Ralph Krueger has spoken of Gao Jisheng's plans to invest in the club and asked the fans to be more positive about the new owner.

Ralph Krueger has again been speaking about the current state of Southampton FC and has revealed that the owner plans to invest money into the infrastructure of the club including a refurbishment of St Mary's, more work at Staplewood and land purchase around the Stadium which would allow more commercial developement and growth for the club.

Gao has been in and around the club for three weeks in the past month and has been communicating with Krueger and his board about all aspects of the club including the new transfer window.

But Krueger also urged the fans to look at the situation with more encouragement and positivity, pointing out that most Premier League club's are now set up in a two tiered situation with the owners sitting in the background and saying little and leaving the everyday running of the club and communication to the baord they have in place.

“I think they (fans) need to look at it more encouragingly that they have come in here and are respecting what the club stands for, how the club culturally functions, and what we have here.

“I think the norm would be making huge splashes and changing the faces of the board and so on and so forth which is what they have purposely not done.

“Everybody will get to know them over time.”

"But give them time. If we look around the league they are not coming in and making a lot of promises until they understand what is going on. I think it’s a very intelligent approach."

"The fans have seen him. He’s here. Passionately here. And speaking no less than Katharina did."

"She chose that route and her being their partner they are taking a lot of their lead and also being coached and brought into this whole scene by Katharina and following her excellent leadership in some ways."

But Krueger also said that the stadium refurbishment would not include any increase to capacity at present.

"No it’s definitely not about increasing the capacity."

"I have said lots of times we have to sell the stadium out with line-ups outside before we even think about that."

"We are looking at refurbishment and improving the quality of the day-to-day experience of our fans."

In truth this second part of Kruegers interview is probably not what many Saints fans want to hear, but that does not make it very relevant to the club or for that matter unimportant.

Football club's these days are big business and it is about building up infrastructure that allows progress to be made and Saints have most certainly made progress under both Krueger and Les Reed over the past 4 years.

Read social media and you would think that both are amateurs in what they do, but despite a small section of the support bleating about them and calling them clueless which in turn has led to other supporters fllowing their lead and taking it as the truth, the real truth is that Reed can point to 4 consecutive top 8 finishes plus a cup final as proof that he is taking the club forward and he has a point, no one else has ever managed that consistency at any other time in our 132 year history, that being the case just what do some fans expect.

I know this is not the popularist view, that it is easier to blame Reed for selling players, but the Van Dijk situation has shown just what a task the club is up against and how it is almost impossible to hold on to your star players these days, that being the case the fact that we have had those top 8 finishes makes the job Krueger and Reed have done even more amazing.

Now I do not know either man and to be honest I don't think either is a people person, but I look at what Southampton Football Club has been throughout it's history and what it has achieved and i can't find too many people who have build this club up as they have done, that being the case they deserve some credit and more to the point the trust for them to continue to get things right.

Football club do not have continuous success season in season out, all clubs have blips, look at Chelsea a couple of seasons ago for instance, we were due a season where we need to dig in and consolidate.

But the average football fan does not want to hear what it takes to run a football club, they just want to hear the good stuff not the bad, but personally would rather the club had the right people in place doing the right jobs than empty rhetoric spouted out without any real substance behind it and yes i am referring to our former Chairman here, the squad under him eventually finished 8th, but that was as high as it could go, there was no money to invest in it, no commercial income at the club and no real plan to get any, that squd had peaked, investment would come only from selling and buying.

That is what happened and to be blunt that is the only way forward for this football club, take a look at the incomes of other clubs we cannot compete, Manchester United earn £70 million per year MORE than us just from their shirt sponsorship deal, add the fact that they earn around £50 millon MORE than us from tickets alone than means they are £120 million up on us before they start raking in the extra money from other income sources including merchandising and TV money etc.

This perhaps shows what we are up against, that means we have no choice but to compete on our own terms and that means buying players, improving them and making profit to continue repeating the process.

We have to be successful at it because it is the only way open to us for long term sustainable success, those that say we can't keep selling players year in and year out and getting lucky may have a point, but we have no choice, we cannot compete any other way.

So I would much rather hear about new signings and Gao pledging £50 million of his own money to make them, but that isn't going to happen, so I have to be content with what I am hearing now, which in truth is far better than most other clubsoutside of the top six hear, after all what has happened to Everton's big plans that lured away Ronald Koeman ? Everton have found they cannot compete against the big six either.

So Saints fans have to give Les Reed and Ralph Krueger some cresdit for what they have done and give them some leeway to do it again this season, their achievements are there in the record books to see, I have yet to meet anyone who slags off Les Reed who has actually met him, been to Staplewood etc so therefore actually can tell me why he is so bad.

I am not a big fan of Reed myself but that is because I don't know him either, but I do know that the past four seasons have exceeded all expectations.

One thing we should al have learn't these past four years is that patience is the best thing, it is about being calm in a crisis, hopefully that is the case in these difficult times.

Photo: Action Images

perazi added 22:13 - Jan 4 Incredibly irrelevant big picture stuff from Kreuger when anyone can see that the spectre of relegation and lower league wilderness is looming due to a squad eroded and not replenished; and the worst Manager in most people's memories.
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petedoors1 added 23:11 - Jan 4 I hope Charlie Nicholas is right with what he predicts on Sky Sports. http://www.hitc.com/en-gb/2018/01/04/charlie-nicholas-predicts-fulham-vs-southam
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BoondockSaint added 23:48 - Jan 4 We're facing a relegation fight and Kruger breaks his silence to tell us the first thing on the new owner's agenda is to spend money on the stadium in order to enhance the match day experience for supporters of Leeds and Millwall??
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IWOZTHERE added 11:25 - Jan 5 Krueger really is disconnected. It was presented as major investment. Here we are screaming for new players to save us and Ralph's off to B&Q for some paint. Is that even news? Surely that comes under a sub-heading already built-in to programme, ie 'property maintenance budget'? If it's not, it just shows more neglect.
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underweststand added 11:45 - Jan 5 Not negative but as can be seen, it's our strike force that has failed us so far this season. Everyone seemed happy when we sold JayRod and said it was a win-win situation - after all who needs four strikers? Well those we have left are all on bad runs, and only Austin has showed any signs of improvement . Get well soon, Charlie !. Saints won't squander the profit from the VvD deal, but looking at our recent history we see that Les and The Black Box haven't done so badly, but we have become victims of our own success, and players leave for one last big deal and go to clubs to whom every deal has an extra "0" on it. Ralph Kreuger is not wrong, in this League ..we are a small club. For a few seasons we've been one of the " best of the rest" but nothing more. The two Manc clubs, Liverpool, Chelsea and Spurs will continue to spend money like water (sorry.. Oil) and not worry about a little "spillage " whilst the rest of us try to get bargains and promise 4-5 year deals at increasingly high salaries to get players we hope will stay fit -- and stay anyway. The reality of Mr.Gao's takeover may not be seen for a while, but having spent £200 million to buy his way in, he's not likely to just write us off as a tax loss.

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BoondockSaint added 15:24 - Jan 5 Hi underweststand- If Ralphie's loser attitude deems the Saints will always be crap since they are a "small" club, how does he explain the success and table position of "giants" Bournemouth, Brighton, Huddersfield and Burnley?
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