Pre-Season Part 2 - Cartoon Villain's, Private Jets and Pellegrino's

You are My Bitch now Jose

So, another quiet pre-season for Saints then.  My last blog was up to the point where Liverpool apologised for being scummy twats….

The latest update to the Virgil van Dijk situation came on Friday 11^th June when Yahoo sports published more details of the alleged tapping up. I use the word alleged in the context of it definitely fucking happened.

It was all what we knew already, the text messages, the meetings but in addition apparently Virgil was sent a load of videos with details of exactly where he'd fit in to Liverpool's current team. As if that wasn't fucking obvious anyway as he be fitting it in between Milner at left back and Matip at centre back, in the space currently occupied by the man currently looking for a new gardener, Dejan Lovren. I can imagine Klopp's voice overdubbed on a video of Liverpool fucking up at the back. "Virgil Ja! you play in the position that useless cunt Lovren is supposed to be in".

The role of the Wasserman Group, the agents for Virgil, was painted in a really unfavourable light as well as they apparently want him to move to Liverpool because it gets them the biggest fee for their services. Yeah, they've done a really great job for their client and his football career haven't they? There are much better clubs than Liverpool that he could play for.  In fact, if I was in any position of power at one of the proper big clubs, I’d be questioning whether I’d deal with the Wasserman Group.

The other snippet that that was revealed was that Virgil thought that he could kick off and Saints would cave in and sell him for £50 million. The Yahoo article categorically stated that this was never going to happen.  Every player has a price but don’t take the piss.

The information is attributed to a source close to Southampton. As the whole of the football media seems to be Liverpool biased or ex-Liverpool players and it's lovely when the boot is on the other foot. I can only laugh at the thought of Liverpool is owners and that wanker Klopp, squirming as more of this comes out.  They probably really don’t need to be being linked to Dusan Tadic as well.  This in my opinion is because the media are too stupid to realise that there is unlikely to be any business between Saints and Liverpool. The main crux of the stories seems to be the belief that Dusan has a £13 million release clause.  This story came up in January when he was linked with Arsenal and again a few months back when he was linked to West Ham.  West Ham I could see but there’s no way he’s moving to a top 6 club.  Agent talk.  If the FA could just get on with issuing Liverpool with the transfer ban that they clearly deserve and should get, then we could all sit back and laugh.

Meanwhile, Virgil has taken being badly advised to a whole new level by tweeting a picture of himself looking out of the window in a moody and fed up manner, whilst lying back on a private jet. I thought footballers were supposed to be more savvy about social media these days. I'm sure he would've gone on a course or something at some point where they would've said something along the lines of posting a sulking tweet whilst sat on a private jet is not going to make anyone feel sorry for you, in fact it's just gonna make you look like a right cunt. “Woe is me, I only earn more in a week than most people earn in a year and I only have a small private jet. I want mooooooore…. I wanna big private jet. How can a man live with just a small private jet for fuck's sake?”

How to Make Yourself Look a Complete Cock on Social media

Still, it’s the working mans game and all that.

Talk about hero to zero. He's obviously spent the whole of his time injured plotting to get away from the club that was nursing him back to full health. What a complete wanker.  Just another wanker.  Another Lallana, another Lovren.  If you’re a Saints fan and you don’t agree with this yet then it’s only because he’s still our player.  If he played for any other club and was behaving like this – you would not be so forgiving.  Remember kids, the name on the badge is more important than the name on the back. 

Finally, after what seems like and unnecessary three week wait, Claude was fired and the wait for a new manager officially began.  I covered the reasons I thought he should be fired here:

http://leagueoneminus10.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/claude-puel-should-he-stay-or-should-he.html

It was an open secret that he was going and one can only assume that a new manager has been identified and there are just the formalities to sort out.  As I said in a previous blog, I was of the opinion that Claude had to go but he leaves with no damage to his CV and good luck to him.  A decent guy but not right for Saints or English football in general.  I’m a bit surprised that we’ve actually sacked him as opposed to him being mutually consented citing family reasons etc.  There’s a rumour that I’m about to start, that Claude has been tapped up by Liverpool to be Klopp’s number 2 to try and improve Liverpool’s attacking play against deep defences cos Klopp clearly has no idea.

Claude’s exit was in keeping with his year in charge in that it was understated and somewhat shambolic.  He showed his class in a statement thanking everyone which he didn’t need to do.  It showed if proof were needed that he was a decent guy but it just wasn’t right.  I’m guessing the review was to see if there was common ground between what Claude thought of the season and what Les Reed thought of it and I’m guessing that there was no way forward.  In my opinion and looking back, his days were numbered from the moment the final whistle went against Hapoel Be’er Sheva at home.  That certainly seemed to be the turning point with the Board and some of the fans and players.

So – who are we getting?  The name on seemingly everyone’s wish list was Thomas Tuchel who has just left Dortmund.  I just wondered if post-Dortmund, he was going to able to handle the white-hot atmosphere of the Kingsland/Chapel corner.  I couldn’t see Tuchel being the man for a couple of reasons – one is that he’s a spiky character who would clash with Les Reed and the other is he’ll be waiting for a bigger job.  Personally, I want a manager who gives the board and players a hard time so I’d have been happy if it was him but Tuchel ruled himself out. 

Les has to get this appointment right so another underwhelming one won’t go down well – but whilst Roy Hodgson is still out there…. The short list now contains Mauricio Pellegrino and Frank de Boer.  If Pellegino is a cross between Mauricio Pochettino and Manuel Pellegrini then he’ll do.

Hodgson: Get to Fuck

The fixtures came out and boy, do we have to get some points on the board early.  Our first 12 games are all winnable with only Man United at home against the clubs that finished above us last year.

With Swansea at home up first, we then got another home game straight after, as our first away game has now been switched. It was supposed to be at West Ham and their virtually free ground but the World Athletics Championships is on there. It finishes a full week before the scheduled game but that's not long enough to convert the ground for football.  It seems that the retractable seats are in fact just a big pile of scaffolding and Karen Brady and the Dildo Brothers are searching the yellow pages for a better deal so it takes 11 days to convert the ground. Wankers. They should get fined for not having a ground.

I'm pissed off because we've agreed to switch home and away games with them so now we start with two home games and we have something like five aways out of 6 in March. I can't go to the switched game as I'll still be on holiday. I won't get my money back on the ticket exchange because August games don't sell out. There will be many more who can't go to the new home date than those who couldn't go to the original March home date.  We’re just fans though so oh well.

Aside from that, why have Saints agreed to it? We're always dodgy at the start of the season due to having a new manager and the March away run is now a nightmare, coming in top of the December nightmare when we have all of big guns in the most congested period, as usual.  Fume.

We've got a new kit, same as every year but this year the Home shirt is an 80s throwback to the thick white band of the Air Florida / Rank Xerox kit. Keegan, Channon, Moran, Armstrong, Williams etc. The animated video to accompany the launch was amusing, culminating in animated Maya Yoshida kicking an animated Evil Genius in the face. The fact that the Evil Genius looked like Ronald Koeman is purely coincidental I'm sure. There were sly digs at Pompey and Liverpool in there as well and Animated Fraser saved everything. Virgil hardly featured... I wonder why, seeing how he's captain and all that.

Any likeness to any person living or dead is purely coincidental

A couple of days of rumours and general ridicule of Ryan Giggs’ right to even be mentioned in the context of getting a Premier League managers job.  Ryan says Southampton would be a great job for him to start his managerial career at.  Fuck Off round your brothers house you twat.   Talking of twats, the Liverpool media Cuntshow kicked into gear again.  Firstly there were articles about them asking Saints if we’d softened our stance on Virgil.  No reply from Saints.  The John Aldridge, has-been Scouse Gobshite clearly suggested that Virgil should go on strike to force a move to Anfield.  This is exactly what he advocated when Sterling wanted to move to Man City, Suarez wanted to move to Barcelona and Torres wanted to go to Chelsea.  Only it wasn’t of course.  Interestingly he still works for Liverpool which you would hope the Premier League will notice.  As far as we know, the tapping up investigation is still going on and to paraphrase Kevin Keegan, I would love it if they got a transfer ban, love it…. the cunts.  Isn’t it funny that Lallana and Lovren and now Virgil van Dijk all have ‘strike action’ strongly rumoured with their transfers from Saints… what’s the common factor with all these players and their transfers… it’s Red and it’s Scouse and it stinks of Fucking Bins.

#Cuntwatch

Back in the real world it became a straight choice between Mauricio Pellegrino and Frank de Boer.  On Thursday 22^nd de Boer was announced as imminently arriving at Crystal Palace and on Friday, the seemingly inevitable happened and Pellegrino was revealed as the new Saints manager.  On the face of it I’m pleased with this and some very respected people have made encouraging proclamations of his ability, flexibility and style of football he likes to play.  His opening statement of wanting the fans to feel engaged with the team every week was decent as that has definitely been lost this season just gone.  Bring it on.  Let’s hope he hits the ground running.

So – never a dull moment in a standard summer for Southampton FC.

Striking a blow for the Little Guy

What are these "Rules" You Speak Of

This was written on the evening of Thursday 7th June 2017 – it all may have changed by the time you read it.

So, I thought that I’d have a bit of a break from writing about Saints.  As I write Claude is still a dead man walking and the transfer window isn’t open.

Do you want the long version or the short version?

Okay, short version. Liverpool tapped up Virgil, Saints got the arse and reported them to the Premier League and then Liverpool knew that they were guilty as hell and apologised and pulled out of the chase in the hope that the Premier League didn't impose sanctions.  

The even shorter version is that Liverpool are cunts.

The full version is that news broke on Monday from several Liverpool media outlets that Virgil van Dijk had indicated that he wanted to join Liverpool as opposed to joining Chelsea or Manchester City or heaven forbid, staying at Southampton. In the normal scheme of things, no one as good as he is would choose to join Liverpool ahead of Chelsea or Manchester City.  The media world was in a frenzy with the BBC writing a piece to declare that Virgil would be signing for Liverpool as he indicated that as its preference.  It was written in the usual style of ‘Big club gets what they wants, small club doesn’t matter – just accept it and be grateful’.

Woah boy - Hang on just a goddam minute, he's got five years left of his contract to run and Saints categorically said they do not need to sell and that we don’t want to sell. Then more details began to emerge and they were that Virgil was swayed by Jurgen Klopp’s personal involvement in trying to sign him. Wow, hang on a fucking minute. So, if this is to believed, the manager of Liverpool has got personally involved in trying to sign a player that he had no permission to speak to and so M’lud, one must logically conclude that this is a clear case of tapping up and that my friends, is against the rules. 

My head was already racing with all this going round and I actually had a short Twitter exchange with Phil McNulty, who is the head of sport at the BBC and writer of the BBC article.  I have an issue with the BBC reporting gossip, what with it being funded by licence fees and all that but all he was interested in was the Liverpool side of the story regarding them being the club the Virgil wanted to join. I said to him that surely the tapping up angle was the story here as Liverpool have already picked up a ban from signing use players for using underhand inducements to a 12-year-old. In other walks of life but that’s called grooming. McNulty wasn’t interested in the slightest in that angle and just arrogantly signed off with a condescending, we'll see and I'm convinced that I'm right attitude.

In the meantime we had to tolerate a ridiculous amount of arsehole Liverpool fanbase gloating and the Liverpool media waving their collective dicks around.  “Oh my God, a player has decided to join us ahead of Manchester City and Chelsea, it's the Klopp effect… We are on our way back… We’re the biggest and best club in the land… You’ll Never Walk Alone…. Fuck off!!!

From a Saints fan angle, of course we were all thinking that the board had caved in yet again and despite saying they didn't need to sell, they were going to sell to the first bidder who came along, directly contradicting what Ralph Krueger had said in an interview about a week ago.

On Tuesday, the Saints board had obviously met and the local Daily Echo journalists then ran a story saying that Saints had got the right arse over the reports and had asked the Premier League to investigate if Liverpool had it done anything wrong.  Talk about negotiating from a position of strength as they obviously had.

In the meantime, John Cross of The Daily Mirror, never the most reliable of publications, had printed details of Liverpool flying Virgil to Blackpool of all places to meet Juergen Klopp and then receiving several text messages afterwards regarding the potential move. I don't know whether all of this was true but if it was, the personal involvement of Klopp was going to be like a noose around Liverpool’s neck. Phil McNulty the BBC didn't get back to me after that despite my repeated goading on Twitter. ‘Hi Phil, remember me from yesterday…”

Wednesday went by and then at about 5 o'clock came the glorious moment...

"Liverpool Football Club would like to put on record our regret over recent media speculation regarding Southampton Football Club and player transfers between the two clubs.

“We apologise to the owner, board of directors and fans of Southampton for any misunderstanding regarding Virgil van Dijk"

“We respect Southampton's position and can confirm we have ended any interest in the player.”

Apparently it was a misunderstanding – misunderstanding my big fat hairy arse. What a shower of cunts. With a grovelling apology, came the news that the Premier League would be dropping the investigation. This is of course the only reason that Liverpool apologised in the first place because they fucking knew they were guilty but good old John Cross from the Mirror, who is my new journalistic hero, went to print again to say that Southampton still wanted the Premier League to investigate and the most interesting part of that was that apparently, other clubs were lining up behind Saints to give Liverpool a kicking.

Then of course, all the dodgy deeds of the past came falling out of the woodwork to remind everyone what a scummy operation Liverpool is.  The near identical tactics to try and sign Clint Dempsey from Fulham a few years ago – tap up, get reported, apologise.   They are like the football equivalent of Katie Hopkins who has a modus operandii of ‘Tweet a load of shit, delete it once everyone’s read it and then apologise’.  Liverpool only apologise when they get caught.  So, get your popcorn and watch this space.

The investigation into Liverpool transfer dealings should absolutely still take place.  No way should this be brushed under the carpet.  The player has been unsettled and that is specifically what the rules are supposed to prevent. Saints now have to deal with, unhappy player who has responded in textbook fashion by changing his Twitter bio in removing a picture of him in a Saints shirt and replacing it with one in a Holland shirt and changing the sentence ‘professional player with Southampton FC’ to ‘professional player’. We also have to deal with the fact that our captain, whilst he has been injured and getting fit again, has being fucking off to meet Juergen Klopp to try and try and arrange a transfer for himself. So, in short, he's acting like a right wanker and so there are bridges to be built there.

Where it leaves us with Virgil is anyone's guess – he could still leave for elsewhere but we have to applaud the board for standing firm and striking a blow for the little guy.   Another sale to Liverpool would have been too much and I think that they knew that.  Virgil changing agent in the middle of last season to the Wasserman Group (I think they’re called) was always going to make things more difficult for Saints and their role in all this is an interesting angle as well.  Maybe he’ll throw them under a bus and that could be a way to repair any damage done.

I really hope that the Premier League throw the book at Liverpool and they get something like being banned from making any transfers for the next three transfer windows. It would serve the bastards right. The arrogance of Liverpool and in particular, Juergen Klopp staggering. He is an over-hyped bang average manager who in four attempts against us last year, in a year when we really weren’t very good, couldn't even get his team to score one fucking goal.  The irony is that we are probably getting rid of our manager because we weren’t very good at scoring goals.  It's unbelievable that Klopp had these meetings and messages with Virgil in the first place. He knows the rules but the arrogant fucker obviously didn't think they applied to him. Yes they fucking do, dickhead.  Hopefully the ‘Klopp effect’ will mean that they can’t sign anyone for a while. 

The LFC Media is interesting to read.  The ‘proper’ papers like the Liverpool Echo are up in arms at their incompetence and really fearful of the consequences and incredulous at what Liverpool had done which is bad enough to trigger the complaint and subsequent embarrassing grovelling apology.  Of course, the media that poses as pseudo-official is still talking in delusional tones about how they could still sign him.  Are they for real?  The tone of the Liverpool fans on Twitter has somewhat changed – some directing anger at their owners, some at Saints obviously because we should just roll over and let him join a bigger club but strangely, none directed at their manager.  Having to issue an apology (apparently Saints insisted on it being public) is crushingly embarrassing but on it’s own it’s not enough.  They’ve done that before.  Katie Hopkins is still using the same tactics.

Let us not kid ourselves that tapping up doesn't go on, of course it does but Liverpool have obviously crossed the line here in their absolute desperation to get back to where they used to be. Saints will have known that Liverpool were talking to him – anyone who thinks otherwise is delusional.  Whatever happens now, the constant procession of transfers from Southampton to Liverpool is over for a long time and they are going to have to be squeaky clean with every transfer deal they do from now on because if any selling club suspects anything, they are going to be straight in touch with the Premier League.  Ironically, there will probably be a massive rush for Liverpool to get other deals over the line before they get a transfer ban.  Make it happen Premier League.

Summer as a Saints fan – never a dull moment – and the transfer window isn’t even open yet.

In case you were wondering, Phil McNulty, Senior BBC Sports Writer, is still not returning my calls.

If Liverpool Was a Person