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We stayed up for the past 3 seasons with pretty much zero net spend but this season have spent more than £130m on transfers alone and have ended up, by some distance, the worst team in the league.
Their transfer strategy could not have been more wrong.
[Post edited 14 Apr 2023 12:01]
"Playing Devil's Advocate since 15th January 2014"
Who is to blame for this disastrous Saints season on 10:59 - Apr 14 by DorsetIan
The years of decline under Gao have led us to this point.
Appointing Jones/Selles instead of an experienced PL manager has have pushed us over the edge.
WALOB.
You can't blame our position now for what happened under Gao. We stayed up without really getting in a relegation fight under his ownership despite hardly spending a penny.
The owner gave SR £130m to spend on transfers this season. That should really have been enough to add to last season's squad and avoid the drop.
This is 100% down to SR.
"Playing Devil's Advocate since 15th January 2014"
Who is to blame for this disastrous Saints season on 12:03 - Apr 14 by saints__fan__73
WALOB.
You can't blame our position now for what happened under Gao. We stayed up without really getting in a relegation fight under his ownership despite hardly spending a penny.
The owner gave SR £130m to spend on transfers this season. That should really have been enough to add to last season's squad and avoid the drop.
This is 100% down to SR.
Nonsense
The squad got weaker and weaker under Gao and the team became less and less effective.
By the time SR were able to start spending again this season, the damage was already done. When the players like Redmond, Long, Forster and Romeu moved on we were left with too many players bought under the Gao regime who - because we were penny pinching - simply weren't good enough and it hasn't been possible to paper of the cracks with the new players ST have brought in (some of who haven't been much better).
You need to build a team over a few seasons. Our team has been destroyed over a few seasons.
Who is to blame for this disastrous Saints season on 12:03 - Apr 14 by saints__fan__73
WALOB.
You can't blame our position now for what happened under Gao. We stayed up without really getting in a relegation fight under his ownership despite hardly spending a penny.
The owner gave SR £130m to spend on transfers this season. That should really have been enough to add to last season's squad and avoid the drop.
This is 100% down to SR.
“We stayed up without really getting in a relegation fight under his ownership” oh so what was practically a play off game against Swansea like 3 seasons ago, as well as the following one where it was only after the last away game of the season game against Brighton that we all felt relaxed, and that’s not excluding how we were fairly low last season when they took over in Christmas, all exceptions to that then?
As under Gao it’s all gone downhill. As before that we were challenging for Europe and a team that could beat basically anyone on our day, as when we sold top players we still did invest a fair bit into getting replacements, whilst since he’d taken over it all went downhill with simply just 1 decent season over the 4 that he was in charge for (and even then that was simply down to Ings always saving the day!). As under Gao we’ve lost soo many quality players, but haven’t replaced them with anywhere near as good players, which has lead to this team being scraped to the bone! And is exactly why we’ve only got like 4 or 5 actual premier league quality players anymore (two of which were brought in under Sports Republic). As he invested bugger all, and we only managed to stay up due to the money we made from almost all the players we sold who were signed from before he joined, and then replaced them with rubbish ones that have put us in the position we’re in today.
As we’d be in the exact same position, if not a worse one, if he was still in charge. As yeah SR have had a poor start and really haven’t done well, but at least they’ve tried by investing money into the team, actually gave a toss about the club and are trying things to get us back to what we used to be. Gao on the other hand did none of that, and it’s his period of ownership where we’ve had the major fall from being a European battling team to a relegation one, which sports republic haven’t been able to stop
Who is to blame for this disastrous Saints season on 15:15 - Apr 14 by SFC_Referee
“We stayed up without really getting in a relegation fight under his ownership” oh so what was practically a play off game against Swansea like 3 seasons ago, as well as the following one where it was only after the last away game of the season game against Brighton that we all felt relaxed, and that’s not excluding how we were fairly low last season when they took over in Christmas, all exceptions to that then?
As under Gao it’s all gone downhill. As before that we were challenging for Europe and a team that could beat basically anyone on our day, as when we sold top players we still did invest a fair bit into getting replacements, whilst since he’d taken over it all went downhill with simply just 1 decent season over the 4 that he was in charge for (and even then that was simply down to Ings always saving the day!). As under Gao we’ve lost soo many quality players, but haven’t replaced them with anywhere near as good players, which has lead to this team being scraped to the bone! And is exactly why we’ve only got like 4 or 5 actual premier league quality players anymore (two of which were brought in under Sports Republic). As he invested bugger all, and we only managed to stay up due to the money we made from almost all the players we sold who were signed from before he joined, and then replaced them with rubbish ones that have put us in the position we’re in today.
As we’d be in the exact same position, if not a worse one, if he was still in charge. As yeah SR have had a poor start and really haven’t done well, but at least they’ve tried by investing money into the team, actually gave a toss about the club and are trying things to get us back to what we used to be. Gao on the other hand did none of that, and it’s his period of ownership where we’ve had the major fall from being a European battling team to a relegation one, which sports republic haven’t been able to stop
I think your memory is going..
The Swansea victory season wasn't 'like 3 seasons ago' it was actually 5 seasons ago.
The following one where it was 'only after the last away game of the season game against Brighton that we all felt relaxed' - yes we beat Brighton but that was in March where we still had 3 away games and 7 in total left before the end of the season so hardly the great escape...
"Playing Devil's Advocate since 15th January 2014"
Who is to blame for this disastrous Saints season on 10:59 - Apr 14 by saints__fan__73
SR.
We stayed up for the past 3 seasons with pretty much zero net spend but this season have spent more than £130m on transfers alone and have ended up, by some distance, the worst team in the league.
Their transfer strategy could not have been more wrong.
[Post edited 14 Apr 2023 12:01]
Not too often i agree with you but you are 100% correct in this.
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Who is to blame for this disastrous Saints season on 16:16 - Apr 14 with 2782 views
Who is to blame for this disastrous Saints season on 15:44 - Apr 14 by saints__fan__73
I think your memory is going..
The Swansea victory season wasn't 'like 3 seasons ago' it was actually 5 seasons ago.
The following one where it was 'only after the last away game of the season game against Brighton that we all felt relaxed' - yes we beat Brighton but that was in March where we still had 3 away games and 7 in total left before the end of the season so hardly the great escape...
Yeah well maybe I’ve got a few things muddled up there, but either way, Gao was in charge for that season as well as all the others that followed. And yeah ell I thought the Brighton game was later in the season, but again it’s another season with Gao in charge in which we almost went down. As that’s the main point I’m trying to make, that those two seasons we were just 3 and 5 points clear of the drop, as well as being simply 5 from relegation again last season.
So that’s 3 of 5 seasons were we were in the relegation scrap and were worrying about it under Gao, which are 3 more than what you originally suggested
Who is to blame for this disastrous Saints season on 14:17 - Apr 14 by DorsetIan
Nonsense
The squad got weaker and weaker under Gao and the team became less and less effective.
By the time SR were able to start spending again this season, the damage was already done. When the players like Redmond, Long, Forster and Romeu moved on we were left with too many players bought under the Gao regime who - because we were penny pinching - simply weren't good enough and it hasn't been possible to paper of the cracks with the new players ST have brought in (some of who haven't been much better).
You need to build a team over a few seasons. Our team has been destroyed over a few seasons.
The biggest crack that should have been papered over was the one on Jones' face, his mouth.
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Who is to blame for this disastrous Saints season on 16:56 - Apr 14 with 2750 views
Who is to blame for this disastrous Saints season on 16:16 - Apr 14 by SFC_Referee
Yeah well maybe I’ve got a few things muddled up there, but either way, Gao was in charge for that season as well as all the others that followed. And yeah ell I thought the Brighton game was later in the season, but again it’s another season with Gao in charge in which we almost went down. As that’s the main point I’m trying to make, that those two seasons we were just 3 and 5 points clear of the drop, as well as being simply 5 from relegation again last season.
So that’s 3 of 5 seasons were we were in the relegation scrap and were worrying about it under Gao, which are 3 more than what you originally suggested
So you still count the season where you admitted we were safe after we beat Brighton in March as a relegation threatened season lol?
Unless you've been a complete bedwetter the only actual relegation scrap we've been in prior to this season was the one where Hughes stepped in 5 seasons ago.
"Playing Devil's Advocate since 15th January 2014"
Who is to blame for this disastrous Saints season on 16:56 - Apr 14 by saints__fan__73
So you still count the season where you admitted we were safe after we beat Brighton in March as a relegation threatened season lol?
Unless you've been a complete bedwetter the only actual relegation scrap we've been in prior to this season was the one where Hughes stepped in 5 seasons ago.
You don't think we declined as a team and club under Gao's ownership?
Who is to blame for this disastrous Saints season on 16:56 - Apr 14 by saints__fan__73
So you still count the season where you admitted we were safe after we beat Brighton in March as a relegation threatened season lol?
Unless you've been a complete bedwetter the only actual relegation scrap we've been in prior to this season was the one where Hughes stepped in 5 seasons ago.
So in your books, 3 to 5 points from going down isn’t a close one where we’ve been in a relegation scrap? But even if you wanna say that and say that it was just that playoff season against Swansea where it was properly one, we’ve still been cut to the bare bone and have had our squads quality decline soo severely, that it left such a large mess for SR to sort out that it was gonna need a bit more than just some investment to sort it out in simply just 1 season.
As like I said before, there’s a reason why 3 of our 5 seasons that he’s been in charge for, we were down there, with simply just 1 being a good season at all, whilst everything’s only been getting worse over his time in charge of us and is one of the major reasons we’re in such a mess right now.
The owner is to blame. Ankerson might have bought the players etc, but the owner let him. The owner could have insisted the manager had a say instead of letting Ankerson do it all. It's Dragan's money and he allowed it to be thrown down the drain. He is the owner, he has the power to do anything he likes, he owns the club! He has allowed people beneath him to make dreadful decisions. The man at the top should take the blame, just like the PM takes the blame, the head of any organisation or anything. Dragon is at the top, he should have sacked Ankerson and insisted the club changed the failing transfer policy, when it failed after the summer.
Who is to blame for this disastrous Saints season on 20:36 - Apr 14 by Southamptonfan
The owner is to blame. Ankerson might have bought the players etc, but the owner let him. The owner could have insisted the manager had a say instead of letting Ankerson do it all. It's Dragan's money and he allowed it to be thrown down the drain. He is the owner, he has the power to do anything he likes, he owns the club! He has allowed people beneath him to make dreadful decisions. The man at the top should take the blame, just like the PM takes the blame, the head of any organisation or anything. Dragon is at the top, he should have sacked Ankerson and insisted the club changed the failing transfer policy, when it failed after the summer.
[Post edited 14 Apr 2023 21:01]
Ever heard the expression "shit rolls downhill" ?
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Who is to blame for this disastrous Saints season on 10:19 - Apr 15 with 2369 views
It will be interesting to see how this pans out in the long term. I remember the seemingly disastrous McMenemy appointment which got us relegated from the top flight the first time. The owners, (whoever they were- we never took too much notice of them in those days) looked to have made a terrible mistake. Within a few years we saw the most successful spell in the club's history. Let's hope it works out like that this time as well. It's certainly not beyond the realms of possibility.
The fault lays squarely at the board for allowing Hassenhutl another season..he should of gone last June and a decent manager installed with a decent budget to make his own appointments for the starting eleven.
Instead we started like we'd finished the previous season.. no surprise at all in that...then Hassenhutl was afforded yet too much time..the Jones appointment was absolutely bizarre considering our league position at that time...
But when all is said and done, the owner should bow his head in shame for overseeing the shit show of the past 12 months...literally pathetic governance.
We don't have a team..we have a ramshackle ensemble of overpaid underperforming brats...they've been mismanaged into obscurity and have no belief or clue on how to play as a TEAM anymore...
Who is to blame for this disastrous Saints season on 10:55 - Apr 14 by I_would
Ward Prowse for jogging nonchalantly into the Championship. Maybe those 2k back passes aided our demise.
I guess next season when we've got some hopeless Jermaine Wight type midfielder in to replace JWP, and all those incredible 25 yard free kicks are just a sad distant memory, you'll be long gone from this forum won't you. Whatever JWP does next season, he'll always be treated as a legend at Saints. Whereas when you're gone...
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