The national press have been claiming that Ryan Bertrand has been telling team mates he is leaving, but the player himself denies these claims and also of a rift in the dressing room.

Ryan Bertrand has spoken out after media claims that Claude Puel has lost the dressing room and that several players have fallen out with the French manager including Bertrand himself.

Speaking in the build up to the trip to Liverpool, ironically one of the clubs that the left back has been linked with Bertrand said.

never really crossed my mind to start thinking about football elsewhere”.

“There’s nothing to make a story out of,” he said.

“There have been no bust-ups, never really crossed my mind to start thinking about football elsewhere”.

“The training ground is fairly open ... there’s been nothing.”

“From the outside looking in you’d think there was a crisis, there’s this news and that news, but, if you come away from that, we’re sitting 9th, we’ve been in a cup final and we can increase on where we are at the moment.

“We’ve got all to play for and come the end of the season we’ll be sitting here saying what a great season it has been.”

The England International also spoke up in support of his club manager.

“It’s been a full on season and it’s hard to come to your first job in English football, to follow what we’ve done last year and to cope with the demands of all the games, but I think he has come in and done really well.

“If you step back and look at it, we’ve been in a cup final, were on the edge of history there, and we’re still in contention to finish in a respectable position in the Premier League.

“I guess those frustrations come when you have a bad result against a team you’re expected to beat and that comes with the success we’ve had — the expectation to go out and continuously deliver.

Bertrand also spoke of how he is not looking any further than St Mary's at the moment.

“As long as my football’s consistent and I’m enjoying it there’s no real need to start thinking about your future,”

“I’m happy, my family is happy, so it’s never really crossed my mind to start thinking about football elsewhere.”

“You can take that as a compliment to be honest, but I don’t really get carried away about what’s written in the papers and that too much,”

“It’s important to focus on my game and you know that will come. If you’re playing consistently well in the Premier League and internationally, you’ll naturally be linked to various teams.”

“I learnt from a young age to stop reading so much tabloid stuff and just focus on my game,” he said.

“Naturally it’s nice to get that recognition and I suppose that will come if you play consistently in the Premier League and internationally.

“But I learnt a long time ago not to get carried away with anything.”

Reassuring words from Bertrand, but from a cynical point of view there are two points to note here.

Firstly the player himself is contracted to speak to the media about the club and not to say anything detrimental to it, Bertrand is clearly very much the model professional in this respect, he knows how to play the game.

Secondly although reports of Bertrand and Nathan Redmond having bust ups with Puel are merely heresay at present, it cannot be denied that both Dusan Tadic and Shane Long have had public issues with the manager, Tadic criticised him in an interview and then there was the debacle when Long came on as substitute and was then taken off leading to a very open display towards the manager as he came off.

All of this has been glossed over, that is natural at any football club to do that, but the supporters can see things are not right, not just in open displays of defiance as just illustrated, but also in terms of the way that the team is sent out both in terms of selection and tactics and for many the Hull game was the final straw.

The big question is whether things are now too far gone in the dressing room and with the manager to turn things round, in many respects it reminds me of the situation 13 years ago when Paul Sturrock took over from Gordon Strachan in February , at the end of the season it was clear that something was not quite right, then Chairman Rupert Lowe sat down with Sturrock who assured him that these teething problems were only that and against his better judgement Lowe gave him more time.

Sturrock was sacked after only a few games of the next season as it was clear he was not up to the job.

This led to a catastrophic sequence of events that not only saw Saints relegated only two years after finishing 8th and reaching an FA Cup Final, but eventually to boardroom turmoil and further relegation and administration.

I think these days Saints have a far more robust structure than they did back then, but the lesson is there to be learned, although consistency and continuity is key to a successful club, sometimes you have to read the warning signs and take heed of them.

The question is whether Bertrand is right and things are all rosy in the Saints camp, or if the situation is actually as bad as rumoured, sadly the evidence is pointing to the latter, there seem to be too many things not right, it is not just the rumoured bust ups, these happen at most clubs, but add the rotational system that saw us go out of Europe, the failure to deal with the central defensive situation, the questionable tactics, selection and substitutional issues and there is just too much going on at St Mary's to brush aside.

Photo: Action Images

Ron11 added 09:05 - May 5 During the Hull bore fest the one person Ryan Bertrand appeared to have an issue with was Tadic.
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SonicBoom added 09:13 - May 5 Let's face it players communicate more through what they don't say than what they do. Any of the players could come out and say " I'm really happy here and I love playing for the manager, he's a great guy". All Bertrand did was say there haven't been any big bust ups and that Puel's job was tricky.
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LordDZLucan added 09:14 - May 5 The season certainly hasn't gone as well as we might have expected. Is Puel the reason? I'm not so sure. I think the distraction caused by the possibility of the Chinese takeover may be more of a reason as we undoubtedly didn't spend money on players when we should have e.g. no permanent Fonte replacement was brought in and Gabbiadini wasn't brought in until the end of January. My guess is Katherina didn't want to spend more money on players at a time when she thought she was going to be selling the club. That is more of a contributory factor to my mind.

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NeilF added 09:29 - May 5 Corporate talk, like you said Bertrand is a model professional. If he does not like Puel, he can leave. he is wanted and would be wanted if he put himself in the shop window. There would be no point slagging off anything then leaving. This interview is as much as the club saying (after Hull) "it is not the result we wanted, but we march on!" it always leaves so much unanswered.

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steve73 added 09:38 - May 5 Very professional from Bertrand, he seems to be a fairly unassuming, intelligent, level headed guy. Unfortunately his body language has suggested he's not been happy for a while. I first noticed it away at Bournemouth, he looked totally fed up with how it was all going. He took it upon himself to change the game though, and did. That responsibility shouldn't really fall to a full back though. I don't think he likes Redmond either, who always seems to blame him for picking the wrong pass every time he runs down a blind alley (which he still frequently does). Something's been wrong for ages and all the malcontent has to come down to the manager in the end. He just doesn't inspire. Again I say Marco Silva.

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saintpp added 14:16 - May 5 Come on Nick have you been affected by some negativity bug? This is a good positive statement and you focus on speculative dressing unrest even comparing CP to Sturrock. Adding fuel to media gossip is only splitting saints fans apart when we should be all behind them for the last 5 games. Our recent form is won 4 drew 2 and lost 3 -to the top 4 clubs. Not the time to rake this up until the end of the season if then and who knows we may well get some good results from Pool arsenal utd and all the unrest talk will look pretty silly.

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the_saint added 15:16 - May 5 Ah I think we will win all 5 games puel will get manager of the month and we will all start singing claud puels red and white army.
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SaintBrock added 15:38 - May 5 So much cynicism Nick, come on man take Ryan Bertrand at his word. I do and his word is his bond. Besides footballers generally aren't old enough or intelligent enough to play the kind of nonsensical semantic games that seem to excite you..
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bstokesaint added 02:26 - May 6 One thing you do appear to have overlooked here Nick is that, if my memory serves me correctly, is that Ryan has already played in a CL final with Chelski. He's already been at the top as it were for a league team. He understands what it's like to be ousted from a team whilst still being a very good player, by another very good player. Also, he does say something else, in that his "family are well settled". As far as I'm aware he has had spent all, or at least a large percentage of his time in the south, so maybe he genuinely doesn't fancy upping and leaving his comfortable lifestyle, both on the pitch and at home. Like Brock says, maybe we can take him on his word. I'd certainly like to, because I think he's a model pro and it takes a bit of class to drop from a CL side to prove yourself. I hope he stays.

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aceofthebase added 09:58 - May 6 Nicks word or Bertrands word, ummm let me think. Bertrand by a mile!! Get rid of Tadic, he is a bad influence and has cost us many points with his misses. It is not the dressing room that Puel has lost but unfortunately he has lost most of the Saints fans. I still think we should leave him alone for the beginning of next season, after another change of squad and if approaching Xmas Saints are failing then that is the time to say goodbye. The sad thing about the Hull game is that it looked like an attacking entertaining team that was selected. Is it the managers fault that they played dreadfully? Undecided .

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bstokesaint added 14:38 - May 6 Got to say Ace I'm in agreement about Tadic. I know Adam Blackmore has previously said what a nice guy he is off the pitch, but I'm not sure if his contribution justifies his position. He constantly blows hot and cold and the last Saints' player to miss that many pens must have been back in the 80's of earlier.
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SaintBrock added 18:55 - May 6 On the other hand he is not bigheaded and seems fairly content to be with us which is why fans adore him, probably the most popular player in the side right now although Oriol Romeo is closing the gap. I like his professionalism and all the little dribbles and step-overs he practices during warm ups. I'm uncertain ace why you say he is a bad influence? Not wanting to be taken off after 60 minutes is quite understandable when you are enjoying yourself and although he often misses 'open goals' he also provides more than his fair share of assists. The rest of it is gossip and rumour.

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SaintBrock added 19:01 - May 6 Ryan by the way lives near the Chelsea training base at Cobham and presumably did not need to move home when he came here from the Blues, so in that sense he has been settled for quite a few years now. It seems unlikely he'd ever want to move to Lancashire with the attendant risk of sitting on the bench whatever silver may be dangled to lure him away. As bstokesaint observes he's been there, done that and got the medal and is first choice LB for his country now which he never was before.

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