Would you want Mark Hughes to carry on as saints manager?

Yeah agreed but he needs “tough love” which he was unlikely to get from MoPo…maybe Hughes can get more from him.

1 Like

As opposed to whapping it up the brown?? :lou_eyes_to_sky:

3 Likes

First season will be decent, compared to last. 2nd season fans will turn on him.

9 Likes

Why a three year deal? when was the last time we had a manager stay longer than 2 years?

2 Likes

If he can keep the good, get rid of the bad, turn around the indifferent and sign someone who knows where the back of the net is - and bolster the defence, then we’ll be fine. Why worry?!

No brainer risk free decision, especially after last summer. No doubt Les had a dozen eligible candidates we could have developed but doubt anyone would trust that plan after last year. So it was always going to happen.

Equally, no actual signing photos so again obvious Sparky &/or Board Members are on vacation - Money can buy you everything except time and this is the time we need people on vacation as by end of the month they need to be out selling/buying players.

Also meant great fun watching fiverweb & twitter meltdown over nothing again.

3 year contract because Hughes would have known he was in the driving seat. The average EPL manger now lasts less than one season so it was more about Sparky earning what he can than us winng the UCL with him.

HOPEFULLY he can get us to mid table and by next summer the next crop of Academy graduates are actually ready (capabale of) playing first team football.

Right, let’s go buy a European Football Team. Hopefully Bulgaria it’s cheap to get to from here…

3 Likes

I agree with Phil, risk free decision. Whilst there does remain a few question marks over Hughes, I feel I know what I’m going to get from him. Passion and fight at the very least.

Looking back, remember how relaxed and unwilling to slag off the officials Pellegrino was after that awful decision to allow Watford’s last minute handball goal. That typified him and the sleep walk towards relegation that followed. I was fucking livid and I want our manager to be as well. Publicly so as well.

Just like how Hughes said he used the Swansea hotel bullshit to motivate the players. Get them angry. That might have helped us after Watford.

Now to sort out the playing staff.

I’d probably get shot of 4 or 5 players. Whilst I don’t want to sell him I can see Bertrand going and maybe Cédric. I’m in two minds about him though. I like him but also feel he can be a back post liability due to his height. Less of a problem if we persist with a back 3 though. Boufal already has a foot out the door. I’d like to think Gabbiadini will be given a fresh chance under Hughes. So maybe Long will be moved on? Carrillo probably deserves a fresh start or preseason to be properly assessed before being completely written off. Forster? Would anyone take him? I imagine he’d want to be first choice somewhere and a newly promoted side might take a punt I guess. McCarthy was great last season and provided he stays fit, will be number one.

Of course there may not be many takers for some of these players which may mean outbound loans are more likely?

It will be a strange summer in so far as the transfer window has been brought forward and hardly any of our players will be at the World Cup. Either through non selection or their nations didn’t qualify.

No more squad purchases, we need immediate first teamers to improve the eleven.

A centre back, attack minded midfielder, direct pacy goal scoring winger and a centre forward.

Off you pop now Les, there’s a good boy.

6 Likes

Hmm, that’s a good question. Ask Bob Mortimer. He unfailingly remembers every football fact from 1876 onward.

Struggling to come to terms with my thoughts on this*

The best I can do is this analogy.

Appointing Hughes is like…

…my daughter has just brought home her new boyfriend who she is really smitten with and my wife and mates think he’s OK because he’s treated my daughter quite well over the last few months, but I look at him and, because he’s a really ugly bastard, all I can think is that in the long-run they’re going to produce me some really fucking hideous grand-kids.

You’ll have to work out for yourself which bits of the analogy are staying in the Premier League, style of play, sleeping well at night knowing you’re a decent human being and just sheer bigoted hatred of the Welsh.

* Bletch typed that whilst swooning with the back of his right hand pressed against his forehead.

10 Likes

Does this “boyfriend” wear hideous looking shirts?

5 Likes

The alternative though is your daughter bringing home some random unemployed foreign bloke she met on holiday. Who may or may not speak English or know what it takes to work in the UK alongside a never ending line of spoilt rich kids.

8 Likes

Good call @simon-says

And we all know how long holiday romances last…

1 Like

Like Deirdre Barlow and Samir.

1 Like

Isn’t that Les’s job?

Who?

1 Like

I’ll qualify this as usual. I know fuck all about football. I do reckon I know a bit about people, about reading situations, and perhaps providing a narrative for what’s gone on. Les Reed doesn’t know what he’s doing, and Ralph seems to know even less. In hindsight, it looks as Reed got very lucky with Koeman. A real case of right place, right time, and fuck your black box, mate. I don’t think we’d have signed Pelle or Tadic, perhaps even Mane, had RK not arrived.

I would love to have seen Cortese’s pitch to the owners in his departing season, and their reaction. With hindsight, most would assume that he wanted to think big, and they were looking for an eventual transition to someone like Gao. I reckon Koeman got the measure of both the club and Reed over time. RK had an illustrious playing career during which he’d have met some of the best staff professionals in the business. Les Reed was a man employed by the club for his contact lists. How you reckon Reed would have measured up against them? Koeman was agitating for more ambition from the board before the Everton readies wagon rolled up.

@goatboy is probably tired of hearing me saying that the players just needed someone to shout at them, but its true. Had we gone down, I think we may have been one of the most talented squads to do so. Sparky will shout at them, and having done the job, seems to have arrived at exactly the right time. The executive level is uncertain; questions are rightly being asked about how Pellegrino managed to survive the January transfer window.

So I reckon that we Saints fans have lucked out. Sparky will get that team performing, and he’s not some compliant foreign manager looking for his first English club. He’s been around the block as player and manager. If Resrie is a wrong’un, I think Hughes will sniff him and old Ralphy boy out.

5 Likes

Good to see peeps are following my advice about the addition of disclaimers when talking about footy :lou_lol:

3 Likes