The Premier League are eyeing up Saints' Vice Chairman according to reports this morning, Les Reed may be villified by some Saints fans, but his CV is admired in other quarters says redandwhitesupporter.

Saints face the prospect of off-field disruption as they battle against relegation, in the form of the club’s vice-chairman Les Reed reportedly in the running to take up a new position as technical director of the Premier League according to The Times.

In an exclusive report, The Times has learnt that Reed, features on a shortlist for the job drawn up on behalf of the Premier League that also includes Kevin Thelwell, the sporting director at Championship leaders Wolves.

Reed’s could be seen as a blow to some, as since joining the club in 2010 as head of football development, he has played an important role in the clubs success of recent years.

However the current vice chairman, has come under some stick from a section of the clubs supporters over the past 2 seasons due to the teams struggles on the pitch seemingly caused by back to back poor first team managerial appointments by the board.

So should Les opt to leave the club, (should he be offered the position) it will no be met with a mixed reaction, and with the club currently staring into the Premier League abyss any offer would come at an attractive time for Reed.

What do you make of the news of Les Reed's potential departure from Saints, would you be happy to see him go? or would it be a blow for the club?

Photo: Action Images

Kemp_Not_Martin added 11:46 - Apr 5 Please god take him.
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dirk_doone added 11:49 - Apr 5 There have been rumours that Reed has been hawking himself round the league looking for a job for months after there was a leak that a certain DOF had contacted West Ham letting them know he was available. This is obviously the first time he has managed to get himself on a shortlist. God help the Premier League if they get lumbered with him. I don't care where he ends up, just as long as we get rid of him. The man mainly responsible for our success was not Reed but our Head of Recruitment, Paul Mitchell. We have missed him badly over the last 2 years.

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pete_boggs added 11:54 - Apr 5 I'll give him a lift up and drop Prowsey off at West Ham. No charge.
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pete_boggs added 12:03 - Apr 5 Isn't the Captain supposed to stay with the ship until it's down?
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bstokesaint added 12:12 - Apr 5 Mixed emotions for me. I think he’s undoubtedly done a job at Saints during his time here and we’ve had some top quality players, but looking at the current ‘team’ if he’s the main man behind that mess and the manager debacle it’s hard to keep on defending him. When this season ends in the inevitable drop out of the Premier League (hopefully no further this time) maybe it really will be time to have a complete clear out from top to bottom. I’d also like to see someone buy out the China man who has told of naff all of his intentions for the club. I think we’re a little better than ‘a hobby’ or a ‘tax incentive’. For all his ruthlessness and his ego at least Cortese gave us an idea of strategy and reason to believe. It seems he was also the one who seemed to convince the players too. It feels like after he left we were able to temporarily bridge a hole and stay afloat, but now we’re sinking.

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saintjf added 12:15 - Apr 5 Oh no, if he goes we will be in all kinds of trouble.............
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dirk_doone added 12:28 - Apr 5 We certainly are sinking. Les Reed has steered us straight into an iceberg and now he's looking to get himself out in the first available lifeboat. He should have been thrown overboard months ago before he could do any more damage. He is what is commonly known as a blagger. He has has been very adept at publicising himself and at taking all the credit for other people's work when things go right and disappearing from view to leave others to take the blame when things go wrong. His last video appearance was in January 2017 when he emerged to take the credit for our League Cup final appearance, after telling the world we had the best set of midfielders in the Premier League and trying to claim the credit for Leicester winning the Premier League as they had copied the Les Reed way. I'll be glad to see the back of the old blagger.

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BaselSaint added 12:31 - Apr 5 He'd be perfect for the FA.
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darthvader added 13:07 - Apr 5 Who would look for a replacement if he fücks off? Isn't that his job to look for replacements when players and managers leave, black box and all that?
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helpineedsomebody added 13:09 - Apr 5 run rabbit run rabbit run run run
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BoondockSaint added 13:19 - Apr 5 pete_boggs-Could you pick me up on your way to St. Mary's? They might need help packing and I would be more than happy to lend a hand!
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BoondockSaint added 13:32 - Apr 5 Notice how this "leak" to the press comes right after the Scouse win 3-0 over ManCity in the Champion's League? Les must be so proud! I really think he will wind up there sooner or later. He has just been paving the way the last 2/3 years. Nick, why did you use the picture of Les signing Gabbiadini? Because he is the only decent signing (talent and character-wise) Les has made? Is this the photo Les sends out with his CV? Why not Les signing Puel...or Pellegrino...or Boufal...or Redmond... or Lemina...or Carrillo....or.........

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SanMarco added 13:39 - Apr 5 It would be rather optimistic of Les to expect a 'mixed reaction' to his departure. Altough I suppose 50 thousand dancing with delight and 3 saying 'well he did a couple of good things' is strictly speaking 'mixed'.
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oldeastterrace added 14:29 - Apr 5 He is the guy who appoints the managers and makes the signings So based on that you have to say he has made some poor decisions over the last two years. As dirk doone said above he seems to have kept a low profile since things have started going belly up. He used to be seen photographed with new signings and managers when things were going well. He used to tell us about how wonderful our academy was, but even that seems to have stopped producing decent youngsters. You can't deny that we hardly see him nowadays, So as dirk doone says it looks from the outside as if he loves the praise when things are going well but is nowhere to be seen when its not.

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pete_boggs added 15:13 - Apr 5 Thanks Boondock perhaps we could hire a minibus. Reed has taken (stolen) £3m + from Saints fans over the last 8 years. He's retirement age and yet he's desperately trying to jump ship just before his grossly negligent mistakes finally kick in as his luck runs out. Nice man.
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IWOZTHERE added 15:35 - Apr 5 And there was much rejoicing...
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darthvader added 15:55 - Apr 5 Torn.. One way telling him to fück off The other is to say pisss off. Can't decide which
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petedoors1 added 16:20 - Apr 5 Good Riddance to Les Reed. Do they want an Ice Hockey Coach as well?
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sidsaint added 20:25 - Apr 5 When I read it I had to check the date, that it wasn't April 1st.
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zonehead added 22:49 - Apr 5 Be careful what you wish for this is the structure of a club , Hoddle/wigley, recently Puel now Reed,!history tells us a barren period follows
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patred added 23:08 - Apr 5 It will be the biggest party held at Southampton since 1976... I Can't wait to start dancing surely we can let him go earlier, as for compo how much do you think we will have to pay the FA for taking him.
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skiptonsaint added 03:36 - Apr 6 I think he was great until Koeman left. Then he saw a chance for a power grab and it’s been poor managers who will be yes men and a run of poor signings and the thing that annoyed me most , His son being brought into the mix as an agent for our young players That was the warning sign for me of a man getting to big for his position So on balance I think it is time

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Sanguin added 09:37 - Apr 6 He’s been at the club since 2010, one year after the club was bought by Liebherr and the season after we won the JPT. I’d really like to see an objective assessment of his time at St Mary’s and, less likely, an understanding of the role he played in certain decisions. The first things he would have overseen would be the 125th Anniversary Kit, signing Ryan Dickson, Frazer Richardson, Danny Butterfield, Chaplow, do Prado and Jack Stephens, and the appointment of Nigel Adkins. We’ve had big flops like Osvaldo and Ramirez but also successes like Clyne, Davis, Wanyama, van Dijk, Mané, Pelle. For all of our signings, good and bad, it’s unclear how much the decision to sign them was his alone. Most recently, I find it hard to blame him for Carillo given Pellegrino’s relationship with the player. But, we all know the problems we have with the current squad, the selling of players and the failure to reinvest. Whatever positive contribution he has made over the past eight years, the past two years have not been good enough. The squad is imbalanced; for all our good work earlier this season we were unable to score; we never replaced van Dijk despite having about a year to do so; and with Davis having a poor season we’ve lost the underappreciated engine that linked our defence with attack. The buck stops at him for failing to fill obvious holes in the squad.

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dirk_doone added 10:59 - Apr 6 Sanguin, the difference in the the past two years is that we haven't had Paul Mitchell as head of recruitment. He was the man who found Pochettino, Mane, Wanyama etc, and we were linked with van Dijk well before he left, even though he signed afterwards. The infrastructure which set us up for success was created by Cortese's hard work. He researched all of the most successful clubs in Europe then incorporated their ideas at St Mary's. Les Reed's main function has been self-promotion, putting out PR about the Southampton Way and selling the players that Mitchell found but, he is going to find it a lot more difficult to sell the ones Ross Wilson has come up with, and he is beginning to realize that so he's applying for jobs elsewhere. Pardew brought Reed here, as they worked together, getting Charlton relegated. We can only hope Reed doesn't return the favour by bringing Pardew back as his replacement, as they are 2 of the worst managers in the history of the Premier League.

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Sanguin added 11:25 - Apr 6 Reed definitely has a lot to answer for, but Paul Mitchell left four years ago. How do you know Mitchell was responsible for finding Pochettino? I don’t understand how you can be certain that everything bad that has happened at Saints is Les Reed’s fault and everything that’s good has nothing to do with him. As much as we love scapegoats at Southampton, life isn’t that black and white.

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