As revealed earlier this week Raidhi Jaidi is no longer head coach of the Saints U23 side, with a surprising twist.

We said in our article a few days ago that Jaidi was no longer in charge of the U23 side and that the club were delaying the announcement in order to find him another role and it seems that has now been done.

Jaidi is heading to the USA to become head coach of USL Championship team Hartford Athletic as part of a 12-month secondment.

Hartford Play in the USL Championship which is a second tier level in the States just below the MLS, it has 34 teams in it and 15 of those are affiliated to MLS clubs and it seems that this is the road Saints are taking.

But the standard is way below that of English League teams and is probably on a level with at best the Conference North/South, perhaps lower, indeed the only English player on the books is Ryan Williams who has played mainly in non League football aside from a spell 5 years ago with League 2 Morecambe where he was far from a regular.

The move signals the first stage of developing a partnership between Hartford Athletic and the Southampton Academy, which may in the future involve player loans. It also allows the club to strengthen the identification of talented young players in the US whilst sharing knowledge and experience of young player development.

Current Under-23s Assistant Coach David Horseman will lead the Under-23s on an interim basis and be supported by Head of Player Development David Hughes.

Academy Director Matt Hale said:

“The opportunity to become Head Coach of a senior team is an exciting proposition for Radhi and we wish him well for his spell with Hartford Athletic.”

“We are thrilled to welcome Radhi to Hartford as our next Head Coach,” said Hartford Athletic Chairman and CEO Bruce Mandell. "We thank Southampton Football Club for putting their trust in our organisation and look forward to our growing relationship.”

The news highlights the shambles the Saints coaching staff is in at the moment, this is dressed up as part of Jaidi's development and that is good, he does not yet have enough experience and the club are effectively sending him on a 12 month loan.

But given that those with less experience than Jaidi in Professional coaching now sit on the first team bench and training ground, it is a damning indictment on the standard of our coaching, if Jaidi is not yet good enough then how the hell are Kelvin Davis, Dave Watson & Craig Fleming qualified to do the job.

Photo: Action Images

Ripleys_revenge added 11:25 - Nov 9 Absolutely right Nick, how on earth has it come to this. Staggering incompetence. It beggars belief how Saints have got away with such a shambles for such a long time. Executive management of football clubs are the least accountable professionals across any industry. The trouble is that as soon as local / national media start asking the kind of tough questions that need to be asked (and the fans deserve to hear about) the club shut them out. Blackmore tries to investigate things as diplomatically as he can, as do others like Leitch, but at the end of the day if they push too hard they are out. There is such little transparency at Saints these days, and in the game in general, it is beyond a joke. Weren't we promised a new era of transparency by Semmens et al in a 'fans forum' at the start of the season? We would be receiving lots of updates about how 'we will be working hard on correcting some of the mistakes that we have made?'. To carry on like this shows such a lack of respect for fans it is quite sad and I'm afraid aligns perfectly with the sorry displays we have had to endure on the pitch over the last few years.

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djtsaints123 added 17:49 - Nov 9 its simple really saints only interested in youth at all levels all young inexperienced people all go getters but no experience of life so guess what in a crisis no idea what to do. W e cant survive because no one has a clue, ralph is lost who can he turn to we have an average squad which are performing badly because no leadership every player is worse this season than before our chairman wants self sufficiency in the championship that is no deal only relegation again

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