Puel In!

It must be part of their owner’s plan to bore the opposition to death…

I am surprised that he managed to get on any other clubs radar. Must have been getting to a Cup final. I have to say the 2 legs over Liverpool were a masterclass.

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I’d be surprised if he didn’t.

Decent manager who always seemed to have the players with him.

Tactically smart if a little negative but MP and the stats have proven that he wasn’t completely to blame for our inability to attack.

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Upvoted both comments.

Agree that he deserves it. Leicester will believe they can offer a better squad, so why not take a manager that took a smaller(their view) team playing in Europe to a cup final despite injuries to important players.

I agree with @sfcsim on the bit you didn’t highlight, because that’s the thing that will always stand out for me. The games against Liverpool were exceptional tactically(gave Klopp a lesson, that he has ignored to his detriment), so i still believe Puel could have delivered(and it would’ve been with young, mainly academy players). We need to remember that some players appeared to give up on the season after the cup final.

Shame that we will never know, because MP will not give the kids the chance that Puel did(hope i am wrong). Unfortunately the modern fan wants instant success and will happily ignore the fact that we haven’t got half a billion spare to spend on transfers and wages. They will hold the club back more than our lack of money ever has. It takes time to build a team and we’ve now informed the football world that we are financially secure enough to say no(just as they pressured the club to sack a true tactical team builder).

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Leicester don’t need a manager, their players decide whether they fancy playing or not so I suggest they crack on without one and continue to do whatever they fucking want for a bit longer.

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Seeing as I hold the belief that our managers have their hands tied in being pushed to play a certain “Southampton Way” at all levels of the club I’ll follow this with interest.

It’ll prove me right or wrong so then I can gloat when he plays attacking 4 4 2 or be proven wrong when he bores the to death.

After all he may look the dogs bollocks with a striker in his team.

Or…

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Interesting point Phil.

Leicester have had success with quick and direct counter attacking football. Not exactly what Claude was renowned for at Saints.

All I would say though is that surely if he didn’t agree or believe in the philosophy he deployed (or was made to) at Saints then he wouldn’t have taken the job in the first place, would have varied it up a bit more or just walked before he was booted out.

I don’t believe in coincidences and the man was boring as fuck as was his football, so for me there is a definite correlation.

As you say though, with different types of players it would be interesting to see how he’d get on.

Good luck to him, he was a good guy. Lets hope Leicester fans are a bit more appreciative and gracious than ours.

I fear that we might end up looking rather stupid sacking him.

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But Claude did play much more attacking football with his teams in France, so it’s not his “style” to be negative.

Claude is the ultimate pragmatist - he plays the football he believes will get the best results with the players he has at his disposal. He walked into Saints and saw a relative shower of shit and no real creativity and decided on a way to play that he thought would get results. The dumb-ass Saints players couldn’t get to grips with it so he went to a pragmatic Plan B for the remainder of the season.

I suspect that his original “diamond formation” system was supposed to eventually have Boufal at the tip once he’d got over his injury, but Puel had to ditch the plan when senior players started moaning and not trying hard enough to make it work.

I believe that if he was given time to build his own team and create his own ethic he would have been a success here - but fans and players turned against him. Leicester fans seem much more patient, and much more realistic, than ours. The players at Leicester seem much more suited to Puel’s preferred style too, so I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it worked.

Good luck to him, I hope he shows our players and fans what they were missing out on.

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Been through 2 interviews expected to be announced today

An undeniably well reasoned argument mate. And here I was thinking you were only good as a match thread creator! :lou_wink:

There are references earlier in the thread to the effective tactics deployed against Liverpool (essentially sitting deep and springing counter attacks) but if he was so pragmatic why didn’t he play this way against the other big boys who dominate possession and whom we failed to beat?

From my position it felt like too often we played ‘our way’ against the top 5 and didnt adapt the way we play to allow for the quality that they possessed.

Ultimately it is of little consequence as times have changed and things have moved on.

If he gets the job I’ll certainly sit up with interest and wish him relative success. That said, unless I develop insomnia I won’t be watching his press conferences though!

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I quite liked Puel’s Diamond. I mean, in theory more than in practice. All the interchange he was trying to get going with fluid & movement front 3, I could see how it could be good! Alright, it’s never gonna be Goals when ur fluid interchanging front 3 is like Austin & Redmond with Tadic behind, but he might have more joy with like Vardy + Musa with Mahrez behind. You could see how that might work. It will be interest to see.

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Talking of fluid movement is quite apt. Puel’s style was a bit like trying to make love to a beautiful but virginal ring wearing women - all that fluid movement but never any actual penetration…

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Good luck Claude. It will be interesting to see what you do do with Leicester.

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Confirmed as Leicester’s new manager. http://www.skysports.com/football/news/11712/11098409/leicester-appoint-claude-puel-as-new-manager

Interesting theory there, Phil. If you overlook the fact that Adkins’ teams played differently to Pardew’s, Pochettino’s differently to Adkins’, Koeman’s differently to Pochettino’s, Puel’s differently to Koeman’s and Pellegrino’s differently to Puel’s I’d say it’s a brilliant theory.

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I find this theory interesting. I have heard it from a few places thar Leicester don’t need a manager. The team runs itself. So, if Leicester don’t need a manager then why does any team need a manager? Can we save a few million per year?

Now announced as Leicester manager.

Good luck Claude. I thought you were hounded out of your job at Southampton by a fanbase that is thick as fuck. You did a damned fine job with what you were given…

The reason you lost the fans is this:

You sounded like a foreigner.

Your English was limited and therefore everything sounded like a poor excuse.

When you spoke you sounded bored. I know you weren’t bored but I am not a normal fan.

You sounded bored so normal fans thought you were boring.

Whilst you were manager we went to Wembley and should have won. If Leicester fans experience this then you would have done a good job.

As a Saints fan: Good luck Leicester. He’s a good manager and I hope it works out for you… Decent bloke.

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That’s why I’m looking forward to seeing what he does :sunglasses:

Leicesters success was Mike Bassett

We seem stuck in variants of 4 2 3 1 until MP asks Eric Black if he can bring on Boufal & Chazza on 80 minutes

:lou_sunglasses:

hope Erik Black gets the call

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