PL shit that doesn't need it's own thread.

[AFCB_Mark]

Manager of the year nominations:

Clement, Conte, Dyche, Howe, Pochettino, Pulls

 

[HarvSFC]

Clement, Dyche, Pulis and Howe in to make the numbers up then.

 

[smat]

Manager of the year nominations:

Clement, Conte, Dyche, Howe, Pochettino, Pulls

If WBA hadn't completely tailed off after securing safety I think Pulis would have a good case. Howe has done a great job, improving upon last season but not dramatically. Dyche's also done well to keep a pretty limited Burnley side up, but Clement has rescued Swansea from an absolutely dire situation so it should be between him and Conte imo (no logic in giving it to Pochettino and not Conte.)

 

[AFCB_Mark]

Clement, Dyche, Pulis and Howe in to make the numbers up then.

Pochettino is more filler than Clement I'd say.

If WBA hadn't completely tailed off after securing safety I think Pulis would have a good case. Howe has done a great job, improving upon last season but not dramatically. Dyche's also done well to keep a pretty limited Burnley side up, but Clement has rescued Swansea from an absolutely dire situation so it should be between him and Conte imo (no logic in giving it to Pochettino and not Conte.)

If Howe manages to finish us in the top 10, which is quite possible, frankly that's a ridiculous achievement. However we've been incredibly inconsistent and had a dire winter, without which we'd be easily top half. and that inconsistency probably rules him out.

 

[Bilo]

Manager of the year nominations:

Clement, Conte, Dyche, Howe, Pochettino, Pulls

Surely Conte by a country mile. Chelsea finished 10th last season.

 

[Stevencc]

Moyes imo.

 

[HarvSFC]

Pochettino is more filler than Clement I'd say.



If Howe manages to finish us in the top 10, which is quite possible, frankly that's a ridiculous achievement. However we've been incredibly inconsistent and had a dire winter, without which we'd be easily top half. and that inconsistency probably rules him out.

I don't know. When Clement took charge of Swansea they were in 19th, a point off Palace in 17th and three off Middlesbrough in 16th. Then you look at Sigurdsson and Llorente and if they did get relegated, it would have been horrendous management. He has done a good job, but I don't think he deserves to be up for a manager of the year award after four months work.

As for Poch, yeah, his signings (which are often forgotten about when hailing him) have cost him the league title. Janssen, Sissoko, N'Koudou..... N'Jie, Wimmer etc before that. However, to finish second with Tottenham above the rest of the traditional top four once again is still a good achievement.

I'd have stuck Koeman in there over the likes of Howe, Clement, Pulis and Dyche. No manager from eighth and below has really done that good a job this season. West Brom are still eighth and they're on a seven match winless run. Also comparing it to last season, eighth placed Liverpool finished on 60 points. West Brom are on 45 with two matches left.......

You guys are actually just three points better off than your last season finish, but sit six places higher.

 

[Stevencc]

Guardiola was asked whether his job was in jeopardy after a disappointing season.

“In my situation at a big club: I’m sacked. I’m out. Sure. Definitely.”

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/...ager-champions-league-struggles-a7737616.html

 

[Pagnell]

Being a rich club doesn't necessarily equate to being a big club. So he right.

 

[SALTIRE]

The Trump-loving Glazer's still taking their pound of flesh I see...

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2017/may/16/manchester-united-

 

[You Orns]

And Mazzarri is gone.

Not much of a shock, 5 points worse off than last season, likely to finish 17th and an absolutely awful run of form since the new year, playing the most boring football I can remember from us.

Yet despite that we stayed up, the bottom half of the prem really was poor this year.

Marco Silva heavily linked as a replacement, I'd be happy with him but he'll probably have offers from clubs on the continent with more to offer.

 

[Super_horns]

Unlike with Flores you probably won't find a single fan disappointed by the news..


What we could probably do with is having a British coach alongside the manager to help him gain respect and understand the league if it's one who hasn't been here before


Another issue that needs to be sorted is the injuries and poor discipline!

 

[Abertawe]

Hopefully Watford go down next season.

 

[JimJams]

Ranieri frontrunner with the bookies.

 

[Super_horns]

Ranieri frontrunner with the bookies.

And some Russian bloke.

 

[Bilo]

And Mazzarri is gone.

Not much of a shock, 5 points worse off than last season, likely to finish 17th and an absolutely awful run of form since the new year, playing the most boring football I can remember from us.

Yet despite that we stayed up, the bottom half of the prem really was poor this year.

Marco Silva heavily linked as a replacement, I'd be happy with him but he'll probably have offers from clubs on the continent with more to offer.

Unlike with Flores you probably won't find a single fan disappointed by the news..


What we could probably do with is having a British coach alongside the manager to help him gain respect and understand the league if it's one who hasn't been here before


Another issue that needs to be sorted is the injuries and poor discipline!

Will he be in charge of the last game? Seen it mentioned but it seems very odd.

 

[Super_horns]

Seems so..

Probably put in our best display of the season!

 

[Jamie_SFC]

Few papers saying Puel is facing the sack due to clashing with a number of players.

 

[JimJams]

Deserves it really doesn't he? I dunno. Your position isnt bad and you got a final out of him but Saints fans constantly complain about the brand of football and lack of ambition vs bigger clubs in the way he sets up.
He doesnt seem to be the right bloke to take you forward, more just keep you going where you are at best.
Gotta be a tough job though as you're always selling your best players. Its rebuilding year on year.

 

[Bilo]

Imo Puel has done very well, he just succeeded two hugely successful managers. Were Saints to sack him, I think they'd be significantly more likely to get someone worse than they are to get someone who's better.

 

[HarvSFC]

Deserves it really doesn't he? I dunno. Your position isnt bad and you got a final out of him but Saints fans constantly complain about the brand of football and lack of ambition vs bigger clubs in the way he sets up.
He doesnt seem to be the right bloke to take you forward, more just keep you going where you are at best.
Gotta be a tough job though as you're always selling your best players. Its rebuilding year on year.

Good post. Football is an entertainment business first and foremost and what Puel serves up is anything but. Since we've been in this league we've given the big clubs a go every time we've played them. Yeah, it didn't work so well under Nigel Adkins, but it was still good seeing us taking a game to them and I'm pretty sure his last match for us was a win against Chelsea. Now we're in danger of becoming a boring old West Brom or Stoke with just being happy to sit back and hope for a point, or something on the break with mid-table consolidation the aim.

There's just no excuses for scoring 41 goals from 37 matches this season. Only 17 of them have been scored from 18 home matches and Sunderland's home goal record is the only one worse than ours, so obviously home fans are going to be disappointed. Our highest league scorer this season is Nathan Redmond with seven. In all competitions Charlie Austin is top with 9 and he's spent most of the season injured or on the bench. Just extremely poor.

Yeah, everyone like Bilo above (Sorry Bill) will pull out the "Oh, but they're eighth card." However, as I've previously mentioned last season to finish eighth you would have needed 60, the two seasons before that was 56. We can only get as many as 49, so had everyone else around us not been completely abject (Looking at you eight game winless West Brom), it would have been a completely different story.

However, some blame does need to be aimed at the board too. With all the players we've sold in previous seasons and Premier League money we shouldn't be playing with a centre-back partnership of Jack Stephens and Maya Yoshida (as well as they have done). We shouldn't be replacing Sadio Mane with Nathan Redmond. Our last summer window was absolutely dire and our one before that was only just better for Virgil van Dijk, while Oriol Romeu and Cedric have came into their own this season.

As a whole a mass shake up is needed at the club this summer and not just the manager/Eric Black if we have any hopes of being ambitious. I slated Ronald Koeman last summer, but you sure can see why he left now.

 

[Bilo]

Yeah, everyone like Bilo above (Sorry Bill) will pull out the "Oh, but they're eighth card." However, as I've previously mentioned last season to finish eighth you would have needed 60, the two seasons before that was 56. We can only get as many as 49, so had everyone else around us not been completely abject (Looking at you eight game winless West Brom), it would have been a completely different story.

You said football is an entertainment business first and foremost, which kind of puts an odd shade on what you write imo. Because considering your financial situation, the players you have sold, your first priority is to win. Because the truth is, if you play entertaining football next year but get less points (which, like you stated, might result in a significantly worse position than eighth) it would be considered a step back, because it is and that's why winning is prio 1. I mean, we played boring as fuck in the 80's but then they changed the backpass rule and we were great to watch in the 90's. Not much of a debate which decade any Liverpool fan remember the fondest? Myself excluded of course due to age. It's a very black and white example but you catch my drift, you only really care about playing entertaining football when your results are already around or above expectations already. The further any team disappoints, the more "I'll take a 1-0 off a dodgy pen" gets said. Naturally so.

I respect and understand a lot of what you say and write but I do believe you're falling down the trap of expecting overachievement, something many many fanbases have done after a few years of overachievement. I think your strongest point is regarding the fact that you've achieved significantly less points, but comparing one season to another like that is inaccurate at best. You were the sixth best team in England last year, you sold your best defender, your best midfielder and your two best attackers. And you dropped two places. That is actually very, very good. Look at us, we only need to sell our one best player to drop 5 places or more. And that is the rule, you're the exception. A team who finished 6th selling four key players should be looking to avoid relegation rather than aiming for progress in points, because the latter is borderline impossible.

The bottom line for me is that if you achieve less points next year, but play more entertaining football, very few will consider it progress and rightly so. You're overachieving in every measurable aspect bar entertainment and only then you care about entertainment. Sack Puel, finish 14th next season (not saying that you necessarily will) and most couldn't give a fuck. There will be times in the future, like many in the past, you'd kill for a 0-0 at Liverpool or a 1-0 at home to relegation fodder. Your post just kind of implies that you seem to have forgotten that.

 

[Jamie_SFC]

We sold our best defender? VvD is still here Bilo.

For now obviously...

 

[SALTIRE]

So this bid that Usmanov has put in for Kronke's shares. Are the Arsenal fans rooting for this to happen, that another crooked Russian comes in and they become a copy of Chelsea after looking down on their noses at the latter this past 15 years?

 

[Bilo]

We sold our best defender? VvD is still here Bilo.

For now obviously...

Point taken, but with your backups Fonte must surely be considered a key player at the time.

 

[HarvSFC]

You said football is an entertainment business first and foremost, which kind of puts an odd shade on what you write imo. Because considering your financial situation, the players you have sold, your first priority is to win. Because the truth is, if you play entertaining football next year but get less points (which, like you stated, might result in a significantly worse position than eighth) it would be considered a step back, because it is and that's why winning is prio 1. I mean, we played boring as fuck in the 80's but then they changed the backpass rule and we were great to watch in the 90's. Not much of a debate which decade any Liverpool fan remember the fondest? Myself excluded of course due to age. It's a very black and white example but you catch my drift, you only really care about playing entertaining football when your results are already around or above expectations already. The further any team disappoints, the more "I'll take a 1-0 off a dodgy pen" gets said. Naturally so.

I respect and understand a lot of what you say and write but I do believe you're falling down the trap of expecting overachievement, something many many fanbases have done after a few years of overachievement. I think your strongest point is regarding the fact that you've achieved significantly less points, but comparing one season to another like that is inaccurate at best. You were the sixth best team in England last year, you sold your best defender, your best midfielder and your two best attackers. And you dropped two places. That is actually very, very good. Look at us, we only need to sell our one best player to drop 5 places or more. And that is the rule, you're the exception. A team who finished 6th selling four key players should be looking to avoid relegation rather than aiming for progress in points, because the latter is borderline impossible.

The bottom line for me is that if you achieve less points next year, but play more entertaining football, very few will consider it progress and rightly so. You're overachieving in every measurable aspect bar entertainment and only then you care about entertainment. Sack Puel, finish 14th next season (not saying that you necessarily will) and most couldn't give a fuck. There will be times in the future, like many in the past, you'd kill for a 0-0 at Liverpool or a 1-0 at home to relegation fodder. Your post just kind of implies that you seem to have forgotten that.

All valid points, but the brand of football we are playing under Puel aren't my only reasons for wanting him gone, but I didn't include them in the original post.

But, looking back at the eighth placing again, we are still only eight points off Swansea in 17th. If everyone else below seventh in the Premier League weren't awful this year we could have been in serious trouble, as we are playing like a relegation battling team in front of goal.

As for the other reasons for why I think it's best that we get rid of Puel and this is one of my main reasons is his lack of adaptability. We've been poor in front of goal all season. What have we changed to try and rectify this? Nothing. It's gone from one of Austin, Rodriguez or Long being isolated up top on their own to Gabbiadini. We've played with the one up top formation all season and it's clearly not working with the lack of support from our midfield, but we've stuck with it. Last season Koeman switched his formation when we were playing equally as bad we became the second in form team in England to the eventual champions Leicester.

All the reports are also stating that Puel has lost the dressing room. No way for a manager to stay in a job if that's the case, we've seen much better manager's in England than Puel go because of that.

Lastly, he thought Nathan Redmond was a striker. Unforgivable.

 

[Jamie_SFC]

Point taken, but with your backups Fonte must surely be considered a key player at the time.

100%

Failure to replace him cost us a cup win imo. That's on Les Reed

 

[Jamie_SFC]

Lastly, he thought Nathan Redmond was a striker. Unforgivable.

I forgot our front three were set up with Austin on the wing and Redmond in the middle at the start of the season.

I personally think that it's best to part ways, the players don't look like they enjoy it under him and reactions from not just the fans but the players when he makes subs is negative.

Having a season ticket really has made going to St. Mary's an effort this year, I love this club but fuck me I've been bored at home games this season. It's not all been bad of course, there have been a handful of good performances but why haven't they happened more frequent? Is Puel struggling to motivate his squad? We were very unlucky in the cup final, we attacked Utd at every given chance and if only we had a stronger defence then we win that game, but was it Puel's tactics or the players being well up for a cup final? I'm thinking more towards the latter on that one.

From the outside it looks a good season, another top half finish and a cup final (although some Saints fans seem to deem this as success, we lost). It goes deeper than that. The sides below us are poor. The gap from us to 7th place is too big, we're actually closer to Hull than we are to Everton.

Of course he's wasn't helped in the transfer market last summer, we sold Mane for cheap and replaced him with a Championship standard player in Nathan Redmond but Les Reed can do no wrong in the eyes of some of our fans.

 

[Bilo]

All valid points, but the brand of football we are playing under Puel aren't my only reasons for wanting him gone, but I didn't include them in the original post.

But, looking back at the eighth placing again, we are still only eight points off Swansea in 17th. If everyone else below seventh in the Premier League weren't awful this year we could have been in serious trouble, as we are playing like a relegation battling team in front of goal.

As for the other reasons for why I think it's best that we get rid of Puel and this is one of my main reasons is his lack of adaptability. We've been poor in front of goal all season. What have we changed to try and rectify this? Nothing. It's gone from one of Austin, Rodriguez or Long being isolated up top on their own to Gabbiadini. We've played with the one up top formation all season and it's clearly not working with the lack of support from our midfield, but we've stuck with it. Last season Koeman switched his formation when we were playing equally as bad we became the second in form team in England to the eventual champions Leicester.

All the reports are also stating that Puel has lost the dressing room. No way for a manager to stay in a job if that's the case, we've seen much better manager's in England than Puel go because of that.

Lastly, he thought Nathan Redmond was a striker. Unforgivable.

I agree with a lot of your points, I'm conservative when it comes to stuff like this I suppose. I've seen Liverpool sack countless of managers and I've never agreed, so there's that. But I have to say this post was more convincing, if he has indeed lost the dressing room there's no turning back.

I do feel Puel can feel slightly hard done by though, in my opinion. To some extent a sacking should be preceded by a failure and you can't argue his sacking will be (provided it comes). Which doesn't necessarily make it wrong I suppose, just easier to disagree with from an outside perspective. The stuff about not changing what isn't working I can relate to though. Few things can frustrate you more than that and it does take a lot of joy away from following the team when you're disappointed an hour before the ball has even been kicked.

I forgot our front three were set up with Austin on the wing and Redmond in the middle at the start of the season.

I personally think that it's best to part ways, the players don't look like they enjoy it under him and reactions from not just the fans but the players when he makes subs is negative.

Having a season ticket really has made going to St. Mary's an effort this year, I love this club but fuck me I've been bored at home games this season. It's not all been bad of course, there have been a handful of good performances but why haven't they happened more frequent? Is Puel struggling to motivate his squad? We were very unlucky in the cup final, we attacked Utd at every given chance and if only we had a stronger defence then we win that game, but was it Puel's tactics or the players being well up for a cup final? I'm thinking more towards the latter on that one.

From the outside it looks a good season, another top half finish and a cup final (although some Saints fans seem to deem this as success, we lost). It goes deeper than that. The sides below us are poor. The gap from us to 7th place is too big, we're actually closer to Hull than we are to Everton.

Of course he's wasn't helped in the transfer market last summer, we sold Mane for cheap and replaced him with a Championship standard player in Nathan Redmond but Les Reed can do no wrong in the eyes of some of our fans.

Thought I'd quote this as you raise some good points as well. I'd like to finish on this though:

My local team (not Liverpool believe it or not) were the Bournemouth of Sweden if you like, having spent 10 years in the top flight playing 4-4-2, long balls, a point per game average and miraculously surviving year on year. Every year it was considered an overachievement, we sold our best players at a rate only you lot can match. But after 10 years, people forgot about the budget, the fact that every season was a miracle. When our miracle man of a manager got headhunted by another team, the shouts were loud and clear for a more modern way of playing football. Three years on we're odds on to be relegated to the third tier of Swedish football.

That's probably 90% of the reason why I'm so supportive of Puel to be honest.

 

[Super_horns]

So this bid that Usmanov has put in for Kronke's shares. Are the Arsenal fans rooting for this to happen, that another crooked Russian comes in and they become a copy of Chelsea after looking down on their noses at the latter this past 15 years?

Guess they won't care if they win things (apart from the FA Cup..)