Southampton: How Saints thrive despite selling best players & losing managers

Scoham

http://m.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/37954971

How to run a club well using the academy and statistics as part of scouting.

They first identified Tadic as a future replacement for Lallana in 2010, four years before he signed.

It's not just something they do with players, they also plan for replacing their manager.

Les Reed doing a very well as Director of Football, someone we appointed in wrong role.

They have a target for the team to be made up of 50% academy players. Only met it twice with all the money in the Premier League that is something most clubs will never achieve.

Compare them to us now and to a lesser extent the last 10 years or so. Couldn't have been much of a plan to replace Curbs, despite how long he was at the club.

ricky_otto

Good read.

Salad

sounds remarkably similar to the way we are run

Slartibartfast

I seem to remember that it was not long ago that they also had an owner hated by the fans, Rupert something, I think. Anyone know how they got shot of him?

rananegra

Loved this quote:
"At the start of the month, Inter played Saints in the Europa League and lost 2-1. It was a match played just days after they had sacked manager Frank de Boer, who had himself replaced Roberto Mancini after he was dismissed in August.

Reed said: "If they go after 80 days, fingers need to be pointed at the people who recruit."

Do we know of another club in a similar situation?

dizzee

ricky_otto said:

Good read.

Ye I like Les too.

WestCountryAddick

Salad said:

sounds remarkably similar to the way we are run

Not sure if you're joking or not, but the idea is actually similar, the execution however, is poles apart. Our lot seem to do a half job of everything rather than doing things in a meticulous and thorough way. It was Southampton's youth product that more or less carried them from League One to the Premier League. Their players were sold once the club knew they had more good players ready to replace them, and importantly, when they could receive a sum that matched their value. The transfer fees are then used to bring in some more quality and experienced players to go with the newest crop of youngsters, and it's worked very well for them.

By comparison, our own youth products are sold too early and too cheaply. As soon as they show some promise and the bigger boys start sniffing round, Roly gets rid to plug the ever increasing hole in our finances. Poor club management aside, it's a major reason why we will never mirror what Southampton have achieved. We also don't have a Director of Football at the club. It's something that's been mentioned on CL a number of times and maybe in the past this kind of role wasn't necessary, but I do think that a DoF could make a difference to a club like ours provided the structure above him was sound, which it isn't, so it would be a waste of time for us right now.

Slartibartfast

We do have a DoF, Thomas Driessen.

man_at_milletts

Went to a talk by Sir Les at Christchurch Uni in Canterbury last year, and he explained the model they have as Southampton. It came across as first class, from the youngest kid right up to the first team pro's.