The Daily Echo has printed a readers letter as a story on it's website, in which the writer demands that Sam Allardyce be immediately summoned to save Saints, I am not quite sure how he thinks this will be an improvement !

Before I get on to Sam Allardyce I have to say that the writer of this letter, a man called Bob Barton, assuming this is his real name and not a pseudonym, makes some very good points about Mauricio Pellegrino, some I agree with wholeheartedly, some less so.

"Pellegrino is clueless. His selections range from blind faith (Tadic, Forster, Redmond) through panic (Boufal, Holjberg, Hoedt, Yoshida) and finally to the bizarre (JWP on with three minutes remaining — or just maybe he noticed we had won a corner and had screwed up every other one)."

Although to call Pellegrino clueless is a bit harsh, I cannot disagree with the comments about Pellegrino's selections, they are becoming increasingly bizarre with no logic attached to them at times.

But I do disagree with him abut the need for Les Reed to hit the panic button at least just yet, Bob Barton thinks we are already doomed under Pellegrino, that we have wasted a potentially easy start and now we are going to pay the price, but that is pure scaremongering and has no more basis that it wold if he had also suggested that Burnley would win the League because they had beaten some top sides and with an easy run coming up would soon top the league.

It cannot be denied that we have wasted opportunities, indeed if we had beaten Burnley on Saturday then we would now sit 7th only 3 points off of 5th place, if we had won 4-0 that would not have signified that Mauricio Pellegrino was getting it totally right and we were heading for another 6th place finish, anymore than the 1-0 defeat means we should veer completely the other way and use this result as a barometer that would see us relegated.

Therefore after only 11 games Mr Barton wants Les Reed to press the panic button and bring in Sam Allardyce !

But has he really thought about the long term affects of doing this ? is this really a step forward for Southampton Football Club ? Allardyce saved Crystal Palace from relegation last season, but he was called in because they were desperate, we are not in that position, we are facing mid table obscurity, we are not in the bottom three we are a long way off panic and there lies a problem, Mr Barton is part of a new breed of fan who seem to judge everything by the last few games, there is no thought of consequence other than the next few games, that is wrong there needs to be a long term view.

Sam Allardyce has made a living in the past few years as something of a firefighter for football clubs, the go to man if you are in trouble, but his record since leaving Bolton ten years ago is not great, sacked at Newcastle after only 5 months, he then embarked on what would be a familiar pattern, called in by Blackburn he turned things round and kept them up, sacked a couple of years later, at West Ham he stayed four years but his reign there was not that popular with the fans with a revolving door of players in and out and Allardyce after scraping promotion through the play offs, not quite able to kick West Ham on despite a big big budget.

He saved Sunderland from relegation next, but he wasn't setting the World alight.

The England managers debacle followed, then his short period at Selhurst park.

Newcastle, Blackburn, West Ham, Sunderland & Palace all have one thing in common, that is after Allardyce they were in total disarray and have never quite recovered, that should tell us what he is about, yes he can manage a short term fix, rally the troops and his methods work for a few months, but he is not a long term answer, ultimately he can get players playing for brief periods and then his methods dont work.

Also at each club his style relied on getting in a big centre forward and hoofing it to him, each of these clubs had that type of player to hand as with Benteke last season at Palace, we do not, so it would be pointless (Perhaps literally) bringing him in now as he doesn't have the players at hand to do the job he does, if Saints did bring him in we would need to wait till the window opened in January and give him a big budget.

But what Mr Barton should realise is that Saints do things for the long term, perhaps there will be blips, but they stay patient and get their rewards in the longer term, why would we want to throw the past few years of a very definite plan for the club formulated by Katharina Liebherr's backroom team and get in a manager who will destroy it in months.

That would be pure folly, but if we want to be another Crystal Palace or Sunderland then this is the way to go. Football these days seems to be more abot change for change's sake than looking at a long term picture, we have got ourself into a position where a poor season for us is 8th, a Wembley Cup Final but no European qualification, that is a season that is far better than around 95% of every other one in our 132 years of existence, that should tell us all something.

I am not saying that everything is rosy at St Mary's, I am not saying that we have the right man in Pellegrino, what I m saying is that whatever we should do, it should not be the blind panic Bob Barton is proposing, but a measured plan to go forward.

The board are silent on this and that is the way it should be, do things quietly and in private.

Mr Barton also says

"After more dismal performances (despite having a season ticket I would be less depressed by not going at all) I now dread going to home games."

I know how he feels, I dread going to home games due to the comments of those around me waiting for Forster and Redmond to put a foot (or glove) wrong so they can scream abuse at them, mind you I should not be surprised, two seasons ago the same people were doing exactly the same, but then it was Pelle and sadio Mane who they were targeting.

Finally in his piece Mr Barton makes a plea to Les Reed that he should have his money refunded, that he is not getting value for money or because the goods are faulty.

Since when do we follow football teams for value for money ?

He Says

"If not, Les, please can I have a refund on the grounds of failure to provide any value for money or even faulty goods ?"

Most seasons in the last 35 years have not been ones of value for money, the 1990's and the late noughties stand out as two periods when we turned up at The Dell/St Mary's in the call of duty, not to be entertained or to get value for money.

Back in both those periods we had no strategy it was a case of manager after manager and we paid the price, I don't want to see this club return to that way of things, I try to see the bigger picture, but more importantly I see that patience has paid dividends.

Ironically our best and most stable period in the clubs history has been the last four seasons, each one saw a top 8 finish, something we had never done four times in a row before, but incredulously it has also seen meltdown in the supporter base each and every year, have some of us lost sight of where we have come from and what we are trying to achieve ?

Apologies to Bob Barton, I don't know him, perhaps he did not expect to see a short letter to the Daily Echo suddenly be made into a news story that now pops up all over the World, I'm sure he is a dedicated Saints fan and perhaps does not seek this infamy that the Echo has now given him.

Finally shame on the Daily Echo for turning a readers letter into a full blown headline, if i wrote to them and complained that my bin hadn't been emptied in the last two weeks, would they make this a news story ? No they wouldn't and although this is a bigger issue, this is after all a readers letter, newspapers get loads of these every week, usually they used to have letters pages for them rather than let the readers write the stories !

Photo: Action Images

wessexman added 09:58 - Nov 10 Mr Barton has his opinion....which he is entitled to. The big worry remains.....can Pellegrino not see where he is going wrong? How can it be allowed to continue? What we do know is this. This board and Les Reed need to think their strategy through long and hard. This next big decision is one which they dare not get wrong or else we will be in trouble
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NewburySaint added 10:13 - Nov 10 Is Bob Barton an anagram of Sam Allardyce or vice versa?!
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SonicBoom added 10:33 - Nov 10 One small thing. why not put a name on these articles? Is this Nick ? Or one of the other random people that seem to have articles posted.
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kenis added 10:42 - Nov 10 Don’t want Sam but wouldn’t mind us following more of his survival/pl success blueprint and playing with more pace and faster attacking even if we lose the ball more, we surely have the players to win it back with the quality we have. Really miss the high press high intensity attacking football of MP mk1 and the confident dominance of RK Blueprint - clean sheets - don’t lose possession in own half - play the first pass forward - win knock downs - set pieces - exploit opponent weaknesses - quality in final third

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SaintNick added 11:10 - Nov 10 The thing about this article is that we should not get sidetracked by the merits or lack of them of pellegrino, it is not about that, it is about the folly of taking a knee jerk reaction and throwing away 4 years of planning that has worked well up to now, it is about getting in place the right man at the right time. People slag off Les Reed, but we got it right last season, we stuck with him and made the change at the end of the season and ultimately that was the right decision, despite many calling for Puel's head the moment we went out of the Europa League. Our options are limited now and more to the point any manager coming in options are limited to the transfer window opens, we need to stay with our eye on the ball and not do what the lkes of Sunderland, Palace etc do and panic every time something is not going right

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larry12 added 11:32 - Nov 10 Les Reed would never employ Fat Sam, cos he has got a mind of his own and wouldn't sign an NDA, like all the previous cowards have, in order to have their millions of salary for having to do Les Reed's yes-men role. Get rid of Reed and then a decent Manager will suddenly appear.
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Jesus_02 added 12:35 - Nov 10 Nick I find it baffling that you still believe that we are still "planning for the future". Did we plan on sell all our best players. Did we plan on Getting rid of managers when they become successful. You talk about our time in the premier league as a golden era of stability when it feels like we have been playing Russia roulette and are running out of chambers. We are now reaping the rewards of selling our good players season after season to rivals (mainly Liverpool) . We now 3 or 4 above average players (pretty much all of which seem disinterested) and so many average players that where bought hoping they where "hidden gems" that we have no room for homegrown players to come through. If you think we are heading for midtable obscurity then lucky you. In a relegation battle the team that has goals in it generally pull through we are 4 points away in case you hadn't looked.

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bstokesaint added 12:46 - Nov 10 I've not posted anything for a while as I'm feeling pretty disillusioned right now. I’ve not really felt the need to finger point either as I’m not totally sure where the real blame lies. That said I think it’s a bit unfair to call Pellegrino “clueless”. I don’t think he’s necessarily any improvement on Puel (who I didn’t mind), but the fact that he plays very similar teams suggests to me that our managers don’t feel like they have the options to do anything else. For me even the thought of taking on Big Sam sends shivers down by spine and would represent everything we’ve tried not to become as a club. However, with the greatest respect to Pellegrino I’d still take back Koeman at the drop of the hat if the club could resolve their differences with him. I think he was taking us places and would have done the same for Everton if they hadn’t pressed the panic button so early.

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SaintBrock added 13:01 - Nov 10 People, people get a grip! It's far too early to abandon ship.
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SaintPaulVW added 13:05 - Nov 10 One of the many things I'm puzzled about at the moment is the attitude of our new Owner. I seem to have heard nothing about future plans or observations on current form. I can accept it was Communist Party conference season in China so nothing much would be announced before then but I'd like to hear some steer on future team plans now.
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BoondockSaint added 14:08 - Nov 10 I get the impression that the new owner just wanted to own a football team because that is what super rich people do. Just like buying a small island in the tropics or penthouse in a capital city, it's something they have but rarely use, but can bring it up in conversation with other billionaires. A few are competitive people who want to beat the other billionaires teams and will spend what needs to be spent, but others don't care, the team is just another thing on the assets list. Our new owner doesn't seem to care, as long as the team is not losing money (no matter what division) they are happy to leave well enough alone. The next window will speak volumes about the owner. People complain about Big Sam's tactics, but who would you rather have running your training ground,, him or Eric Black?

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BarnetSaint added 19:21 - Nov 10 I’ll be in the minority here but going to say it anyway. Assuming we can’t get Koeman back, i would take allaydice as a short term emergency stop gap, ensuring we stay up and then appoint someone more suitable for next season. The current bloke has used up many winnable games and the return, due to negative tactics has been pityful ( i will say in his defence, was he given reeasonable transfer funds to bring in a much needed forward?) Right now, i’m struggling to find many teams worse than us. We are solid, yes, lots of good defenders and non scoring midfielders, but how many match winners have we got?

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BuyEastleighFC4aBtea added 19:36 - Nov 10 After reading this war and peace article it's clear we all share a love and passion for our club... it hurts when things don't go our way... the truth is we our so lucky to have a team could bring us so much joy and pride. Please Stop blaming a players or the manager for a mistake here and there! We all make mistake in life and we hate when we do... give yourselves a break just support the team you love hold heartedly just like you would if your son or daughter made these mistakes.

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Consigliere added 20:21 - Nov 10 I would send back my season ticket in small parts if Allardyce came anywhere near the club! Quite apart from his dubious financial morality I don't have enough life left to watch his style of football! I recall the W Ham fans singing for his sacking when they played at St Mary's and he was their manager a few years ago and that was the view of several mates who follow the 'spam. Things may be difficult but they aren't that desperate for heaven's sake!

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BarnetSaint added 20:47 - Nov 10 True they did sing against him, but how much worse was it to the current fare? We are dull, predictable and cautious.
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skiptonsaint added 11:52 - Nov 11 Beginning to wonder if our recent years haven't gone like this Most money in league one - promoted Most money in championship - promoted Poch in charge who is on course to be best manager in the world at some point -- rising to 8th Mane period who must be the best overall player since Bale (ie could end up in the top 10 footballers in the world ?)period 7th and 6th No Poch or Mane period - 8th to 15th ? Ie about the same as the rest of the prem teams with roughly our turnover. Some seasons slightly better / some slightly worse Clearly this a simplification but what I am saying is Until we unearth another standout manager / player as good as Mane or Poch that's where we will be frustrating as it is. Basically a premier league Portugal without Ronaldo. Of course it could be worse this season if we have a period of a below average manager / average players with no decent effective attacking options and some bad luck on injuries.

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SanMarco added 12:31 - Nov 11 Going back to the statistics lecture on Redmond the other day - it does have to be said that 'Big Sam' is the best England manager EVER. 100 per cent success stats and the stats don't lie................
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halftimeorange added 15:07 - Nov 11 If we were being beaten or drawing in nail-biting games it wouldn't be so bad, but the continual drab performances just sucks the enthusiasm out of the fans. Add to that the peculiar and unpredictable selections and substitutions, is it any wonder that many of us, Mr Barton included, are voicing concerns and possible solutions to the problems currently besetting Saints. Fans hurl insults at players because they don't know what else they can do. It's called venting frustration seeing our dreams gradually disintegrating.

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SaintBrock added 12:48 - Nov 12 For as long as I have been a Saint, we win home games and lose away games. Frankly that's all most go up to St Mary's to see. Well they are not seeing much of that at the moment and many will stop going soon because of it. The restlessness of the more vocal fans is the first step towards their total disillusionment. People should be free to express their disapproval so long as it stops short of physical violence. In Roman times booing from the crowd usually ended up with the emperor giving the thumbs down sign and everyone was clear what that meant. It's a lucky for Pellegrino will not have to face Millwall or Hull City anytime soon....

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redandwhitedee added 11:27 - Nov 13 "Finally shame on the Daily Echo for turning a readers letter into a full blown headline"... emm..,Did you not do just the same ?
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