The national press have been claiming that Ryan Bertrand has been telling team mates he is leaving, but the player himself denies these claims and also of a rift in the dressing room.
Ryan Bertrand has spoken out after media claims that Claude Puel has lost the dressing room and that several players have fallen out with the French manager including Bertrand himself.
Speaking in the build up to the trip to Liverpool, ironically one of the clubs that the left back has been linked with Bertrand said.
never really crossed my mind to start thinking about football elsewhere”.
"There’s nothing to make a story out of,” he said.
"There have been no bust-ups, never really crossed my mind to start thinking about football elsewhere”.
"The training ground is fairly open ... there’s been nothing.”
"From the outside looking in you’d think there was a crisis, there’s this news and that news, but, if you come away from that, we’re sitting 9th, we’ve been in a cup final and we can increase on where we are at the moment.
"We’ve got all to play for and come the end of the season we’ll be sitting here saying what a great season it has been.”
The England International also spoke up in support of his club manager.
"It’s been a full on season and it’s hard to come to your first job in English football, to follow what we’ve done last year and to cope with the demands of all the games, but I think he has come in and done really well.
"If you step back and look at it, we’ve been in a cup final, were on the edge of history there, and we’re still in contention to finish in a respectable position in the Premier League.
"I guess those frustrations come when you have a bad result against a team you’re expected to beat and that comes with the success we’ve had — the expectation to go out and continuously deliver.
Bertrand also spoke of how he is not looking any further than St Mary's at the moment.
"As long as my football’s consistent and I’m enjoying it there’s no real need to start thinking about your future,”
"I’m happy, my family is happy, so it’s never really crossed my mind to start thinking about football elsewhere.”
"You can take that as a compliment to be honest, but I don’t really get carried away about what’s written in the papers and that too much,”
"It’s important to focus on my game and you know that will come. If you’re playing consistently well in the Premier League and internationally, you’ll naturally be linked to various teams.”
"I learnt from a young age to stop reading so much tabloid stuff and just focus on my game,” he said.
"Naturally it’s nice to get that recognition and I suppose that will come if you play consistently in the Premier League and internationally.
"But I learnt a long time ago not to get carried away with anything.”
Reassuring words from Bertrand, but from a cynical point of view there are two points to note here.
Firstly the player himself is contracted to speak to the media about the club and not to say anything detrimental to it, Bertrand is clearly very much the model professional in this respect, he knows how to play the game.
Secondly although reports of Bertrand and Nathan Redmond having bust ups with Puel are merely heresay at present, it cannot be denied that both Dusan Tadic and Shane Long have had public issues with the manager, Tadic criticised him in an interview and then there was the debacle when Long came on as substitute and was then taken off leading to a very open display towards the manager as he came off.
All of this has been glossed over, that is natural at any football club to do that, but the supporters can see things are not right, not just in open displays of defiance as just illustrated, but also in terms of the way that the team is sent out both in terms of selection and tactics and for many the Hull game was the final straw.
The big question is whether things are now too far gone in the dressing room and with the manager to turn things round, in many respects it reminds me of the situation 13 years ago when Paul Sturrock took over from Gordon Strachan in February , at the end of the season it was clear that something was not quite right, then Chairman Rupert Lowe sat down with Sturrock who assured him that these teething problems were only that and against his better judgement Lowe gave him more time.
Sturrock was sacked after only a few games of the next season as it was clear he was not up to the job.
This led to a catastrophic sequence of events that not only saw Saints relegated only two years after finishing 8th and reaching an FA Cup Final, but eventually to boardroom turmoil and further relegation and administration.
I think these days Saints have a far more robust structure than they did back then, but the lesson is there to be learned, although consistency and continuity is key to a successful club, sometimes you have to read the warning signs and take heed of them.
The question is whether Bertrand is right and things are all rosy in the Saints camp, or if the situation is actually as bad as rumoured, sadly the evidence is pointing to the latter, there seem to be too many things not right, it is not just the rumoured bust ups, these happen at most clubs, but add the rotational system that saw us go out of Europe, the failure to deal with the central defensive situation, the questionable tactics, selection and substitutional issues and there is just too much going on at St Mary's to brush aside.