stronger than ever.

We made a disastrous appointment in Pellegrino and we know the rest. But loads has happened since then too.

Where we are now has nothing to do with the club that got promoted 12 years ago, and nothing to do with the achievements of the new leadership that got us that truly phenomenal 6th place either.

The current owners bought a club with great infrastructure but it's their decisions that have relegated us.

The current owners spent hugely summer 2022 and made their own managerial choices. Those choices have taken us down.

Other leaders could have come in and made choices where we did not go down in 2023. It's pretty obvious that relegation was not an inevitable thing under Sport Republic. They made very bad choices.

It really has fuck all to do with 11 years ago. 

You weirdos can keep pretending 2023 is some outcome of binning that Italian after his little season and a half in the top flight more than a decade ago but obviously, obviously it isn't.

Edited 11 May, 2023 by CB Fry

[alehouseboys]

A potted history of our demise (but nothing that most probably didn't already know)

https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11700/12850921/southampton-once-the-pride-of-the-south-coast-what-has-gone-so-badly-wrong-at-championship-bound-saints

[aintforever]

8 hours ago, pimpin4rizeal said:

Same way ankersson and semmens use dragons money ..

I think it’s shocking cortese gets no credit he was the one that talked Markus into the deal and Markus admitted he’d only buy if cortese run it 

you guys are there with avatars of Markus but all he did was invest. cortese ran the club from top to bottom and was absolutely phenomenal at it .: people working for him probably didn’t like it as he took no shit and was a complete perfectionist ..

id welcome him back with open arms it’s the only time in my saints supporting career we really had any ambition and not acting like a soft touch yts team for the bigger clubs :.his reign took a few years to dismantle and that’s where we have reached completely now 

He did a decent job but there is nothing phenomenal about a club the size of Saints being bankrolled by a billionaire out of League One to the Prem.

[Hodgey]

Those stats are damning. From spending £145m net on garbage, to appointing a manager who only used one side of the pitch, to creating little and giving opponents too many chances, to score less and concede more than expected for each.

then losing over half of all duels defensively, and having a horribly right footed attack (4 of the 26 goals scored from left foot) - something I’ve long bemoaned (how professional players can’t use both feet is beyond me) but seemingly our coaches can’t change.

the only stat that surprised me was that almost 40pc of our passes were forwards. 

 

 

[Saint Gifford]

Rupert, and Clive. That’s the dream team of course…………………..

[Fan The Flames]

21 hours ago, Miltonaggro said:

This absolute gem, 'Raising a Winner', has yet to be translated into English. Here's the blurb:

‘Rasmus Ankersen's conclusion is crystal clear: Talent is greatly overrated! If you want to reach top class, you must train for at least 10,000 hours. Whether your name is Tiger Woods, Wolfgang Mozart or Caroline Wozniacki. The world's top performers have not had a special talent’

Hopefully it will come in handy in the Championship. Fuck me!

 

Brad from Neighbours has written a book.

[RedArmy]

1 hour ago, aintforever said:

He did a decent job but there is nothing phenomenal about a club the size of Saints being bankrolled by a billionaire out of League One to the Prem.

 

21 hours ago, aintforever said:

So in short, if we had loads of money we could have kept our best players and been much better.

Cheers for that.

Make your mind up. Either we had lots of money or we didn’t. 
 

 

 

[Miltonaggro]

4 hours ago, Saint Gifford said:

Rupert, and Clive. That’s the dream team of course…………………..

A difficult wank even for the most happiest of clappers!

[CB Fry]

3 hours ago, RedArmy said:

 

Make your mind up. Either we had lots of money or we didn’t. 
 

 

 

We had a lot of money for league 1 and the Championship but not compared to the Champions League clubs. Honestly this is pretty basic stuff.

[pimpin4rizeal]

7 hours ago, CB Fry said:

So "phenomenal" that he never worked for any other football club anywhere on the world ever again.

Spending a fuckton of money to get promoted out of League One is not actually "phenomenal". Teams like Burton or Peterborough or Rotherham or Bristol City can do that without smashing transfer records to buy in players from the division above.

Ditto the Championship, it's not that "phenomenal" to do what Swindon or Barnsley or Blackpool or Wigan or Brentford have also achieved. It was great, Adkins and the team did great, but hardly mould breaking. Club spending loads of money goes up. Yep, great. Not phenomenal.

He got found out once he hit the big leagues, crashed and burned and was never heard from at any football club ever again. In fairness that bit is phenomenal - pretty impressive to fuck it up quite so much that no one in the sport gives him another job.

We went from strength to strength after he left. So good to finish 7th then build on it to finish 6th and then 8th again, great. A great job from the club leadership to rebuild and take the club into a much stronger place. Stronger than ever.

We made a disastrous appointment in Pellegrino and we know the rest. But loads has happened since then too.

Where we are now has nothing to do with the club that got promoted 12 years ago, and nothing to do with the achievements of the new leadership that got us that truly phenomenal 6th place either.

The current owners bought a club with great infrastructure but it's their decisions that have relegated us.

The current owners spent hugely summer 2022 and made their own managerial choices. Those choices have taken us down.

Other leaders could have come in and made choices where we did not go down in 2023. It's pretty obvious that relegation was not an inevitable thing under Sport Republic. They made very bad choices.

It really has fuck all to do with 11 years ago. 

You weirdos can keep pretending 2023 is some outcome of binning that Italian after his little season and a half in the top flight more than a decade ago but obviously, obviously it isn't.

I’m not sure how you can even pour water on the job he done .. was we not going from strength to strength all the time under him ??

did you feel like we were going to lose all our best players to the big clubs under him ??  He put in place people like Mitchell.. made a ruthless decision which fans didn’t agree with to sack adkins and found some nobody called Pochettino at the time to take his place .. the man was totally on the ball  

when he left he left the club in a great position we had a ton of good players throughout the squad top scouting still there with Mitchell.. I’ll agree that we did better under koeman but that was due to us recruiting very well in that period due to koeman and Mitchell and the winners mentality and infrastructure that was all left from the cortese era 

it’s funny how since then we have just become a depressing youth training scheme club that looks like inevitable relegation 

under nc we always felt a club on the up

[aintforever]

4 hours ago, RedArmy said:

 

Make your mind up. Either we had lots of money or we didn’t. 
 

 

 

We did, then we didn't. That's what happens when your billionaire owner pops his clogs.

[Dark Munster]

Cortese did a phenomenal job in bringing in Markus and his billions. He did a good job spending his money. He wasn’t a genius in that regard, but Rasmus W. Ankersen is an example of someone who doesn’t know how to spend other’s money. He left at the right time after Markus passed away. He also wasn’t the most pleasant of personalities as we all know. 

[Chez]

2 hours ago, pimpin4rizeal said:

under nc we always felt a club on the up

I agree. Nik Nak was not likeable, but his small man mentality saw him keen to take on all comers and prove what a big man/club he/we were/could be. As a result he seemed to be taking us to places I never thought we could go.

He departed in January 2014. Six months later our manager left and we sold all our best players.

I wonder if before he departed, he asked the board/owner to spend big on new contracts for Poch and the top players to ensure they didn't join the big clubs. They said "no" and probably brought up his overspending on the training ground. They then had a big argument, fell out and his departure was a fait complete. 

[OttawaSaint]

To me it was when Koeman left. We were a really attractive destination for a top manager but tried to get smart with Puel. 

His season was OK compared to say we've had to endure since, but when he was sacked we were no longer attractive enough to get a top manager but made that situation even worse by getting MoPe.

That window of opportunity when Koeman left was closed and ever to reopen.

Edited 12 May, 2023 by OttawaSaint

[CB Fry]

12 hours ago, Chez said:

I agree. Nik Nak was not likeable, but his small man mentality saw him keen to take on all comers and prove what a big man/club he/we were/could be. As a result he seemed to be taking us to places I never thought we could go.

He got us to 8th.

We finished 8th under Strachan.

In the seasons around Pochettino doing it the clubs that also finished 8th included Swansea, Fulham and West Brom (and Pompey).

I don't think I will ever understand this bizarre/skewed interpretation of what actually happened.

Especially as what did actually happen is we were significantly better in subsequent seasons under brand new leadership and a very different team. 

Edited 12 May, 2023 by CB Fry

[Turkish]

15 hours ago, Chez said:

I agree. Nik Nak was not likeable, but his small man mentality saw him keen to take on all comers and prove what a big man/club he/we were/could be. As a result he seemed to be taking us to places I never thought we could go.

He departed in January 2014. Six months later our manager left and we sold all our best players.

I wonder if before he departed, he asked the board/owner to spend big on new contracts for Poch and the top players to ensure they didn't join the big clubs. They said "no" and probably brought up his overspending on the training ground. They then had a big argument, fell out and his departure was a fait complete. 

the rewriting of history about Nick nack is hilarious all because he told fans what they wanted to hear. As has been pointed out on the pitch his achievements really weren’t that amazing. 

Off it Yeah he took on all comers. I remember the time he boasted about how he threw all the offers for Oxlade Chamberlain in the bin, then sold him for £12m a few weeks later. Remember when he banned the press from st Mary’s and we got referred to as south coast club for a few days weeks before he had to back down. All the times he would be taken to court and then would do a last minute settlement. Or when he took on a local restaurant and they banned him. He sure loved a fight and took on all comers, the problem was he usually lost them. 

Edited 12 May, 2023 by Turkish

[Chez]

2 hours ago, CB Fry said:

He got us to 8th.

We finished 8th under Strachan.

In the seasons around Pochettino doing it the clubs that also finished 8th included Swansea, Fulham and West Brom (and Pompey).

I don't think I will ever understand this bizarre/skewed interpretation of what actually happened.

Especially as what did actually happen is we were significantly better in subsequent seasons under brand new leadership and a very different team. 

It's not a skewed version of what happened. It's just me day dreaming what might have happened. Happy to concede the reality was that we improved without him and the spending gamble I proposed. 

[Chez]

29 minutes ago, Turkish said:

the rewriting of history about Nick nack is hilarious all because he told fans what they wanted to hear. As has been pointed out on the pitch his achievements really weren’t that amazing. 

Off it Yeah he took on all comers. I remember the time he boasted about how he threw all the offers for Oxlade Chamberlain in the bin, then sold him for £12m a few weeks later. Remember when he banned the press from st Mary’s and we got referred to as south coast club for a few days weeks before he had to back down. What about the time he took on a local restaurant and they banned him. All the times he would be taken to court and then would do a last minute settlement. Or when he took on a local restaurant and they banned him. He sure loved a fight and took on all comers, the problem was he usually lost them. 

Nik Nak certainly was a cock.

[Whitey Grandad]

4 hours ago, CB Fry said:

He got us to 8th.

We finished 8th under Strachan.

In the seasons around Pochettino doing it the clubs that also finished 8th included Swansea, Fulham and West Brom (and Pompey).

I don't think I will ever understand this bizarre/skewed interpretation of what actually happened.

Especially as what did actually happen is we were significantly better in subsequent seasons under brand new leadership and a very different team. 

That 8th under Puel was not comparable to the others. Remind us again, how many points was it?

[Lord Duckhunter]

Of course we were on the “up” under Cortese, we were fucking bottom of league one when he came in, it was pretty hard not to have continued momentum when a club our size is it that situation.
 

The question is whether this rise would have continued and we’d have became a top side season in season out had he not left. We’ll never know, but my opinion is it would either have followed a similar path to what we took, or we’d have had a Peter Risdale like bust. The fact that of all the leagues in the world, all the owners looking to buy success, all the championship clubs wanting to do similar, not one has turned to him. Maybe he’s done with football and has turned the hoards knocking on his door away, but maybe people could see through his bullshit. 

[Lord Duckhunter]

9 minutes ago, Whitey Grandad said:

Remind us again, how many points was it?

More than 12 other teams. 

[pimpin4rizeal]

7 minutes ago, Lord Duckhunter said:

Of course we were on the “up” under Cortese, we were fucking bottom of league one when he came in, it was pretty hard not to have continued momentum when a club our size is it that situation.
 

The question is whether this rise would have continued and we’d have became a top side season in season out had he not left. We’ll never know, but my opinion is it would either have followed a similar path to what we took, or we’d have had a Peter Risdale like bust. The fact that of all the leagues in the world, all the owners looking to buy success, all the championship clubs wanting to do similar, not one has turned to him. Maybe he’s done with football and has turned the hoards knocking on his door away, but maybe people could see through his bullshit. 

I didn’t mean just in the lower leagues .. it’s not easy for a promoted team in the prem but he brought in poch and we were playing like a team not far off of challenging for Europe when he left 

[Whitey Grandad]

6 minutes ago, Lord Duckhunter said:

More than 12 other teams. 

Not true.

[Lord Duckhunter]

1 minute ago, pimpin4rizeal said:

I didn’t mean just in the lower leagues .. it’s not easy for a promoted team in the prem but he brought in poch and we were playing like a team not far off of challenging for Europe when he left 

Fulham are currently 10th, 4 places above the side the genius Cortese built in his glorious first premier league campaign. Bournemouth are 14th, 

 

So we were 14th, then 8th. We were miserable in all senior cup competitions and we didn’t even win League 1 or the Championship. We had better achievements the 3 seasons after he left. Where we weren’t  “not far off”, we were actually in Europe. 

[Saint Garrett]

39 minutes ago, Whitey Grandad said:

That 8th under Puel was not comparable to the others. Remind us again, how many points was it?

46. We were not very good at all that season lets be honest. No idea how we ended up 8th. 10 teams have already got that this season with 3 games to play. (4 for 11th place Chelsea)

[Chez]

1 hour ago, Lord Duckhunter said:

The question is whether this rise would have continued and we’d have became a top side season in season out had he not left. We’ll never know, but my opinion is it would either have followed a similar path to what we took, or we’d have had a Peter Risdale like bust. The fact that of all the leagues in the world, all the owners looking to buy success, all the championship clubs wanting to do similar, not one has turned to him. Maybe he’s done with football and has turned the hoards knocking on his door away, but maybe people could see through his bullshit. 

maybe he pissed off everyone that came into contact with him, so he burned all his bridges?

I am slightly surprised he didn't get another job in football. It's not easy finding successful football CEOs, although maybe overspending ones are not attractive to owners? 

 

[Turkish]

2 minutes ago, Chez said:

maybe he pissed off everyone that came into contact with him, so he burned all his bridges?

I am slightly surprised he didn't get another job in football. It's not easy finding successful football CEOs, although maybe overspending ones are not attractive to owners? 

 

Well according to this AC Milan still wanted him just a few days before he "quit" Saints........

 

AC Milan again linked with move for Saints chairman Nicola Cortese | Daily Echo

 

[Chez]

58 minutes ago, Turkish said:

Well according to this AC Milan still wanted him just a few days before he "quit" Saints........

 

AC Milan again linked with move for Saints chairman Nicola Cortese | Daily Echo

 

I remember reading that at the time and I just thought it was a load of bollocks.

My earlier musings about him possibly falling out with the board/owner about the amount of money he could pay Poch and players is perhaps more likely to have been about how much they paid him - with him creating that story to strengthen his position.

Interesting comment from Poch in there "I would not understand staying in this role if Nicola was not here”

He obviously joined Spurs soon after Nik Nak left.

[Killers Knee]

On 29/04/2023 at 22:12, S-Clarke said:

It was all well and good being visionary, but he was using someone else's money and had no means to fund the plans himself. He couldn't keep running to Kat to beg and borrow more of Markus wealth, thus his plan wasn't sustainable. 

Utter bollox argument.  Every CEO uses someone else's money.  Man City, Real Madrid, the Milans all use someone else's money.  Your CEO uses someone elses money.  FFS even Elon friggin Musk has a mortgage!

[CB Fry]

1 hour ago, Killers Knee said:

Utter bollox argument.  Every CEO uses someone else's money.  Man City, Real Madrid, the Milans all use someone else's money.  Your CEO uses someone elses money.  FFS even Elon friggin Musk has a mortgage!

Yes but really effective, successful CEOs use someone else's money so well that they keep getting roles and opportunities to apply their skills to new and bigger businesses. You know, to deliver on a return on that investment, not just merrily spend their way through a vanity project.

The Italian never worked at any other football club, anywhere, at all ever again. Which is weird what with him being such a visionary genius and everything.

[pimpin4rizeal]

On 12/05/2023 at 11:18, Lord Duckhunter said:

Fulham are currently 10th, 4 places above the side the genius Cortese built in his glorious first premier league campaign. Bournemouth are 14th, 

 

So we were 14th, then 8th. We were miserable in all senior cup competitions and we didn’t even win League 1 or the Championship. We had better achievements the 3 seasons after he left. Where we weren’t  “not far off”, we were actually in Europe. 

So you really wasn’t happy with the way we were playing and watching the  likes of lallana lambert j-rod wanyama etc under pochs style ..? God knows how bad you must feel watching selles teams 😀.

outside of the 80s keegan era cortese reign was the most enjoyable for me .. we were great under koeman also but I still credit a lot of that to the foundations already in place 

[Spark]

On 10/05/2023 at 12:55, CB Fry said:

You took your time with that reply.

You seem to be arguing a load of points that I haven't even mentioned but carry on frothing sweetheart.

Mane was a record transfer at the time - definitely was Liverpool's biggest ever fee - so obviously not "pathetic". Grow up.

The issue I have is people twatting on about Adam Lallana, about Nathan Redmond, and the fee we got for Mane. Wah wah wah wah wah wah wah wah.

Wah wah wah of course the decline all started in the summer of 2014, nine bloody years ago....A "decline" that involved our two best ever Premier League finishes that we will likely never repeat. Of course that was a decline, of course it was. Jesus wept.

We've changed owners and managers multiple times since.

So our relegation this season has got fuck all to do with selling Rickie Lambert, fuck all to do with Koeman leaving, fuck all to do with Van Dyk, fuck all to do with Les Reed, fuck all to do with the Hockey guy, fuck all to do with Mark Hughes or Danny Ings even. Fuck all.

We spent £150m net this season, we're under new ownership and we made some disastrous decisions on managers and players.

You're twatting on about the "selling players" routine like some chump pundit on Talksport but we had a close season last summer where we didn't sell anyone and spent a fortune.

Just a load of cliche half thought through shite you can grab at but not the actual issue at all. Wah wah wah.

I know you are in a breed of people absolutely desperate to draw everything bad back to wah wah wah Cortese left us but grow up. Nine years ago is irrelevant. Irrelevant.

Grow up.

I read one sentence of that. then stopped reading because youre obviously an absolute mong.  Type of numpty that lead to our club being ruined, happy clapping cunt. And yes took me a while to reply bcause some of us have lives and dont spend every waking moment on a forum licking the arse of the football club

If you think selling strategy has nothing to do with our curent situation your fucking deluded. End of discussion.

Go slap yourself old man. Cunt. 

Edited 13 May, 2023 by Spark

[Spark]

On 29/04/2023 at 20:56, Forester said:

To be fair to CB you are all over the place my friend.  Your reference to 20 points down and Redmond is two years later when Puel replaced Koeman.    The original post was talking about Poch leaving and those five players listed going.  They were replaced by, amongst others, Pelle, Tadic, Mane, Bertrand and Cedric under Koeman.

Where was i referencing specific seasons regarding mane? i wasnt.  I was talking about how over the longer period the selling mentality caught up to us because our recruitment went to shit for various reasons.  Eventually it will catch up to you. Cant replace half a squad each year and expect to pull that off forever. Even some big clubs have struggled recruiting correctly, look at united.

We got too big for our boots because of Paul Mitchell's transfer list and then Koemans buys the next season, plus a good academy group.

Not realising we'd already lost the two main reasons we succeded at that strategy , Koeman and Mitchell. And we also had a much worse academy group post selling strategy being implemented. 

Plus again, a choice to step down the quality we bought in for more numbers. Cant have a selling strategy then choose to downgrade the recruitment quality for pure numbers of players. Thats mental when youre tryna take the next step up. We never recovered.

Its a combination of mistakes by various people at the club, but the common theme is , selling everyone and poor recruitment. 

..and Redmond being the replacement for mane sums that up. Oh and yes mane deal, we 100% got ripped off. Whats with deluded people here ffs. You dont sell early in the window, see the pices double, then claim you got a good deal because was a record at the time. Thats just tryna cover up that you sold too early in the window mate.
When is selling early in the window ever a good idea ? Seems you must of forgot about us selling right at the start of the window.
We sold mane, then within a few weeks could no longer afford a replacement on the same sort of level as prices had jumped after us selling him early in the window.
Thats not a good deal at all.

If you can explain to me how selling him so early was a good idea, then i'll concede, but until then, it cost us. Should of got 50m all day long.

Edited 13 May, 2023 by Spark

[CB Fry]

18 minutes ago, Spark said:

I read one sentence of that. then stopped reading because youre obviously an absolute mong.  Type of numpty that lead to our club being ruined, happy clapping cunt.

If you think selling strategy has nothing to do with our curent situation your fucking deluded. End of discussion.

Go slap yourself old man. Cunt.

We're going down this season because of the disastrous decisions on players and managers made by the current leadership of the club last summer, in January and throughout. 

You want keep crying about Cortese leaving 9 fucking years ago carry on mate.

But it's got fuck all to do with anything you thick cunt.

Enjoy the Eurovision final tonight X X 🌈🌈🌈💖💖💖🌈🌈🌈