Should Claude Puel be Allowed to Stay on as Southampton Manager Next Season? that is the question on the lips of most Saints fans after a month that saw the greatest high, but several lows.
Despite getting Southampton to their first major cup final in 41 years, Claude Puel has arguably had an underwhelming campaign, especially in the eyes of most fans. The former OGC Nice manager hasn’t had the warmest of welcomes from the Southampton faithful and has earned himself some critics. However, he has gained himself some admirers, especially for his EFL Cup success.
Currently sat 12th in the Premier League and being knocked out of the Europa League at the group stage, Southampton haven’t nearly reached the highs that they have enjoyed in England’s top division the last two seasons under Ronald Koeman. However, Southampton haven’t enjoyed a cup campaign this much for four decades so you could say that this factor overweighs the league factor, especially if the team win the cup.
However, does Claude Puel deserve to be in charge of Southampton by the beginning of next Summer? There are factors that should keep the Frenchman in charge and some that should cause him to book a plane ticket back to France.
Puel’s entire career as a player and manager was based in France before his appointment in the Premier League. His last club Nice saw very different league positions in Ligue 1. Puel guided Nice to their highest league finish of 4th in the 2012/13 season but then they just avoided relegation in 17th the season after. Then finishing 11th and 4th last season, Nice saw four very different seasons under Puel.
Before Nice, Puel managed Olympique Lyon and in 2010 lead Lyon to the Champions League semi-final, and has managed in both the Europa League and Champions League on several occasions, meaning his knowledge and experience is at a great scale. However, the expectation for Southampton’s European campaign was reasonably high because of the experience of the manager and in the squad, but the team were knocked out only at the group stage.
Southampton Football Club pride themselves on improvement in league position in the last seven years and want to improve as a club. Finishing fifth is realistically well out of our reach so that record is no longer in tact, however, we can still improve as a club with silverware. Puel and his team have done incredibly well to reach the EFL Cup final, especially without conceding a goal. Winning the cup itself will provide a different kind of improvement which will keep our record going.
To keep improving, however, Southampton will need to invest in the transfer window and improve the quality of our squad. You could argue that Puel wasn’t given the time and backing to plan his own squad and make lots of signings in the Summer window. Les Reed has publicly stated that he backs Puel’s coaching techniques and believes that he still needs his own Summer window, indicating that Puel may stay.
There are plenty of high quality players that Puel could attract to join the club. If the team win the EFL Cup, they will have European football to offer players which would be a huge boost. Puel can attract players from Ligue 1 particularly, we saw it with Sofiane Boufal, that either he has worked with or got a real good glimpse of whilst in France. A busy Summer transfer window could give Puel a real chance of having a much more successful campaign, in the league particularly, than it would seem this year.
Finally, credit to Puel, the Premier League is well known as the world’s most competitive and challenging league. For Puel, who has never managed in a country besides his native France, to
potentially finish between 9th and 13th in the Premier League and reach a cup final and potentially win the cup would be an impressive first season, even if our league standards have been higher of recent seasons.
I do think that Puel will be Southampton manager next season, even though his rotation policies and lower league finish may count against him. Even though he doesn’t have full backing from the fans, he does from the board according to Les Reed so as fans we must support Puel as we look to have a