After Ronald Koeman stated that Romelu Lukaku must respect his Everton contract Saints supporters had to applaud their former manager for his gall.

When Ronald Koeman, speaking after Romelu Lukaku turned down a new deal with Everton, claimed that the player must respect his Everton contract, it brought a wry smile to Saints fans faces, surely this wasn't the same man who suddenly found several million (a year) reasons as to why he would not respect the final year of his contract at St Mary's !

"Everyone knows what can happen in football but you need to respect your contract," said Koeman.

In fairness to Koeman he ended last season with principles, after all only a month or two earlier he had clearly stated that he was not the kind of manager that moved clubs only for the money and bemoaned the lack of loyalty in football with so many players and managers being more concerned about their bank balances than the clubs that they were employed by.

As the season ended Koeman was quoted in the press as saying.

'I am manager of Southampton, and as I mentioned last week, everybody knows I have one more year [on my current] contract"

Yet for all those fine words only a few weeks later Koeman was gone as Everton increased and kept increasing their offer until faced with the opportunity to become one of the highest paid managers in the World, he suddenly strangely enough no longer wanted to be manager at St Mary's !

Now he finds the boot on the other foot with his star player refusing to sign a new contract and clearly looking to a move to a club who can offer him Champions League football and I'm sure a contract commensurate with that.

It therefore must be difficult for a manger to speak to a player about staying at a club and honouring a contract so soon after not doing exactly that yourself, the player can turn round and say "Well you didn't"

Therefore Saints fans despite their feelings towards Koeman these days had to commend him for being able to keep a straight face when suggesting that contracts should be honoured.

They wondered whether these words might come back to haunt the Dutchman in the summer, as his statements of a year ago did do last June when he appeared to throw his morals out of the window to head North, with Barcelona looking for a new manager in a couple of months and this being the job that Koeman covets the most, will Everton supporters soon be seeing a different side to the man, one that Saints supporters did not think existed.

I wish no ill to Koeman or Everton, I still admire him as a manager and the job he has done at Goodison, there is part of me that wishes that he had stuck to his own morals and was still at St Mary's, most of us are not naive enough to think that money does not tempt players or managers these days, but Saints fans did think that Koeman was a refreshing man of integrity in a game full of cheats, liars and self centred hypocrites, we soon found out that was not true, will the Everton faithful learn the same lesson.

Koeman said all the right things a year ago, he is saying them now, but will he be tested again this summer !

Photo: Action Images

stethesaint added 22:10 - Mar 16 Rubbish. Why try and kid ourselves, koeman was willing to serve the last year of his contract, our people at the helm told him his only option was to extend his contract length or go. They didn't like the fact he was going to serve his one more year and then be free to go to whoever wanted him so took money from Everton instead.
0

Cjay80 added 23:58 - Mar 16 I hope the Lukaku situation unsettles Everton into a poor run of form and we snatch 7th place and European football out of their hands, then Lukaku leaves to go to a "big" club for European football and we can all laugh at Ronald. What an absolute idiot for saying that today. RL accusing the club of lack of ambition and RK expecting him to honour the last 2 years of his contract.... Hypocrite!

1

saintmark1976 added 07:26 - Mar 17 Nick. Whilst I appreciate that you have a site to fill with news can I respectfully suggest that you forget about Mr Koeman? He did a good job for us,left under circumstances which we will never fully know and frankly for Saints fans he is history. Let's all just move on please.
2

SonicBoom added 09:34 - Mar 17 I think a lot of Saints fans were deeply suspicious of Koeman saying he would honour his contract. You Nick , were one of the very few who kept touting that he was a man of honour and would stay.
-1

Chesham_Saint added 11:11 - Mar 17 The additional irony will come when Konman himself walks away from his contract and moves to a club offering him Champions League football..... As far s I'm concerned the man's a complete hypocrite and I hope he fails at Everton (I still haven't forgiven Heath for 1984).
0

SaintBrock added 13:26 - Mar 17 I was never sure why Les Reed delivered an ultimatum to Koeman in the first place, had he not insisted on Koeman either signing a new contract or leaving my hunch is that Koeman would have served out his final year here - which according to reports at the time would have had the support of his brother and coaching team as they more than liked the area and the club - and the Everton interest would have evaporated. Then all parties could have talked about the future and their ambitions without pressure. Nothing would have been lost and Reed would have had a whole year to sort out a potential replacement should it have ended up with us losing Koeman. On the other hand he might well have stayed for another three years and we could have ended up 5th this year instead of 12th.

1

sidsaint added 19:09 - Mar 17 Agree with SaintBrock. RK seems to take every opportunity to get back at us. Obviously no love lost. We will never know what upset him so much but SaintBrock could me near the truth.
1

Blogs 31 bloggers

Southampton Polls