Breaking my heart again

So it's true! Mauricio Pochettino has resigned from being Saints manager to be the new manager at Spurs and taken all the coaching team with him. (The fate of the translator/interpreter is less clear!!)

And with that news all the hope and dreams that our club might be really really on the edge of greatness evaporates, All we need now is for Adam Lallana, Luke Shaw and a couple of other key players to leave and all the good work of the 5 years may be for nought. Tonight feels pretty bleak.

What really annoys me is that he's gone to Spurs. They finished 6th in the Premier league only two places above Saints (albeit by 13 points). But if we are to progress above the best finish we've ever had, then you don't let your manager go to one of the teams stopping you get higher? We are now in that "second tier" of the league below the Champions league places but battling for Europa league spots and Spurs are also in the tier.

Now they have ambitions of a top four finish, indeed MP's stay at Spurs will depend on his achieving that. Is he mad?? The season just finished was the chance Spurs had to break into the top four but they blew it and big time. As three of the top four clubs from the previous season changed managers then there was a real chance that a gap might appear, as it did by United faltering, but that space was taken by the newly reinvigorated  Liverpool.

So next season the existing top four will only get stronger (Chelsea and City have unlimited funds, Liverpool have European income to spend and Arsenal always have a healthy bank balance).  United have a new manager who will sort them out and they will be real contenders again. Add to that Everton who if they add to their squad sensibly will continue to be an outside bet for a top four finish and you have 6 teams already well ahead of Spurs for a top 4 finish.

That's a tough job for a team with a settled squad which needs a couple more quality players to mount a challenge (like Everton) but Spurs are a long long way from that position. They only scored 55 goals and they let in 51. That's a lot less scored than the top 5 and more conceded than the top 5 too. (To be fair Liverpool only let in one less goal but as they scored 101 so that didn't matter!!)  So both the defence and the attack need major surgery. Spurs sold Gareth Bale last summer and they then spent c£90m on new players so they have a full squad already, which needs to be trimmed to then grow (or they could  fall foul of the Financial fair play rules). So that's not a quick fix, that's a long transition. Spurs seem to have understood that as they have given MP a five year deal, but and it's a big but they don't have a track record of giving any of the last 10 managers long enough to deliver that golden chalice of a Champions league place. (It's not helped by Arsenal doing it year after year, but they have stuck with their manager!!!) MP will have some time develop his team but if Spurs are not in the top 6 at Christmas then the clock will be ticking and it will get louder and louder if they remain no better than they are now.

All of which will be a crying shame as MP is a good bloke who has developed a team at St Mary's into probably the best team we have ever had and with a couple of good signings could have been on the edge of true greatness.

Maybe he should have read Glen Hoddle's CV before jumping across to Spurs??

Lord of the dance

I've watch the BBC sitcom "Rev" since it first started in June 2010. It stars Tom Hollander as the Rev Adam Smallbone a parish priest at St Saviour in the Marshes in Hackney East London. It's now in its third series and last nights episode was probably the best one yet.

Without giving away plot spoilers they managed to include most of the key points of holy week. That a comedy can include denial with reference to a cock crowing, the significant washing of hands, betrayal from a kiss and a cross being carried through the streets of London with abuse being hurled at the person carrying it was incredible. The cross was carried while Pie Jesu from Fuarė's Requiem played in the background, which made it surprisingly moving. The comedy was still there, but this series has dealt more with the challenges facing a parish priest than knockabout laughs.

The acting as ever was first rate and was added to by the cast including  Liam Neeson as God/Jesus and Ralph Fiennes as the Bishop!

It was also very moving and the end of the episode effectively dealt with the temple being pulled to the ground.

Let's hope next week's final episode deals with resurrection!

Come back and stay

So long time no blog, but that's what twitter does for you!!

On the football front, things at St Mary's have been quietly going well. Premier league stability, good squad, good manager and a style of play that has made others look up and take notice/copy us.

So this week I didn't expect a national paper to have the head line "Model club in meltdown" and it refer to the Saints. But that is exactly what happened.

So what would have prompted such a disaster?? Had HMRC found a huge unpaid tax bill?? No. Had the club been sold to a Pompey fan who wanted to change the home kit to blue?? No. Had The manager resigned? No. Had the club accepted a £20m offer for Guly and Danny Fox?? Sadly nope.

What had happened was that the Chief Executive, Nicola Cortese, had resigned. Yes that's right a senior employee had resigned. But he the man who is largely acknowledged for single handily turning a bottom of League One club in to a team who were in one win away from topping Premier League at the end of November. (It's gone a bit wrong since then, we're now 9th, but you get the picture!).

He's done that by being appearing to be ruthless. He has sacked two managers, Alan Pardew and Nigel Adkins, who had both done well at the club. Pardew, winning the Football league trophy at a Wembley Final and Adkins had achieved back to back promotions to take the team back to the Premier League. He has overseen all aspects of the club and the transformation has been amazing, but there have been those in and around the club that have alluded to a less than approachable person who expects complete allegiance to "the Southampton Way" as it is known.

I have only heard him speak once, at a Q&A after a League One game and he seemed genial, humorous but there was steel there too that all successful business people would say that you need. Success needs tough decisions and that need tough people.

Well this week he resigned. Why he did that, no one knows as he has stayed silent. So it's all rumour. Rumour that the owner, Katharina Liebherr, wants to sell the club and she and Cortese fell out over it. but she has said that she "he has done a wonderful job and we very much wanted him to stay". Rumour that A C Milan want him to do for them what he has done for Saints, but working with the Berlusconi family would be a lot less easy than the Liebherr family.

The logical reason is actually much more straight forward.. If the Liebherr's do want to sell then Cortese has said in the past that he knows people who would want to buy it to keep the stability going. But you can't negotiate to buy the club if you're paid to negotiate the sale!! Therefore I suspect that Cortese will be back with new owners to buy the club and reinstall him back to his old job! Sunseeker the luxury boat builder, based in Poole, for example, which is owned by the Chinese conglomerate, Wanda Group, is already a club sponsor.

If however that gap could be long enough for a kit with red and white stripes to be ordered for next season then that would be good!!

The Show goes on.

While we're still in the middle of the Ashes (well 80% through but you get my point) tomorrow the Premier League returns and with it the Saints second season after promotion starts.

So what do I think will happen this season? Well here's my views on the team.

Goalkeeper - Boruc picks himself as first choice and has shown himself to be a reliable shot stopper and he is an imposing presence. Communication is vital going forward but he needs to stay fit as Davis is not consistent enough & Gazzaniga still has lots of developing to do to be a Premier league keeper.

Defence - The full backs, Luke Shaw and  Nathaniel Clyne, pick themselves so it's in the centre of the defence that decisions need to be made. Dejan Lovren has been bought in from Lyon at some cost and therefore should have one spot. Who plays along side him is less certain. Fonte always looked a Premier league player in the lower leagues but has had a drop on form (or he is not that good). Hooiveld will be important when we play tall teams (Andy Carroll, Peter Crouch etc) but he scores too many own goals for a regular spot! Which leaves Maya Yoshida and he would be my choice to partner Lovren as he has international experience with Japan and got better the longer last season progressed.

Midfield - The biggest debate surrounds the midfield. Last season, in Jack Cork and Morgan Schneiderlin, Saints had a great defensive midfield duo and much of lasts season's success followed their pairing up. In the summer however Victor Wanyama was signed from Celtic and given what we paid for him (£12.5m?) he will start. Having seen him in last weeks friendly he looks a great addition (a bigger stronger Michael Essien!!) and he looks likely to replace Cork alongside Schneiderlin. That's tough on Cork but the squad will all get a chance and he'll need to take his when it's offered. Schneiderlin will get more chance to break forward and this could be a very special season for him. Lallana has had a good pre season and looks fit, which he didn't appear to be after his knee injury last season, so he could start. The final place will be rotated, I suspect, around, Ramirez, Guly, Davis and Puncheon. depending on the specific needs of the game.

Attack - England's Rickie Lambert (how good is it to read that??) and Jay Rodriguez will make a natural partnership, with again, Mayuka and  now Isgrove bringing impact from the bench. We probably do need another striker but as the number 11 is vacant I expect that to be resolved before the transfer window closes.

The players are there to finish in the top half of the table if not higher but a good start is important as we don't have the tough start of last season and we need to have won points before those harder games do come along. Certainly the high pressing game we now play will allow more possession but some teams will work us out (like QPR, of all teams, did last season). It's the changes that Pochettino makes against those teams that could spell the difference between a great season or a "meh" one

The stars and stripes

I went to my first Saints game on March 16th 1967, when on my 8th birthday my Dad (not really a football fan) took me to watch that days home game against West Ham.  I have been a fan ever since and will be for the rest of my life. One of the things that any neutral fan would say if you asked them to identify the Saints would be "red and white stripes" There have been variations on a theme, particularly in the 1980's, but red and white shirts, black shorts and red/white/black socks has been by and large the Saints kit since 1900.

For our 125th anniversary the club, as a mark of respect to our heritage, did a "one off' home kit of a white shirt with a red sash, which reflected the very earliest kits that the club wore. Fans understood that and largely it was welcomed and looked very good. The next year though they went back to a red and white striped shirt and all was well.

Last season the club broke with tradition and changed the home kit to an all red one, with an all white kit away kit to keep the tradition of red and white but that season it was strips not stripes. In the same way as the 125th anniversary kit was accepted, fans accepted looking like Liverpool as it was "only for one season"

Today this years kit was revealed and we discovered that an all red kit was not just for last season as this years is again all red, albeit the sleeves have white on them so that we look like Arsenal as well as Liverpool. You can see it here. The design is OK ( but Bristol City have gone for exactly the same shirt design) but there are no stripes, no black shorts and the socks are red and white hoops and look horrible! It appears that red and white stripes, the hallmark of the Saints image are gone for the foreseeable future and that saddens me in a way that took me by surprise. It doesn't feel like I'm watching the Saints when they're not in red and white stripes. it feels like they're...well anybody!

It appears that I'm not alone in this thought as most comments that I have read on both Facebook and the Echo website seem to agree (by  about 8 out every 10 being against it), many saying they'll wear old striped shirts to make a point.

I'll get used to it I guess, but it would be good to see them when they win the Premier league in red and white stripes not look like Arsenapool!

The main thing is, as Richard that I work with said  (and he was, rightly, fed up with me going on about the lack of stripes - sorry)  "it's how they play this season that really matters, not what they wear".

Radio nowhere

I'm of an age where most of my early musical knowledge came from either listening to music on the radio or from gathering in friends bedrooms listening to vinyl albums (or singles).

This meant that to me the radio was the prime source of listening to music and that stayed with me for years. In the car, in the house, in the office, the radio played the music. That's why Radio 1 was so important to me as a teenager and in my twenties and why Steve Wright, Johnnie Walker, Simon Bates, John Peel, DLT (!), Annie Nightingale, David "Kid" Jensen and Alan "Fluff" Freeman were household names and drew (by todays standards) huge audiences. I remember first hearing tracks from the keenly awaited new Yes album (Tormato) on the Saturday Rock show courtesy of Alan Freeman.  I first heard Bohemian Rhapsody, while doing homework, on Annie Nightingale's Sunday afternoon show. (I actually thought that she had played two tracks by mistake such was the wow factor it left me with. 6 minute rock epics were not released as singles before then!!)

Technology has changed all of that of course and now we can have music when we want it , where we want it and how we want it. The only time that I attempt to listen to music on the radio is if it is either via a commercial station that effectively plays my iTunes library (Jack FM, Planet Rock and Wave FM (but only the Teenage Kicks programme on a Sunday night!!) Occasionally Radio 2 gets a listen, but I would prefer to listen to Radio 5 Live given the choice. I never, through choice, listen to the radio stations that play chart music and I suspect that I'm not alone in that and that's across an increasing demographic. My sons use Spotify, YouTube, Soundcloud and Bandcamp in addition to iTunes libraries.

Life for radio stations that play music is, however, about to get a whole lot harder following Apple announcing the arrival of iTunes Radio earlier this week.  It will allow users to stream music based on the their iTunes library. So as I understand it, if for example, I play "Open Arms" by Elbow, iTunes radio will then stream songs similar to that and the more that I play, the more that it will build around my tastes. This will be free but you will get adverts dropped in (unless like me, you subscribe to iTunes Match).

Let's be clear, this is not new, Spotify and in America, Pandora ( and others) have been doing this for at least the last couple of years and music radio has survived largely intact, so why is Apple getting involved so potentially serious.

Well firstly iTunes is the default music player for most digital content. If you buy your music from an online shop other than iTunes, such as Amazon o other online music stores, they normally download via software that magically puts the music in your iTunes library. Thus most of my friends use iTunes to listen to music.

Secondly, large numbers of music listeners have at least one Apple device on which they also listen to their music. Even if you have a smartphone that is not made by Apple, you will most likely have either an iPod or iPad that is and via which you listen to music.

Well all of those devices will have iTunes radio embedded in them. It will be easy to use and will also help you find new music (assuming it's on iTunes).

To me that feels like a big change, Apple make things easy to use, intuitive and they market it well. It won't be an overnight change (the initial launch is only in the US but it won't be long before we have it in the UK) but in say five years time we may well look back on this launch as the beginning of the end for many of our music radio stations.

The sound of the crowd

Seven games to go and all is still to play for in Saints return to the Premier League. Mathematically we can still qualify for the Champions League but to be honest mid-table mediocrity will do very nicely thank you.

As I write this we sit 12th in the League, which is our highest position all season and bodes well for the remaining games. Our last two games have given us home wins over Liverpool and Chelsea (reigning European Champions!!) and we have been recognised for playing "good" football in both games.

Next up comes an away game against Reading, who were promoted with us last season. They currently sit bottom of the table 11 points behind us, so they need to win fairly desperately to have any chance of staying up. They recently sacked their manager and appointed ex Saints manager, Nigel Adkins, in his place, so this game now has lots of extra significance. It's rare as a sacked manager, that you get to shake the hand of the guy who replaced you, but that will happen on Saturday. It's also an oddity for Saints fans as they never got the chance to say goodbye to Adkins, so the pre-game chanting of his name may well be from all round the stadium. Finally it's a chance for Mauricio Pochettino, to show that he was the right choice to take over from Adkins, by his Saints beating Reading and beating them well. Last season's game at Reading ended 1-1, I think that this game will end the same.

After Saturday these are our remaining fixtures and my predictions:-

West Ham (home) - 3-1
Swansea (away) - 0-0
West Brom (home) - 2-1
Spurs (away) - 3-1 (though I really really want us to win this game, given the number of people that I know who follow Spurs)
Sunderland (away) 0-1
Stoke (home) 3-0

If I'm correct with my scores above that will see us finish with 48 points and end somewhere in mid table.

Of course we are only 4 points above the relegation zone, so a couple of losses and we could yet end up playing Stoke needing to win to stay in the Premier League, but my instinct is that we'll be safe by the time we go to Sunderland.

Come on you Reds!