Tommy Forecast (Spurs, undisclosed)
Things started Ok for Southampton under George Burley last year as they looked to recover from playoff heartache. The sale of Gareth Bale hurt them but with Stern John scoring goals and Nathan Dyer out wide they were still a side flirting with the top six.
Burley was offered the Scotland job around Christmas time and he accepted leaving Southampton in a bit of trouble. John Gorman took over at first before Nigel Pearson and the club went into freefall. The goals of Marek Saganowski dried up and with Rasiak sold they began to suffer a few hidings including a 5-0 defeat at Hull . They went two months without a league win before they finally got one with a home win over Bristol City .
With two games to go they looked doomed needing
four points out of a trip to West Brom and a home match to in form
Sheffield United. Nigel Pearson changed things tactically and they
were excellent at West Brom battling to a 1-1 draw before the great
escape specialists did it on the last day again beating Sheffield
United 3-2 and staying up by the very skin of their teeth.
Nigel Pearsons reward for keeping his side up was to get the boot and instead Southampton went all European. Rupert Lowe came back and appointed Dutchman Jan Poortvliet as first team coach. The club look in an awful mess and despite selling millions of pounds worth of talent in recent years they are skint and having to close parts of the stadium to cut costs.
They will do well to last the season without going into administration which is a sad state of affairs really. So much is made of clubs needing to produce their own talent and Southampton have done with Walcott and bale among others but they are still almost bankrupt which makes you wonder if it is worth it.
Once again they will have to rely on finding some gems in that academy to have any chance this season and for the first time since they were relegated from the Premiership they will start the season tipped for struggle rather than promotion.
They do still have some quality in the side. Andrew Surman is a very good player whilst Rasiak has returned from loan so along with Stern John and Wright-Phillips they shouldn’t be short of goals.
They do look a side in major trouble though
and if the new coaching set up doesn’t get off to a good start
they are going to be in for a long hard season but I think they’ll
just have enough to stay up. PREDICTION:21st in the Championship
I asked Southampton fans on an unofficial message board for their thoughts on the new season and here is what they had to say. How do you think Southampton will fare this season? If it all goes well top half but realistically we'll be in the bottom half this year Who are your players to watch out for? Adam Lallana and Simon Gillett look promising Is your Manager the right man for the job? Too early to say, i'd never heard of him before he got the job Which three teams will be promoted this season? Reading, Birmimgham and Wolves Which teams will be relegated? Barnsley, Blackpool and Doncaster How do you think QPR will fare this season? Top six
Rangers manager Iain Dowie has been around the block a few times in this division and he was a striker at Southampton back in the 1990’s forming a beauty and beast partnership with Matt le Tissier.
In recent years Rangers have had two Saints players on loan. Inigo Idiakez was at QPR back in 2007 for a month and played a big part in helping us to stay up. He was released from Southampton this summer.
Martin Cranie began his career at Southampton before moving to local rivals Portsmouth . He was of course on loan at QPR last year where he was outstanding before suffering a broken leg against Iain Dowie’s (told you he got around) Coventry.
Other players to have played for both clubs include Nigel Quashie and mild mannered Mark Dennis who it’s safe to say would have struggled to play in today’s non contact version of the sport.
Rangers made their first ever visit to St Mary's in 2005 and it turned out to be a good day out. Kevin Gallen missed his first game in two years through injury so Dean Sturridge got a rare start. Danny Shittu gave Rangers the lead heading in a Lee Cook corner. The Saints came back to equalise before half time but the game died out with neither side creating enough chances to win the game. The return match was the last time Theo Walcott played a competitive match before he went to the World Cup. The boy wonder looked a good player but had a quiet game as Bignot and Rose kept him quiet. Richard Langley gave Rangers the lead with a penalty but Southampton almost came back into it with a late penalty of their own. Nigel Quashie stepped up to take it but missed and Ian Holloway, for the last time, collected all three points for QPR. Rangers got a first win at St Mary's in 2007. John Gregory's first away game in charge saw us win 2-1 with Ray Jones getting the winning goal. The return game was not so good for rangers as we lost 2-0 at Loftus Road. Last season Rangers were thrashed 3-0 at home to Southampton on the day that fans remembered the late Ray Jones. It was an emotional day at Loftus Road and Southampton were excellent and well deserving of the 3-0 win. At St Mary's Rangers were much better and despite falling a goal behind early on we fought back with goals from Rowlands and two from Agyemang to win the game 3-2 Click on the match for a report of the game from this web site.
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
