Puel In!

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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Lucky for Claude he now has a patient board that has a reputation for giving managers time.

And if the results don’t come immediately, his natural charisma and attacking flair should win over most fans.

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French Journo on 5live last night saying its Puel’s style to spend first 12 months creating stable side, build from back, compromising creative attackimg flair for stability… on which he woudl then build his more attacking flair in seasons 2 and 3… as he did with his sides in France. He said it was surprizing we did not stick with that as he felt it would have bene made clear during Puel’s interview process… The additional complication we had was when that snivelling cunt Vardy knobbled The Virgin and our defence in effect was make shift for rest of season… I stayed out of the Puel debate last seaosn as it was only ever heading in one direction once the mob weight got behind it… but would not be surprized if he does very well at Leicester…

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I had no great problems with Claude as a person, his games against Liverpool demonsrated that he clearly has coaching ability and he was a sensible guy.

But the football he served up was heading nowhere and despite the money, football is both a business and an entertainment industry.

On paper he delivered, but on grass it was often fucking terrible, with little sign of progress - and no club has the luxury of a three year plan to bed in a new manager, so if that is what he needs, Leicester is the last job he should have taken.

I wish him well, but I’m expecting his Leicester team to be as dull as a four hour documentary on victorian doorstops.

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For all this dullness RB. You do know that farking Leicester will turn us over with swift incisive football in a couple of months don’t you.

Before returning to turgidity.

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