Dan is in ranting mood, but he still keeps a clear head to put things into some sort of perspective.
Now some will disagree with what I have to say, that’s fine but I think that there will be a handful that agree with my points.
As I write this I have just finished listening to Radio Solent’s commentary of Southampton’s game away to Everton and old manager Ronald Koeman. Final score? Three bloody nil. Dissapointment, anger, frustration etc. are all emotions that I’m feeling right now and I’m sure those who made the long trip up to Liverpool feel more negative emotion. The only thing consistent in the club at the moment is Adam Blackmore and Dave Merrington’s commentary which is always a high quality, enjoyable broadcast and that’s when we lose like that!
Just to feel better about our recent rut, a rant about Southampton Football Club will make me feel a little bit better about the whole thing. However, I feel that something has to be said!
To start off with, I had no problem accepting the fact that there was no way that, even if Koeman had stayed, that we were going to have an eight consecutive "better season” after finishing sixth in the Premier League with a record 63 points. As the table shows now, those who will finish in the top six is practically decided.
BUT! That doesn’t mean that a club who strive on doing things better and improving year on year, that have a wonderful recruitment service should stop doing those things, which during this season, I haven’t felt present.
Big names were linked with the managerial job like Manuel Pellegrini, Frank De Boer and Unai Emery but as fans we should’ve trusted the board when they appointed a Frenchman nobody had heard of. They’ve signed plenty of players who have been real successes that nobody had heard of before.
The problem I had in the Summer was that we weren’t nearly as prepared as we should’ve been for a more hectic season with the Europa League coming into play.
We sold a very talented and crucial goal scoring winger, a crucial goal scoring striker and fans favourite and a solid midfielder who was almost always present at the back (of course there was Juanmi but let’s not worry too much about him!)
We replaced them with a winger who hasn’t lived up to expectations and, in my opinion, has been a little bit overrated recently, a young prospect of a midfielder but isn’t yet the real deal, a back- up right-back, a back-up goalkeeper, an ancient goalkeeper and a very talented and hopeful winger/attacking midfielder.
The only signing that has been a success so far is Boufal but he still hasn’t lived up to the qualities of Sadio Mane yet but looks like he could. However, there was a big, big void left, a crucial goal scorer. Yes, you can argue that Charlie Austin was that signing but joined six months earlier however, he has had injury problems and despite being our top-scorer still after being out for a month, he missed more chances than scored.
No wonder we can’t seem to score goals, it really is embarrassing when your team have scored fewer goals in the league this season than they have played games.
The main reason that Claude Puel was hired was because of his experience in Europe; to be fair to the man he got Lyon to the semi-finals of the Champions League. I don’t know how much he actually had that was useful because we were knocked out at the group stage thanks to a team from bloody Israel when we could’ve easily won the group if we had scored a goal away from home! He failed at the main thing that he was brought in for, very questionable.
I can’t blame him for our league form though, he’s brand new to English football which is the toughest, most competitive in the world. However, he was so keen on a 4-4-2 diamond formation and eventually it started to work, with the team playing some gorgeous ticki-tacka football.
Then results came which was great! Now, he’s for some reason swapped to a 4-3-3 and it isn’t as attractive and also isn’t working. Losing three on the bounce for the first time in two years isn’t a proud moment. What was the point?
I do think he can be a great manager for this club and it was always going to be a season of change and we weren’t going to meet or exceed the levels (in the league that is) that we did last season. But questions have to be asked when the board didn’t sign good enough replacements for each of those players, a prolific goal scorer particularly comes to mind and the manager that they brought in, when they could’ve brought in a bigger name, doesn’t achieve the goal that he was brought in to achieve. Ok, he’s given debuts to McQueen, Hesketh, Stephens and Sims but there is so much rotation and over half way through the season I’m not convinced that he knows his best starting eleven.
So, I hope we can make a signing or two in January that will make up for this goal drought, especially with a once-in-a-blue-moon semi- final vs Liverpool that means a lot to the fans and hopefully the club/players/staff. If we don’t then as fans we can’t expect this season to get much better.