With a week gone since the final game of the Premier League season Saints supporters are getting a little restless that there is no news on the managerial front.

With most Saints fans wanting Mark Hughes to get the job on a full time basis and indeed both Hughes and the club making the right noises about the job being the right fit, it is a little disconcerting that there has been no news out of the club.

A week has now gone since the final home game against Manchester City and it could be said that it is now almost a fortnight since Saints Premier League future was all but confirmed after the win at Swansea.

Saints had a good opportunity to harness that feel good factor from last Sunday with a positive announcement regarding the manager, yet instead they put out season ticket renewal detail and dressed that up with the fact that prices would be frozen.

That was not conducive to keeping the feel good factor going and this is the crux of the matter, the PR from the club is absolutely awful, it lurches from gaffe to gaffe.

Whilst I appreciate that Ralph Krueger giving a big interview is the club's attempt at positive spin, the fact is it isn't, the club cannot seem to accept the mood amongst a sizeable chunk of the supporter base, they do not want words they want actions.

Krueger is an honest man and one that isn't getting the credit for his work over the last four years at the club, but in many respects he is too honest and his words are twisted.

This is leading to the fans taking the opinion that the club does not care for them, the season ticket renewal was seen as a kick in the teeth and yet another case of taking the fans for granted.

No one seems to have sat down in the St Mary's boardroom and taken stock of the disillusionment in the fan base, whilst I would agree that not everything that the fans are moaning about has any real substance, the club seem incapable of recognising that they have a problem and are blundering on with no thought for consequence.

This last week is a real instance of that, the season ticket prices were announced with indecent haste and the fact that prices were merely frozen said to the fans that their support was being taken for granted, after the debacle that was this season, the club relly needed to do something.

I am not PR Professional, but it was a simple solution to harness the relief and ecstasy of the final day, firstly do not announce the season tickets till the manager is appointed, Mark Hughes should have been announced swiftly and then a day later harness the positive vibes from that by putting out the season ticket details with the sweetener of a discount on renewals.

Simple stuff but you create a positive atmosphere around the club, you make the fans feel that they matter.

But this is only the tip of the iceberg, Saints are not the only club to have PR disasters with regard to their fans, but that does not make it right and to be blunt although the words coming out of Kruegers mouth say the right things, the actions of the last week do not back those words up and that does not instil confidence in the supporters that lessons have been learn't and that next season will be better than the last.

Personally I have always said that the problems at the club are not as deep as many supporters believe, but I have also said on many occasions that life is all about perceptions and here the club's poor PR is giving the fans the wrong perception and that means the discontent in the fan base is growing.

It is likely that Mark Hughes will be appointed in the next few days, but it is too late, the club have already diluted the feel good factor that would have brought, I would hope that Ralph Krueger is good to his word, but he needs to look at who is advising him on what to tell the fans, he needs someone who knows what the fans gripes are and how they can be tackled and he needs to tackle them.

Actions always speak louder than words, the last four years have seen meltdown in each season, the club has always come through due to being well run and structured with a plan, it has let it's actions speak, but actions alone are sometimes not enough and there are not enough of either actions or words at present.

Photo: Action Images

jonrog added 09:34 - May 20 Well said, could not agree more. A mere £50 reduction in price for an awful year of football would have been the least they could do. It would have made very little difference to their overall income with TV money being the major part. If they are hard up then they should have tried finishing a couple of positions higher that would have provided loads more money. (Which appears to be their main interest) They were happy enough to give Mark Hughes £1 million. If they gave us a million that would be £50 each for the 20,000 or so season ticket holders

3

ItchenNorth added 09:45 - May 20 Oh FFS. Whatever. Be patient, it been a week !!!!
0

montecristo added 10:14 - May 20 I think theres more to this delay than meets the eye, one of the clubs major signings was Boufal, and hes not been able to deliver. There is a language problem, Hughes probably speaks no french do not be surprised if someone else is appointed who can. If he was throwing toys out of the pram when the club was at crisis point theres a serious reason , Boufal is talking of leaving when hes only just signed. Its not good enough, and I expect the Board will be concerned about what has happened to a major investment at the club. I can hazard a guess that Boufal was being asked to play out of position, hed suffered from that throughout his Saints career, he needed an extended stretch in his preferred position and did not get it. id be pissed off too frankly. he is by the way a central mid not a winger.

-6

LordDZLucan added 10:36 - May 20 For me Ralph Krueger talks too much about the business side of football and about expansion into China. This worries me. Football is closer to religion than business. View it in that sense and you won't go too far wrong. By all means recruit additional supporters in foreign countries but don't for a minute think that you will be able to move the 'franchise' to China because you think that one day that is where the Premier League will be based. That's not going to happen. Remember, the home of the Roman Catholic Church is still Rome!

6

DPeps added 10:49 - May 20 This is standard practice. We generally take ages to do anything, apart from when it comes to selling players
15

dirk_doone added 11:21 - May 20 It is not just that which is making fans restless, it's the fact that Krueger has said in an interview that the only money available for new players will be what we get from selling players, probably our best ones, and there isn't even any guarantee that all of that will be spent. From the van Dijk money, all we got was Carrillo. What is going to happen to all the Premier League TV, sponsorship and season ticket money??? It can't all go on wages and there are no plans for stadium development or investment in strengthening of the squad. Krueger just keep reciting his 'small club' mantra and it seems evident that the only ambiton of the owners and board is to make money for themselves while just clinging on at the bottom of the league in order to keep raking in the Premier League money and have a window for player sales. Even Bournemouth and Brighton's owners are showing more ambition than Saints nowadays and their fans are reaping the benefits.

9

A_Saint_in_Stoke added 12:07 - May 20 Not ONE of the people who run Southampton FC " Has not recognised that " THE MAJORITY OF SAINTS SUPPORTERS are VERY VERY ANGRY - BY the LACK of any action! Let's face it from the higher Arky of the boardroom LOOK DOWN ON THEIR SUPPORTERS ....." Their own fanbase" with UTTER CONTEMPT - WE JUST DO NOT COME INTO ANY CONSIDERATION WHATSOEVER - Saint's fan's are viewed as A NECESSARY EVIL ! - The boardrooms attitude is - JUST FILL UP OUR STADIUM ...... AND PAY FOR YOUR BLOODY SEASON TICKETS NOW !!!!

2

highfield49 added 12:08 - May 20 I imagine a lot of supporters of several clubs are feeling much the same as us at present. If I was an Arsenal follower I'd be even more perplexed by the dithering around interviewing all sorts of candidates when the club knew that they had a vacancy weeks ago. Supposing Mark Hughes has agreed to take the job I can't imagine that a contract is quite as easy to negotiate as buying a car or whatever. If he's as astute as he should be after so many years around the game I'm sure he wants to know how the club intends to operate in the near future and beyond. Sadly, if he read Ralph's Echo interview, he might have already decided that his future lies elsewhere! Fingers crossed again.

1

Chesham_Saint added 12:16 - May 20 I have to say this delay is beginning to smack of incompetence (again). The season ticket renewal came through with indecent haste it seemed to me, and even then they got it wrong without crediting me for a game I missed. When I called the ticket office they did quite a hard sell on getting me to renew immediately. Well sod that, I'd like to see some action before I renew.

6

marky added 13:05 - May 20 I am one of those long term season ticket holders that won't be renewing mine this season and I know several people that won't be either.The last two seasons have been poor for a home supporter,the quality of the football being played is not exactly exiting and I feel I'm not being entertained for the amount of money I have to spend.I will however be getting a membership and will be picking and choosing games next season.

5

Whatsforpud added 13:17 - May 20 If they are the 'higher Arky', we must be just the lower Arky!
0

saintstuinoz added 13:30 - May 20 Why is anyone getting restless? The season only ended a week ago! I imagine MH had a couple of days off after the last game, then he met the board this week and an offer was discussed. His team are now negotiating the contract. I'm sure he'll be announced next week, after which we'll start looking at transfers in and out.
0

helpineedsomebody added 13:32 - May 20 for me mark hughes & his staff has had many chances at a lot of clubs sfc over the last few years have played a different playing system than the one mark plays if he is appointed it will disappoint all of us. the club has gone back to its roots a CONSERVATIVE RUN CLUB NO MONEY NO HONEY & NO AMBITION.
-4

kenis added 13:36 - May 20 I’m sure this view will be unpopular with many people but I want Kruger, Reed, Wilson, Watson etc to stay and keep control over their departments. If I was advising Gao I’d say the same - when you buy a business - any business - part of what you are paying for is the critical staff / experts in that business. It would be silly to start changing those critical roles based on some has been ex player, agent or long out the game exec. That doesn’t mean letting people off the hook for their failures and if any one person doesn’t meet the standards expected of them (which we as outsiders aren’t privy to) then changes may need to be made, but I question whether there is any better out there. Natural turnover will keep this fresh but maintain stability. There have been two bad / unsuccessful managerial appointments - this next one is critical but it shouldn’t mean giving up control over transfers / philosophy etc. I hope this is just a case of sorting out finer contract details but if it’s Hughes seeking more control than the club wants to give them we need to move on quickly to another candidate that is prepare to work in our structure. I have had my season ticket for 13/14 years (since our first season in championship), I don’t begrudge it staying the same price and a little off wouldn’t change my current decision. It’s quite likely I won’t renew for family/work reasons but honestly if we were in Poch/Koeman type seasons and had that optimism / upward momentum I probably would even knowing it would be a struggle to attend matches. I don’t believe it was ever realistic for us to crack to top 4, and generally I’m ok with us letting players move on for champions league football and mega wages when they’ve given good service to the club and entertained us with stylish attacking, winning football. I do want us there waiting to pounce when one of the top six implodes, best them and beat them occasionally, have the odd season in Europa and give strong challenges for the cups (and winning one would be nice - other clubs outside the top six do win every few years). I’d also like to see homegrown players come through for the academy, play in the first team and maybe play for England. Fans of 86 league clubs and many non-league fallen giants would say that’s high ambition and greed from a fan and Southampton has no right for such “success”. Fans from overseas might bemoan a small English clubs taking their stars but quadrupling their wages when they could win things by staying. From a club history, fanbase and city perspective there are bigger hitters out there in the pecking order - suggesting to achieve all those asks we have to be different and punch above our weight. To consider weve been given most if not all of those wants, is pretty amazing and better than fans of most other clubs have experienced. It also would have sounded ridiculous 10 years ago when we were staring down the abyss of obscurity and fanciful wishful thinking even when Reed, Cortese and Pardew arrived. Fans should be relieved we stayed up, but take a step back and be grateful for the success we’ve had and the experiences we been given over the last ten years - stop moaning sbout the what ifs or what could have beens, or the failed transfers or missed chances. It’s good they got the wake up call this season, but don’t change things that have worked just for the sake of it. So in conclusion don’t be restless, don’t call for heads to roll, keep the faith and go to the ground whenever you can, and enjoy what we have, cos it’s pretty darn good.

-1

underweststand added 13:51 - May 20 This "delay " is standard practice with Saints, who like to dot the "i"s and cross the "t"s and wait for the ink to dry on the contracts before informing the fans/media. Nothing wrong with that for my money, but it annoys the impatient ones who created havoc on websites in the days when the first "signing " date was July 1st. and we hadn't signed anyone by the 2nd. There is also the question of when you sign/sell players and when that news "leaks out ". Any club who expected to sell a player to Saints would have doubled the fee after we sold VvD to L'pool. Likewise if we sign someone for £20 mill. next week that will become the benchmark for all future signings, and we'll have to pay over the odds for everyone else. Ralph gets a lot of stick from some fans who (rightly) point out he is "not football" but remember neither was Cortese , who for all his organisational skills ignored English players in favour of those recommended by his "foreign contacts "and few of those did much to cover themselves in glory, and cost the club a cool £30 million in fees and salaries than were never recovered. As for the overseas interest one American contact I met told me that many of his freinds looked to support Saints as they were also fed up with the ManU /Liverpool hype. There are enough Chinese in the World to be sold another Prem. club, and at least Mr.Gao is at home with that market. Now we must produce a good season to get more interest but it really is too early to expect a mass clear out in the Boardroom AND the dressing room without suffering the hangover of another relegation-threatening season.

-2

SaintBrock added 15:32 - May 20 Personally I couldn't care less about what's happening behind the scenes with Hughes, if he goes he goes.
-3

davepid added 18:20 - May 20 Kenis post is a bit different for its dispassionate, reflective , evidence based take on things : the antithesis to what most of us fans view things through! His post made me reflect on how similar mid sized teams , with substantial Premiership / top flight credentials., have fared since 2008. We have done well: too many of the others languish in the championship and poor Charlton can’t get out of league 1 and Coventry are in dire straits . Of the 16 I compared us with ,only Leicester have a better record, in my view. In 10 years we’ve had two promotions, three Wembley appearances, two European campaigns ( no matter how brief) and 2/ 3 top 8 finishes trashing Sunderland, winning at Old Trafford twice and anAnfield semi final. Not bad you know.

1

redandwhitedee added 21:50 - May 20 You might be getting restless. No one else is.
1

SaintBrock added 22:18 - May 20 When if ever is the retention list to be published? If Cedric & Bertrand are sold who in hell will replace them without further reducing the overall quality fo the team. Surely we're not banking on Pied & Targett. If they go to who then, Valery & McQueen? Heaven help us!
2

SanMarco added 00:10 - May 21 Think I am with redandwhitedee on this one. I am not restless - except I got a bit edgy trying to get to the end of Krueger's gobbledegook...
0

Jesus_02 added 09:29 - May 21 On the last day of the season Sparky said ask me on Wednesday. I though to myself then, he is a bit of a dreamer.
0

Blogs 31 bloggers

Charlton Athletic Polls