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I agree with you, I've always thought that this was the root of the problem too. Now we are seeing the effects. I was cynical, but once our good run under Koeman started I had hoped that might kick start some investment into the team, after all they said their target was to qualify for Europe. (more meaningless trite after seeing the acquisitions the following summer) How they could not see their revolving door policy was a house of cards is beyond me.
I think he deserved some patience because in all fairness it's my belief that there has not been enough meaningful investment into the team in recent seasons, more reactionary buys in the January window. A very good manager would arguably be able to deal better with this and after today I am utterly convinced that Pellegrino exacerbates the problem. I don't think he knows how to best utilize his players. However I think you are very right. By Christmas the writing was definately on the wall for me.
I think i've been very patient with Pellegrino to date. I wanted to think with a little help he might be able to turn things around but after today I've concluded he really is quite clueless. When I first saw the starting line up I was quite stunned. 4 of your most expensive players, including your new striker on the bench, for a MUST WIN game to ease the very real threat of relegation. What? Does it take a football genius to know that you should play your best players? I'm sorry but this has been the tipping point for Pellegrino for me. 1 win in 12 games, 4 wins in the entire season to date is unacceptable for this team. We are now at the point where we have a young central defender out scoring our 1st pick striker in Shane Long. To be honest I don't blame the players as much as I think Pellegrino should take responsibility for our form. I watched a You Tube video of Carrillo scoring goals for Monaco last season and pretty much all of them he was scoring opportunist goals from a central position in the box. Needless to say when the substitutions came I was surprised. He replaced him with Tadic and put him out of position on the left? Why take off Romeu and Tadic? If it were me I would not have included Davis or Long in today's starting line up, and had Boufal and Carrillo in there to begin with. Stating the obvious here but while I congratulate Jack Stephens on getting another goal, Saints performance simply was not good enough. Every game we don't win makes relegation that much more promising. I've heard some fans say relegation of the team might prove to be a good thing for us, but I think that's absolute tosh. We fought long and hard to get back into the Premier League, and if you're telling me after 6 years in the PL that we should be going down, I think you need your head read. There is still enough time to turn things around but my optimism is beginning to wane. I know it probably won't happen but Pellegrino should not be managing our club.
I was starting to be convinced there would be no signings in this window. I was wrong. I also hope i'm wrong that the support from our midfield in large part has been lacking for our strikers this season. I'm a little skeptical as to how much of an impact this signing will make bearing that in mind, but maybe he will do the business for us. Here's hoping!
Sorry Pubeface, I meant that in hindsight I don't really hate Liverpool or our ex-players as much as I used to because we made good money selling them to Liverpool. I'm more disappointed with our club by over promoting the buy small, sell big policy which I think reinforced and enabled the stepping stone mentality for our better players at the expense of forming and trying to keep a good team together.
After Lallana and Lolvren left I had a big chip on my shoulder about Liverpool. Only to be heightened as more of our better players went there. The more I think about it now though, I realise it may have been misplaced. After all they offered the club top dollar for our players and despite holding out on a couple of occasions they took the money time and again, with quality replacements a hard lesson learned but in most cases non existent. Who's to blame for that?
SonicBoom, I understand your frustration and reply to Cedric's comment. I also agree that we need to get behind the team to ensure PL survival. It's going to take a team effort though. Not expecting it in the January window, but if it's not obvious to the board how spineless our team is then I fear we deserve to be in the Championship. We need a new spine.
New Manager (not an experimental, unknown qualitative)
My feeling is we need to strengthen the defense (with certified quality ) because currently the midfield is always dropping to support the defense, they are inadequately able to support or mount enough support and attacking play quickly enough.
SOLID attacking midfielder who can get the ball to our striker. Maybe it wouldn't hurt to bolster the strikers but I think if Gabbi and Austin were supported properly things would fall into place.
Unfortunately I think this all started with the en masse clear out of Lallana, etc. SFC made some shrewd signings like Mane, Pelle and made some good money but they started to believe that it was something that could make money for the club season after season (Just because we use the Southampton Way) Even then it was obvious our academy was not producing world class talent but many chose to believe in the dream because the going was good. This has only fueled and enabled the slow rot, stepping stone mentality and the buy cheap, sell big business model at the expense of forming a meaningful team on the pitch and keeping a decent manager prolonging a good run of results, and keeping those high potential players wanting to sign with SFC - The house of cards it always was. I was never believing that we would always be in the top six or get into Europe but it felt like we really were at the threshold of pushing forward into new territory but unfortunately I believe the board have blown the opportunity by not nearly investing well enough into the team and now it's come home to roost.
I know it has unfortunately become part of the game, but if it's one thing I can't stand, it's pillow biting divers. Football is not a popular sport in NZ and it's examples like this that reinforce its image as a sport for pansies here, where the prevailing sport is Rugby.
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