Honest thoughts on Southampton

[ally_uk]

Watched the game yesterday. Saw the lineup—and was utterly baffled. It felt like we waved the white flag before a ball was even kicked.

Yesterday against Wolves was the perfect chance to take a step away from that dreaded Derby record—but instead, we bottled it.

What’s with the insistence on not playing strikers?

Why do we keep hiring managers who refuse to play players in their best positions?

What’s the explanation? Am I missing something?

Feels like we overcomplicate everything for no reason—and we’re paying the price for it.

Why are we playing five at the back against one of the worst teams on paper?

Why the overly cautious approach?

It’s Wolves, not Real Madrid. We set up like we were terrified—and it showed.

Why is the manager laying into Mateus?

One of the few bright sparks yesterday—and one of the shining lights in an otherwise abysmal season.

Targeting him feels completely misplaced. Focus should be elsewhere.

How many times was Sulemana dispossessed with ease or caught running into dead ends down the channels?

Yet it’s Mateus getting the stick? Make it make sense.

That’s what happens when you don’t play strikers. The fans saw it. Why didn’t the manager?

He should’ve been thinking “Whoops, what have I done?” and got a striker on immediately. But once again—too slow to react.

Where do we even go from here?

I’ve seen enough of this clown at the helm. Week after week—same mistakes, no accountability, no progress.

I think we have got worse………

30-odd years supporting Southampton—and I’ve never felt so detached from a squad.

No pride. No heart. No passion. Just a group of individuals going through the motions.

Honestly, I wouldn’t care if we reset the whole lot and started from scratch. Something has to change—this isn’t our Southampton.

[Killers Knee]

In my limited opinion the entire playing staff, manager and coaches need a clear out.  It’s not just this year we have been awful, it’s since Ralph left.  We are both physically and mentally very weak and with this current bunch we are trying to polish a turd.  Clear everyone out and hire athletes of strength, stature and speed, no more midgets and instil a high level of work ethic in them.  The rot in the club is too  deep and without extreme action it will continue its growth next season.  Get Rohl in with his own coaches early and start identifying players with strength in mind and in physicality.

[S-Clarke]

4 minutes ago, Killers Knee said:

In my limited opinion the entire playing staff, manager and coaches need a clear out.  It’s not just this year we have been awful, it’s since Ralph left.  We are both physically and mentally very weak and with this current bunch we are trying to polish a turd.  Clear everyone out and hire athletes of strength, stature and speed, no more midgets and instil a high level of work ethic in them.  The rot in the club is too  deep and without extreme action it will continue its growth next season.  Get Rohl in with his own coaches early and start identifying players with strength in mind and in physicality.

It goes back further than Ralph to be honest, he had some horrendous teams and worked with two hands behind his back most of the time. We fielded some shocking players under Ralph.

It goes all the way back to Koeman leaving for me. He didn't get the assurances he wanted that the team would be built upon and he left. We lost him and then stripped the team of Mane, Pelle, Wanyama, Fonte over the course of that season. The replacements, which cost a lot, took us backwards and thus the cycle started. 

We could have fixed it when we got rid of Puel and sorted ourselves out, but they doubled down on it even further and spent more money on awful players and awful managers. At this point we're fucked, we're in a spiral of spending big, not being able to re-sell and thus our entire model falls through the floor.  What happened after Koemans season had direct implications on our relegation, even though it was years down the line.

[Saint_clark]

4 minutes ago, S-Clarke said:

It goes back further than Ralph to be honest, he had some horrendous teams and worked with two hands behind his back most of the time. We fielded some shocking players under Ralph.

It goes all the way back to Koeman leaving for me. He didn't get the assurances he wanted that the team would be built upon and he left. We lost him and then stripped the team of Mane, Pelle, Wanyama, Fonte over the course of that season. The replacements, which cost a lot, took us backwards and thus the cycle started. 

We could have fixed it when we got rid of Puel and sorted ourselves out, but they doubled down on it even further and spent more money on awful players and awful managers. At this point we're fucked, we're in a spiral of spending big, not being able to re-sell and thus our entire model falls through the floor.  What happened after Koemans season had direct implications on our relegation, even though it was years down the line.

Amazing really that we didn't want to spend the money Koeman was demanding, both in terms of contract and transfer budget, yet we ended up costing ourselves so much more than giving him what he wanted would have. How different things could have been.

[Wade Garrett]

Get rid of all those clever fuckers whose decision-making has left us in the shitcart we now find ourselves in.

Edited 16 hours ago by Wade Garrett

[Disco Stu]

1 hour ago, Killers Knee said:

In my limited opinion the entire playing staff, manager and coaches need a clear out.  It’s not just this year we have been awful, it’s since Ralph left.  We are both physically and mentally very weak and with this current bunch we are trying to polish a turd.  Clear everyone out and hire athletes of strength, stature and speed, no more midgets and instil a high level of work ethic in them.  The rot in the club is too  deep and without extreme action it will continue its growth next season.  Get Rohl in with his own coaches early and start identifying players with strength in mind and in physicality.

It goes back way further than Ralph.

[CB Fry]

56 minutes ago, S-Clarke said:

It goes back further than Ralph to be honest, he had some horrendous teams and worked with two hands behind his back most of the time. We fielded some shocking players under Ralph.

It goes all the way back to Koeman leaving for me. He didn't get the assurances he wanted that the team would be built upon and he left. We lost him and then stripped the team of Mane, Pelle, Wanyama, Fonte over the course of that season. The replacements, which cost a lot, took us backwards and thus the cycle started. 

We could have fixed it when we got rid of Puel and sorted ourselves out, but they doubled down on it even further and spent more money on awful players and awful managers. At this point we're fucked, we're in a spiral of spending big, not being able to re-sell and thus our entire model falls through the floor.  What happened after Koemans season had direct implications on our relegation, even though it was years down the line.

Sorry it is stupid to go all the way back to Koeman. 

When SR took over, Fulham, Forest and Bournemouth were all in the Championship.

SR bought an established Premier League club and fucked it up all themselves.

Wittering on about Claude Puel is as irrelevant to what has actually happened and why.

 

[Football Special]

23 minutes ago, CB Fry said:

Sorry it is stupid to go all the way back to Koeman. 

When SR took over, Fulham, Forest and Bournemouth were all in the Championship.

SR bought an established Premier League club and fucked it up all themselves.

Wittering on about Claude Puel is as irrelevant to what has actually happened and why.

 

SR need to hold their hands up and acknowledge they've tried blagging their way into football ownership and have been shown to be completely clueless. They've had time to source advisors to help them in decision making but all the main calls seem to be traced back to Ankerson, Nathan Jones and Juric were identified by him , player recruitment embarrassing, other clubs must see us coming and delight in off-loading players at high prices 

Edited 17 hours ago by Football Special

[S-Clarke]

33 minutes ago, CB Fry said:

Sorry it is stupid to go all the way back to Koeman. 

When SR took over, Fulham, Forest and Bournemouth were all in the Championship.

SR bought an established Premier League club and fucked it up all themselves.

Wittering on about Claude Puel is as irrelevant to what has actually happened and why.

 

I'm not sure it is, I think it's quite relevant to go all the way back, as the mistakes made then opened the door to where we are today.

We lost key players in those years, and spent big to replace them but we got them all wrong, not just 1 or 2, but every single one of them. Hoedt, Vestergaard, Boufal, Carillo to name a few. When you get that many wrong, it's very hard for clubs of our size to recover and we inevitably regressed. Due to those mistakes of the past, we couldn't spend in order to keep up with the rest.

I'm not denying that SR have turned an already bad situation into an unmitigated disaster, but in many ways they accelerated what was inevitable anyway. 

The key point is that clubs such as ourselves cannot make as many bad 'big' signings as we have done, and expect to be able to sustain competitiveness. Our model is to sell and replace, but when you buy shit you can't sell it and thus you can't replace, and slowly the squad just regresses.

This summer needs to be an opportunity to reset the lot and move on from those mistakes of the past, we need to build a new future without hangers on covered in the mistakes from the past.

[Lee On Solent Saint]

The club for whatever reason is still operating at the transfer prices from 10-15 years ago. Our record transfer is still only just over £20m, its pathetic and embarrasing when teams like Bournemouth are paying the going rate and we aren't. People will point to FP and all that bollocks, but its been too long where we try and buy potential rather than established players. 

[S-Clarke]

1 minute ago, Lee On Solent Saint said:

The club for whatever reason is still operating at the transfer prices from 10-15 years ago. Our record transfer is still only just over £20m, its pathetic and embarrasing when teams like Bournemouth are paying the going rate and we aren't. People will point to FP and all that bollocks, but its been too long where we try and buy potential rather than established players. 

There is certainly an element of truth in that, but in general terms there are still £15m-20m players out there. It's all down to scouting.

Dean Huijsen was £15m - class player. Alex Scott £20m, Milos Kerkez £17m, Justin Kluivert £10m. Semenyo £10m. So it's possible, but it's all down to scouting.

Those solid buys who grew into the team at that range then allowed them to go big on someone like Evanlison. Bournemouth can also sit comfortably knowing that there will be a guaranteed profit on all of those £15-20m players they signed.

[Whitey Grandad]

7 minutes ago, Lee On Solent Saint said:

The club for whatever reason is still operating at the transfer prices from 10-15 years ago. Our record transfer is still only just over £20m, its pathetic and embarrasing when teams like Bournemouth are paying the going rate and we aren't. People will point to FP and all that bollocks, but its been too long where we try and buy potential rather than established players. 

Our record transfer is Kamaldeen Sulemana. Just let that sink in for a moment.

[ApprenticeBillionaire]

2 hours ago, S-Clarke said:

It goes back further than Ralph to be honest,

It goes all the way back to Koeman leaving for me. He didn't get the assurances he wanted that the team would be built upon and he left. We lost him and then stripped the team of Mane, Pelle, Wanyama, Fonte over the course of that season. The replacements, which cost a lot, took us backwards and thus the cycle started. 

 

This 100% all day long.

We should have backed Koeman and that was where it started.

I can remember Koeman saying "the kids we have are nowhere near good enough" too.

[Lee On Solent Saint]

6 minutes ago, S-Clarke said:

There is certainly an element of truth in that, but in general terms there are still £15m-20m players out there. It's all down to scouting.

Dean Huijsen was £15m - class player. Alex Scott £20m, Milos Kerkez £17m, Justin Kluivert £10m. Semenyo £10m. So it's possible, but it's all down to scouting.

Those solid buys who grew into the team at that range then allowed them to go big on someone like Evanlison. Bournemouth can also sit comfortably knowing that there will be a guaranteed profit on all of those £15-20m players they signed.

Agreed, but we've taking it to the extreme as we always seem to do. We don't have the mix, by all means scout and sign these players, but you need to supplement these guys with a higher calibre of signing. It's utter nonsense to build up team of signings that cost less than £20m individually.

[CB Fry]

4 hours ago, S-Clarke said:

I'm not sure it is, I think it's quite relevant to go all the way back, as the mistakes made then opened the door to where we are today.

We lost key players in those years, and spent big to replace them but we got them all wrong, not just 1 or 2, but every single one of them. Hoedt, Vestergaard, Boufal, Carillo to name a few. When you get that many wrong, it's very hard for clubs of our size to recover and we inevitably regressed. Due to those mistakes of the past, we couldn't spend in order to keep up with the rest.

I'm not denying that SR have turned an already bad situation into an unmitigated disaster, but in many ways they accelerated what was inevitable anyway. 

The key point is that clubs such as ourselves cannot make as many bad 'big' signings as we have done, and expect to be able to sustain competitiveness. Our model is to sell and replace, but when you buy shit you can't sell it and thus you can't replace, and slowly the squad just regresses.

This summer needs to be an opportunity to reset the lot and move on from those mistakes of the past, we need to build a new future without hangers on covered in the mistakes from the past.

Yes but when SR took over Fulham, Forest and Bournemouth were all in the Championship, if you go want to back further in time to the Pellegrino season Villa and Wolves were in the Championship as well. 

All of those clubs can start from further back than us and establish themselves in the Premier League then it kind of destroys the argument that we are bad now because we were bad in 2018.

However you look at it plenty of other clubs would have killed to be in the position we were in on the day SR started. 

Edited 11 hours ago by CB Fry

[Galway saint]

These things ebb and flow and you see Forest now riding high yet were in the doldrums for years post Clough. Look at Brentford who were a lower league club for most of my time watching football. We have typically been a top flight side since I began supporting Saints in the early 80's but for a club like us that doesn't have tonnes of cash, recruitment is crucial and we haven't got that right for years now. I also feel we've not been able to  bring through players from the academy in the way we did in the past and therefore it's all on the scouts. You can see sort of see what we were trying to do when we bought lavia, larios, Bazanu, edozie and charles but with a current 1 in 5 hit rate that's nowhere near good enough for a club like us.

There's also a real lack of football nous//pig headedness in the club at times. The forward recruitment this year was so obviously sub-standard, the lack of an experienced top quality CM recruit since Romeu left and the refusal to spend big on a proper No 9 and instead spend the same money on several mediocre players.

We are stuck in a spiral of buying substandard players, then realising they are not good enough, waiting for their contracts to expire and rinse and repeat.

We won't but experienced quality players but are happy to buy inexperienced poor players. It's a ridiculous approach.

 

 

[miserableoldgit]

1 hour ago, Whitey Grandad said:

Our record transfer is Kamaldeen Sulemana. Just let that sink in for a moment.

Not according to this. Mind you, how many have been successful?

[bangkoksaint]

The end of the season is critical. I think a lot of STH’s will maybe wait to see who we appoint and when. Appoint say Rohl early, commit to low ST and match prices and suddenly things will already start to look better. Dither and we may be the next Luton or Stoke

[bangkoksaint]

4 minutes ago, miserableoldgit said:

Not according to this. Mind you, how many have been successful?

Over £100M wasted there

[saint michael]

Well we can learn from the past but can’t change it, and boy have we had some points to learn from. Shame we never took these. 
my concern is how much we can change our current ways and how long it will take to do it. 
 

if this goes as way back as we all recognise I see very little proof that things will change or are changing that will mean we will start to improve. It feels like they keep rolling the dice and getting it wrong. 
 

As mentioned we have to get some football basics back in place and stop trying to be the super leading club that will bring a something different. It wouldn’t surprise me if we hear AI brought into this soon. 
 

The sad thing is that even the feeling of hope for the club is going and harder to imagine anything different being seen from this current shit show. 

[Midfield_General]

30 minutes ago, miserableoldgit said:

Not according to this. Mind you, how many have been successful?

Those prices for Livramento and Ings are what we sold them for. 

He means the record amount we've paid for someone, which is the €25m/£22m for Sulemana. 

Also, those figures don't look in line with what was reported at the time of those transfers. The reported figure for Livramento was £32m (€39m), not €26m, the reported figure for Vestergaard was £18m (€21m), not €25m, and the reported figure for Danny Ings was £25m (€29m), not €25m. 

Edited 14 hours ago by Midfield_General

[SaintsBarry74]

We haven't looked right since that first 0-9 humilation.

[Maggie May]

16 minutes ago, SaintsBarry74 said:

We haven't looked right since that first 0-9 humilation.

I think we actually got our act together after that. 

I pinpoint the 4-0 defeat away to Aston Villa on March 5, 2022. Something happened that day and we’ve never recovered.

[Doctoroncall]

58 minutes ago, miserableoldgit said:

Not according to this. Mind you, how many have been successful?

2 and 6 were the only successes. 
1 and 7 were financially successful. 
pitiful. 
 

Currently no leaders on or off the pitch. SR messed up since their arrival but it also shows it’s hard to get it right. No clue if Spors is the right choice but he cannot do it alone. Has the scouting structure improved - too early to tell, at least the youngster are doing well, but meaningless if there is no pathway. 
 

I’d like to see Fernandes stay, sign a Case type CM, get a good CB lead to help Edward’s if he seen as a player who can step up.  Create a base and keep the strong players (of which there aren’t many). 

[pimpin4rizeal]

2 hours ago, S-Clarke said:

There is certainly an element of truth in that, but in general terms there are still £15m-20m players out there. It's all down to scouting.

Dean Huijsen was £15m - class player. Alex Scott £20m, Milos Kerkez £17m, Justin Kluivert £10m. Semenyo £10m. So it's possible, but it's all down to scouting.

Those solid buys who grew into the team at that range then allowed them to go big on someone like Evanlison. Bournemouth can also sit comfortably knowing that there will be a guaranteed profit on all of those £15-20m players they signed.

There is more then a element of truth, it’s easy to cherry pick a few 10-20 million players from other clubs, you could point out fernandes and ramsdale for us, but since we are shopping in the bargain basement you have gotta expect more misses then hits, also the fact that we are so absolutely cheap skate in the transfer market always trying to penny pinch and haggle means even if we do identify decent targets through our recruitment if another premiership club comes in for said player he will go there instead because everyone else is willing to pay more so we end up probably having to settle for our fourth or fifth choice instead of our first choice ..

overall I think we need to be a lot more aggressive about getting the targets we actually want. don’t settle for players that are your forth or fifth choice . I think this not wanting to spend the going rate started with Semmens and sports republic have followed his lead in the worst way possible 

[John B]

5 hours ago, CB Fry said:

Sorry it is stupid to go all the way back to Koeman. 

When SR took over, Fulham, Forest and Bournemouth were all in the Championship.

SR bought an established Premier League club and fucked it up all themselves.

Wittering on about Claude Puel is as irrelevant to what has actually happened and why.

 

I think you are missing the po[nt that when SR took over we had a pretty poor squad with few  stand out PL players

[CB Fry]

32 minutes ago, John B said:

I think you are missing the po[nt that when SR took over we had a pretty poor squad with few  stand out PL players

The point is our squad was better than Forest, Bournemouth and Fulham who weren't in the Premier League at all.

It's ridiculous to keep throwing back into the past when at the point of takeover we were in a position lots of clubs would kill for

[Gloucester Saint]

Honest thoughts on Southampton Football Club? Pull the shutters down until August, send everyone their 3 points in the post. 

Spors will need to be absolutely ruthless to get anywhere near sorting this out. The opposite of last summer basically and then another 350% more. 

Edited 7 hours ago by Gloucester Saint

[Whitey Grandad]

7 hours ago, Midfield_General said:

Those prices for Livramento and Ings are what we sold them for. 

He means the record amount we've paid for someone, which is the €25m/£22m for Sulemana. 

Also, those figures don't look in line with what was reported at the time of those transfers. The reported figure for Livramento was £32m (€39m), not €26m, the reported figure for Vestergaard was £18m (€21m), not €25m, and the reported figure for Danny Ings was £25m (€29m), not €25m. 

Yep, I was referring to purchases.

There may have been some currency variations over the period of these but not significant. Whatever, we’ve paid over the odds for a lot of players.