George Street-Bridge wrote:Southampton feature heavily on my local TV and their reporters don't seem at all optimistic.

I can't remember where I read it, but apparently for a game a few weeks ago four players on the bench had all been recent-ish record signings.

Saints burnt through a lot of winnable games early in the season and not won them through a combination of being overly-defensive in early games, and more recently lack of effort and probably a desire to see the manager move on. The guy got outwitted in every tactical situation all season long, it was pathetic. Still, despite a lack of easy home games, Huddersfield have an even tougher run-in. If they're not on at least 36 points with 5 games to go they're in bigger trouble.

Pellegrino favoured Carrillo (ex-player at Estudiantes and new record signing) over Gabbiadini (beloved for his instant impact last year and chance-starved ever since), Boufal is up and down but a rare creative player with flashes of genius, Lemina was superb early on but post-injury has been less impressive though still the best player in the team, and Wesley Hoedt seems to be hugely overpriced for some of the performances he's put in so far. But you could easily put Long, Tadic/Redmond, Romeu/Hojbjerg and Yoshida in for that lot without much loss of performance this season.

Will be interesting to see what happens in Wigan on Sunday (other than me getting stranded at the airport when they cancel the flight back due to snow)...

Talksport were saying he gets a £2,000,000 bonus if he keeps them up....Not bad work for 8 games is it ?

On the other hand he could be involved in 2 teams he has managed getting relegated in the same season

neilcork68 wrote:Talksport were saying he gets a £2,000,000 bonus if he keeps them up....Not bad work for 8 games is it ?

On the other hand he could be involved in 2 teams he has managed getting relegated in the same season

Talksh1te as I call them... because almost everything they say is a lie, so I'd take it with a pinch of salt.

Easy thing to make up, but also considering Premier League football is worth about £120m to the club a sensible clause IF it exists. He only needs to win half of them as well.

Saints appointing Hughes is a desperation short-term move, the likes of which the club has actively shied away from in the interests of middle-termism, planning and playing the percentages. However, he's got an 8 match deal and no commitment beyond that.

Unfortunately, when you focus on the bigger picture you can often miss a number of minor incremental changes which slide a club from an excellent position to a much weaker one. In this case, there's been an assumption that the Director of Football is infallible thanks to five or so years of incremental success.

There's also been naivety in believing that having improved league position despite selling the best players for two years running in 2014 and 2015, a sound recruitment policy will ALWAYS result in players being replaced without significant impact on performance. Even now Saints scoring one more goal in all of their draws this season would see them above Chelsea in the top 5!

But it's a game of margins, and there was a massive amount of arrogance to think that the system which worked in 2015 to get into Europe would continue to work even with lesser players and once other teams had seen it in use for years.

Most importantly the last two managers have effectively been mouthpieces for the DoF, unable to implement their own changes lest they receive the burning farewell message Ronald Koeman received when he left for Everton, and was accused of not being aligned with the club's principles, which mainly came about because he used 5-3-2 instead of the mandatory 4-2-3-1 used throughout all other age groups. So Puel and to a far greater degree Pellegrino were neutered and either unable or unwilling to use their skills to tweak the squad/team/tactics etc. which has led to a sleepwalk towards relegation concerns, and even more arrogance with waiting so long to make the change.

Overall it seems to me the DoF has made a bad decision and refused to change it and look weak in front of the new Chinese owner, lest he weaken his own position in the hierarchy. So instead the club slid towards the drop zone making few changes and seeing the same problems week on week.

Anyway, rant over - Hughes is a strange appointment, possibly too late, but at least we know he's probably going to do things his way, and anything should be better than what was happening. Change is as good as a rest and all that.

Oh, and also, Southampton's previous managers were hardly the "same lot".

Pellegrino - first (and last) job in English football
Puel - first job in English football
Koeman - first job in English football
Pochettino - first job in English football
Adkins - first job in Premier League (due to being promoted from League One)
Pardew - appointed when bottom of League One and a coup at the time at that level (9 years ago) - also the first Liebherr family appointment following administration.

Wrexham supporting mate reckons the rumours are keates is leaving them to join Walsall.. could potentially derail their season I guess

MHcounty wrote:Wrexham supporting mate reckons the rumours are keates is leaving them to join Walsall.. could potentially derail their season I guess

Aw no such a shame

Keates confirmed as new Walsall manager

PJSS are coming to Merthyr for half term soccer school , fair play to them, they're reaching out

Well, Stevenage must have decided 44 points is the safety mark for this season as they have sacked their manager.

Stevenage job available ???

A lot of the fans on their forum want Dino rather than GW. Interesting to see if they follow the Barnet strategy.

Few things in the managerial merry-go-round surprise me, but the last few weeks have been surreal. Presumably Barnet will dump Allen on relegation, as the next task will be different and not his speciality! They won't be needing that big away stand.

Local press speculation on Stevenage here. Grant McCann looks a good bet. http://www.thecomet.net/sport/football/ ... -1-5439890

I wonder what Graham Westley CV will say about that sacking. How will he put a positive spin on that I wonder? I'll bet he will try though.