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Saints And Spurs Again Go Head To Head For A Player
Wednesday, 17th Feb 2016 09:27

Since Mauricio Pochettino left Southampton Football Club for Tottenham Hotspur and took Paul Mitchell with him, he seemingly is trying to turn White Hart Lane into St Mary's.

Mauricio Pochettino has a lot to thank Southampton Football Club for, when he arrived at St Mary's in January 2013 he was an out of work manager after being sacked several month's earlier by Espanyol.

There he had a reputation as a manager used to working with a small squad and fighting an annual relegation battle as Barcelona's second club struggled to match their cross town rivals.

At Saints he enhanced his reputation, but once Nicola Cortese left there was that dark feeling amongst Saints fans that he loyalty had never really been at the club and it was no shock that he left for Tottenham Hotspur, the only surprise was the underhand way he went about it.

Since then he has repeatably tried to raid St Mary's for both players and staff, taking head of recruitment Paul Mitchell with him was crucial, for in Mitchell's head was a list of every player Saints had scouted and were looking at recruiting.

That meant that every player Saints were looking at so where Spurs as naturally all Mitchell and Pochettino knew where how the Saints system works.

Luckily for Saints they have a far more experienced and powerful tool at their disposal and that is Ronald Koeman, his knowledge of European football is second to none.

So it's no surprise that both club's are again in for the same player, this time according to reports it is FC Augsburg star Dominik Kohr.

Kohr who has just turned 22 is one of the rising stars of the Bundesliga and is making a name for himself in Augsburg's midfield, he has yet to win a full cap for Germany but has been tipped to get a full cap soon.

Starting his career at Bayer Leverkusen he was loaned to Augsburg for the 2014/15 season with that being made permanent last summer when he signed a four year deal at the club.

Therefore Augsburg are in no hurry to sell although word on the Strasse is that they could do for the right price.

Kohr will almost certainly have been on Saints radar since Koeman arrived, possibly before and therefore the fact that Spurs are interested suggests that Mitchell is still using the knowledge gained at St Mary's to good effect.

Rumours that one of the new stands when White Hart lane is rebuilt is going to be called Staplewood in hoour of the foundations that the resurgence of Spurs this season is built on are as of yet unfounded, but I would not rule it out.

Photo: Action Images



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SonicBoom added 09:53 - Feb 17
Strange that whilst Germans are one of those nationalities that seem to suit the premier league and generally do well, Saints haven't really had many successful Germans.
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SaintNick added 10:03 - Feb 17
Uwe Rosler lol
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SanMarco added 10:55 - Feb 17
Schneiderlin had a German sounding name but I don't suppose that counts.

I think we need to get over MoPo - I totally agree that he used us as a stepping stone and didn't cover himself in glory after Cortese jumped ship but in the end that doesn't make him a bad manager however much we want it to be so. He has moved on and so have we - Spuds are now our bogey (bogie?) team and all the MoPo hostility has hardly improved results on that front. At this moment in time it is no bad thing to be up against Spuds for players, better than also-rans like Manure or Liverpool.
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Mclovin added 11:26 - Feb 17
I love these spoof blogs, so funny😂
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helpineedsomebody added 11:41 - Feb 17
just after mp started with the saints he made it very clear with out mr cortese there would be no project .
as far as im concern there was nothing underhand how he left this club

perhaps the fans didnt like him becouse the way the last chairman behaved on the sacking of mr atkins .
who would i choose now between mp /rk for me i like the dutch way of playing football rather than players running all over the place getting nowhere and having no plan b

.
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pintsizedsaint added 14:43 - Feb 17
As much as I despite Pottychino he can't be accused of being underhand. As noted by helpineedsomebody, MP made it clear on several occasions that he was at Saints because of Cortese and the so called 'project' - and that he would likely leave if NC did.

Whilst it is bizarre that MP felt he had the right to be choosy (given that MP had not done much with his managerial career before Saints) it is clear that he was being touted as the 'next big thing' and, as such, he was probably looking for a structurally bigger club in Europe. It is likely that he was in demand too (which may explain why Nigel Adkins was so ruthlessly sacked mid season: because MP was being lined up elsewhere?)

Therefore it is likely MP did not see Saints as 'the next step' until NC sold him the promise/vision for Saints: bringing in good signings via huge injections of money from the Liebherr family and competing for the Champions League football within 2-3 years.

What we all know now is that NC sold MP a dummy. Following Katrina's involvement (and the ongoing impact of FFP rules) it became clear that Saints were not going to 'do a Man City'. NC left, leaving MP to weigh up his options. He made that very clear in the immediate aftermath of NC's departure.

At that time, I suspect MP thought like a lot of other people were at that time: Was KL about to asset strip and sell the club? Would investment dry up? Would I be asked to perform miracles using a diminished budget and youth players (like at Espanyol)? It certainly no longer looked like the dream/vision NC sold.

MP may have thought that all his key players would be sold (there was some talk that he 'demanded' answers from the board on that when he met with them). Looking back know - he was right to suspect that! Perhaps the board did tell him they could give him no assurances about player sales.

I suspect all of those questions went out of the window as Spurs saw a fantastic opportunity. MP may well have stayed if it was a lesser club (who knows!). However, i cannot fault him if he was left disillusioned with what NC had told him.

And you can't blame NC either! Yes, it was foolhardy to think you could just bankroll another person's money and not think about building the brand/other revenue streams etc. But what NC did was pull Saints up to the top league in rapid quick time and with the ability to attract players that we wouldn't have been able to attract ever before. That goes for MP too as well. Saints benefited hugely and that should not be forgotten.

Of course, with the benefit of hindsight, it wasn't that bad! NC left, MP left, half our players left, but the club has continued to grow - and this time in the right (if slower) way. We got RK and continue to build stronger squads and better league positions.

And who knows - perhaps MP is a great manager - living up to his 'next big thing' tag. Only time will tell. But he wasn't underhand about it.

Yet - he has nicked a few key backroom staff - which we can take issue over!

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SaintBrock added 15:05 - Feb 17
Real talent is scarce to come by so everyone will be looking at a very small pond of promising hopefuls who might just become stars. Arguably there are about 7 clubs in England who would be attractive enough to tempt these players. The rest is probably co-incidence Nick, the information that Mitchell and Pochettino took with them is old hat by now.
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