Can but hope these rumours are true.

Please be true we need someone who can at least show some passion so fans can get behind him.

This is such old gossip.. where have you been ? is this really the 1st time you have heard these two linked ?

Can't wait to get rid! Sorry Mr Puel, No disrespect but u just don't fit our attacking style, especially at home where goal scoring has been dire this season!
Come on! Let's get back on the bus & get Claudio Raneri & start to show Real Intent again this summer😋

Of course they're checking out options. They'll be others being looked at too..100% sure

I cannot see Hull staying up - so a managerial choice could be made as early as the 21st May or very shortly after. They have a tricky away trip to Crystal Palace followed by Spurs at home on the final day. Swansea meanwhile play Sunderland away and finally WBA at home - arguably 2 easier games.

Puel seems a nice, decent bloke. I know he's tried his best and if I saw him in a bar tomorrow, I'd buy him a drink and shake his hand. But maybe it is time to change direction and try something new...

I am generally pretty conservative when it comes to changing managers but it certainly would not break my heart if Puel got the axe. Seems like a decent guy but in the end the on field product has lacked both effectiveness and entertainment value. Having said that, an extra goal or two in one of the Europa league games, in the cup final , and in, say, two league games, and the season looks far different. Small margins.

Considering the board were willing to part with Nigel when it became obvious that he could take the team no further I would think that Claude and the angel of death who sits next to him will be moving on very soon. As already said by 1885 SFC Puel is a decent guy, who ended up in the wrong job for him, and I wish him well provided it's somewhere else.

So on the basis of most of the comments above together with Nick's consistently negative recent views we now need to sack the manager. Does it not occur to you that the perceived lack of success this season is cause by the club's failed business plan, a vanishing chairman and a want away owner? To suggest we replace the manager with a guy who has every chance of being at the helm when Hull are relegated or a man who may not even get Sheffied Wednesday promoted reminds me of that saying "be careful what you wish for".

I do agree with the view that Puel probably has to go, but it's a sad situation. The clubs awful performance in the transfer market this season after being so quick to cash in on Mane alongside some crucial injuries is just as much at fault for where things have gone wrong. We were playing some fantastic one touch football with the diamond early in the season, but then Claude binned that style off, either under pressure to do so or because Saints never delivered the players to progress with it.

Just getting in a new manager isn't going to paper over the cracks of board level failure and address the apathy that Nick correctly identifies. I'm tired of the constant turn over of players and am struggling to identify with my club anymore. The unity and togetherness of our promotion back to the Prem feels like a long time ago and I can't relate to players who I feel just want to use us as a stepping stone to join a 'big club' while us mugs pay £40-£50 for 90 minutes of so-so football, a tired match day experience and being ripped off at half time.
I won't be getting another season ticket or going to many games until I see a fundamental change in the way the club is run and the fans are treated.

Hear, hear saintmark and StRipper. We lose good managers because we don't show enough ambition and sell our best players. Then we get a manager in who's clearly prepared to work in that environment and we sack him because he's underachieving. You couldn't make it up.

Marco Silva is the man! Get him in!
Worked miracles in Portugal, took a struggling 2nd division team up to 5th and then 4th place in the top league. Won the equivalent of the FA Cup in Portugal in his only season with Sporting, won the Greek league with Olympiacos after winning 17 consecutive games and beating Arsenal in the Champions League. And now he's somehow kept Hull competitive even though they only had 16 players when he took over. He's one of the best young managers around, no wonder the club are looking at him.
And the best thing about him; he actually shows some passion and insight when talking about the game! When you look at what he's done at Hull, imagine what he can do with a half decent squad.
Puel out!!
After a great run by the club of getting brilliant managers: Adkins, Poch and Koeman, they finally got one wrong with Puel. You can't get everything right, so onto the next one.

I don't think our 'failed business plan' has any bearing on the negative, coma inducing football we've been watching.

And if Hull do get relegated it would be ridiculous to blame Silva. But for him they'd have mathematically gone long before Sunderland. He's our man, I just hope we're appealing enough for him.

steve73. It really is quite simple. If you have a business plan which is to sell your best players to your rivals every close season then you can hardly be surprised that at some point in time you will cease to make progress.My view is that Mr Puel has not made a bad job of keeping the club in the top ten in the league and taking us to a cup final particularly bearing in mind our injury problems. He deserves a chance to build his own team during the close season but I doubt he will get it as the board and current owner may well see his going as a way of distracting attention away from their own shortcomings.

Obviously you think differently and I respect your views. Let's hope we can get a win on Saturday and lift the perception of gloom and despondency which is around the fans at the moment.

For me I can't agree more with StRipper. Just to add to his view, I think Puel has been heavily hung out to dry by the board not to mention the uncertainty coupled with the sense of apathy within the club (i.e. ownership and failures in transfer windows) hasn't helped matters.

Puel just needs to get us a top 8 finish, go back to France (most probably St Etienne) and make way for Marco Silva. Furthermore we need our an owner KL to abide by her word and make way for a new owner who's willing to invest properly in Southampton FC and take us to a new level.

I just can't understand why this hasn't happened already. We have amazing fans, a brilliant history, amazing alumni of players, we're down the road from the capital and most importantly have great weather!

Saintmark,StRipper & LordDZLucan, a bad workman blames his tools! A good manager will work with what he's got and make it competitive. Puel is not doing that, he is playing the same failing team week in week out and keeping his fingers crossed.

Earlier in the season Puel experimented and tried different things, sometimes they worked other times he got it wrong but that's life. Now he seems to be going through the motions. He has either been given his noticed, has decided he is leaving or he has lost all confidence in himself and the team.

I don't entirely blame Puel and I am ambivalent as to whether he gets another season or not. What I don't want is Saints to have a stumbling pre-season because nobody is at the helm until the last minute. A couple of shrewd player investments could make Saints into a class act next season. We are partly disappointed because of our high expectations this time round. Puel is not on the pitch. We appear to have three high-profile prima donnas in Tadic, Redmond and Boufal but Tadic has always been frustrating and skilful and the other two deserve, like Puel, more time.

SaintMark the business plan isn't to keep selling our best players. When a player hands in a transfer request the club can either:
- keep them for the length of thier contract, hope thier performances don't dip, and then let them go on a free
- negotiate the terms of the player leaving, ie. try to delay them leaving and agree that they can go in the following transfer window or following summer
- sell them for as much money as possible

If we keep a player against thier wishes then thier performances would probably suffer, they'd get dropped from the team, and then what? You're paying wages to someone who's not interested in playing, they're poisonous in the dressing room and thier value will drop. The club can lose millions of pounds. Nobody wins in this situation!
All the club can do is either try to delay them leaving, like they did with Schneiderlin and Wanyama, or sell them for as much as possible which is what they did with everyone else. The fees they got for some players were incredible!
Out of our best players, Southampton haven't sold a single one who didn't ask to leave. I don't know why people don't understand this. If anything the club have done really well over the years to replace the ones that left. It was only last summer and the January window just gone where its gone wrong. If they can get Silva in and make a few great signings then we can be back to challenging the top 6.

I can't honestly say that if this season we had Conte, Mourinio wenger or Silva as manager that we would have done any better. We would have had a moan about most, indeed Nick about all. I don't blame Puel at all. I do blame injuries, Fonte and the little fellas in our side.

Puel must be given another season, some wanted him out because he spoke with a French accent. He rotated when needed, he changed tactics when wrong, he chose a stable team when bad injuries forced his hand. He has learnt to speak English. Finally he has had to endure Nick on his back for most of the season. Fans are never happy unless winning and scoring lots of goals but sadly life and football isn't like that. Get behind your team and manager.

Things Puel has been responsible for:
The turgid style of football. It's so boring plenty of people aren't renewing thier season tickets
Abysmal goals scored record
Playing weakened teams in the Europa League, getting us knocked out at the group stage in an easy group
Unnecessary squad rotation causing inconsistency
Poor performances at home
A complete inability to give a post match interview and connect with the fans
The inability to make positive tactical changes during a game


Things going against Puel out of his control:
Poor player acquisition
Injuries to key players
Fonte's inflated ego


Things Puel has got right:
He got us to the League cup final and we put in a great performance


Puel's just not good enough to take us forward. He's no Pochettino or Koeman. I don't think he's worthy of another year.
Don't get blinded by the things out of his control, there's loads of things he could've done better.

'I think Nathan Redmond can be a centre forward like Thierry Henry'. lol!!

As Reedy summarises so well, when will fans get the message that the club’s policy is not to sell the best players, but more simply to get the best money for them when they throw their toys out the pram because their mate in the England camp (that they’ve just been selected to play for for the first time) earns three times as much?! The only reason we have good players in the first place is because over the past few seasons back in the top flight we have had an exceptional academy and “Black Box” recruitment tool. If we recruited journeymen players then the chances are they’d stay for longer. Is that really what everyone wants? It worked for Leicester, proving large investment isn’t always the key. It feels to me like some of our fans are so angry right now that they don’t know who to level the blame at. Is it the manager with the “boring football” and “dismal stats” that got us to a League Cup final and a possible top 10 finish? The “greedy” board (and Les) who give up some exceptional and exciting players and then repeatedly sell them in order to maintain their lavish lifestyles? The owner who inherited a football club (which I’m guessing wasn’t high on her lifetime bucketlist), but took it on anyway just so that she could make some more cash on top of her current fortune? Or our distinctly “average” squad who by and large played excellently under former managers?
Personally I’m not 100% convinced on the manager, although I understand there is an argument for him being given time. Given our recent form it could be considered a fair assessment that that might be nearer towards the bottom of the table if he stayed for another season. On that basis I think he’ll get the boot. That said what I am sick and tired of more than anything is the constant change at the club. I want to see a manager come in and stay for years. A manager who will get big respect from the club and fans for what he has achieved in the sport and someone people will listen to. However much I have wished it for Claude I never truly felt that he was going to get this given the underwhelming response to his appointment.

Poor player acquisition says one. Nobody on this thread is remotely interested in the FACT that Claude was only ALLOWED by Reed to get Pied in, who is better than, tw%t prowse, davis, cedric, hogedodge, clasie, targett, mqueen. If Claude is that bad, WHO appointed him? Why is nobody except me wanting Reed got rid of as well? I have given up on your illogical woolly headed thinking process. Cheers! Saint22 wait up!

None of us can know whether Silva is definitely the right man for the job but he does have a sound record of achievement and, in my estimation, would have had at least another twelve or fifteen points chalked up had he worked with the players at St Marys. Conversely, I believe Hull would have been relegated already if Puel had been their manage this season. On a positive note what I will say in Puel's favour is that he has got academy players into the team but, sadly, none of them have developed into top class prospects. I don't think he can be blamed for that and it's likely that RK headed north knowing that the youth policy was, for the present, mission impossible if the club was going to progress.

Adkins never rotated the team to the daft levels Puel has - and look where it got us. Pochettino likewise. Koeman also. The needless and unnecessary rotation has cost us a heavy price this season in terms of advancement in the Europa League and perhaps a place or two higher as regards our league position.

Sure, I understand the bad luck we've had with injuries which hasn't helped - especially to the best CB in the Premier League - and a ball's-up on the transfer front regarding a replacement for Virgil as well as getting caught short on the striker front until Gabbiadini arrived - but without doubt, excessive squad rotation has been our main undoing. And for that - the buck stops at Claude Puel's desk.

Sorry to disagree bstokesaint but as the last three close seasons have proven it is the club's business plan to sell their best players. If you disagree then please tell me of any other Premiership club that has consistently sold their best players in such numbers over the same time frame. Other clubs survive with different plans so why can't we adopt a different approach, or is it that the board and owner are quite happy to continue as before?