Southampton Fan here, just want to echo what ImpSaint has said. From the ITK's on both forums it seems this will be wrapped up soon. Whilst I would prefer things not to be up in the air every summer, I am not unhappy with this turn of events. I think he is a good manager, a success but a qualified one and not without concerns. I think our board was hoping to meet with him and try to align strategically and commit to the next few years but this was always unlikely in my opinion so I'm not surprised that this is seemingly happening.
We knew he'd leave soon, the surprise is that he's not leaving for a team that competes for titles and is an established Champions league club, which is the market he sees himself in (not necessarily where I see him) and with all due respect, you are not nor likely to be in that category anytime soon, regardless of your new investment. Not impossible, just not likely. Regardless of historical size, fanbase or trophy cabinet, you'll be shopping in a similar market to us at the moment and likely will be for the duration of Koeman's tenure. We expected him to leave for a Barcelona or Arsenal next season, a step up in terms of purchasing power and competitiveness. I think that is where the confusion is coming into play regards club size. We know you're bigger than us with a proud tradition but you're not as big as the elite clique he wants to be a part of and you are under performing even relative to your reduced stature in comparison to the teams mentioned. We are not surprised he is leaving, we're not surprised that you are seen as a draw above us (aside from the last two seasons), we just didn't think he in particular would use another stepping stone to get where he wants to be. I'm not even convinced he's good enough to get to that level but time will tell, I do think he will improve you and get you highly organised.
What ImpSaint has said is right, our ITK's have been stating since the middle of the season that our board and Koeman aren't entirely aligned strategically. It is rumored that his failure to integrate youth into the squad, his adoption of a different playing style from the philosophy of the club coupled with long spells of terrible form (counterbalanced by long periods of excellent form) has caused concerns at board level but these are qualifications to what is considered overall as a successful spell in charge. We are very happy with our league position but whilst there is a feeling of being pleased with league performance, there is a feeling throughout the club that he failed on most of our internal metrics and that there is room for more cohesion between the manager and the board, more aligned strategically and yes, greedily we even think we could have done a little better this season. That may come as a surprise to people outside and look like we have ideas above our station but there were long periods of times last season where we simply hopeless.
Our issues are that as has been stated, we plan and monitor everything to miniscule detail, we play variations of 4231, 433 possession based football from the top to bottom of our club, all of our recruitment and development of youth strategies are based around implementation of that philosophy at first team level. To see Koeman shoe horning players into 352 for large parts of the season, not using youth, playing players in different positions to those they were carefully recruited to play in (and largely under performing in those positions until restored to their correct positions) playing large parts of the season in a low block playing long ball and publicly undermining our youth players (he said publicly that he was unimpressed with them) has caused concern at board level as it undermines all the other work done by hundreds of people at the club. The owners did not spend tens of millions on infrastructure, employ leagues of analysts and scouts to sift through performance data and videos, target players to suit our system and backroom staff implementing years of development plans for Koeman to play a different system, stick Bertrand at centre back, put Long out on the wing, hand over possession week in week out, sit deep and punt it to Pelle week in week out.
That said, these concerns have to be balanced by the fact that since Christmas we have been 2nd behind Leicester in the form guide. We have beaten our club record Premier League points tally twice in a row under him, beaten every team in the PL during his reign, played some excellent football for sustained periods of time and been very stable defensively throughout, something that I imagine you will be particularly glad to hear at the moment. He is excellent at PR, has a global profile, gives frank interviews and is a personable character, it is quite hard not to like him, I think you will improve a lot under him but that's not hard as you are under performing at the moment. I think he is a good fit for the club and we have a challenge to replace him.
Whilst Koeman knows how to organise a defense, it did come with a cost, we have been turgid for periods of months under him, really dour. Have gone on 2 horrible runs with him, the second one last winter (9 defeats in 11) where he was lucky not to get sacked. We were frankly quite route one at times, not that there is anything wrong with that when it is effective. However when you go on bad runs such as we did there is the feeling that all that long term building is being cast aside for short term percentages for the sake of the managers ego. Tactically, Koeman plays cat and mouse which on the whole is a strength I think, he adapts to his opponents, exploits their weaknesses. This shows a lot of tactical flexibility but at the expense of you ever really feeling that the team has an identity or defined style. You always feel you are in a game with him but conversely, the opponents often feel the same. He has not been strong with youth but in his defense he is a pragmatist, he wants to win today and our current crop is not its strongest due to depletion from sales and the fact that this is our intake from our period of financial decline and administration. Still, we do have players like Reed, Ward-Prowse and Targett who had a right to expect to be more involved and to have been developed which they have not under his guidance. This is not Koeman's way. He has stated publicly in open defiance of our management that he 'does not do projects' he is only focused on the next game. I think the reality is that he is an ambitious man, he wants to get to an established Champions league club (its often reported hes after the Barcelona Job due to his connections there) and he isn't going to waste his time getting more out of players with potential at Southampton nor do I suspect he will at Everton in his pursuit of getting there.
My opinion for what its worth is that I think you are getting a good manager, one whom will almost certainly improve you by a good percentage but for whom you are overpaying for the returns that his record and our experience suggests you are likely to get from him. A manager who is pragmatic and reactive to opponents rather than one who asserts his philosophy upon other teams but whom is tactically able to outwit any team in the league over the last 2 seasons. Still, he is not a manager who you feel improves players as individuals or whom highly motivates them to play at or beyond their capacities. That said, he has trophies in the cabinet as a manager, admittedly mainly in weaker leagues. We are not as fit as we used to be but then players don't need to be to implement his style as it is based on being compact rather than pressing or exerting pressure. He is not a training ground coach, rather an overseer who lets his team do the work, he knows the game very well, remains calm and can tactically outwit anyone but can also infuriate with tinkering and often gets his experiments wrong, though he will admit it and alter tactics quickly when he does so.
From our perspective, we would have preferred continuity and to get Koeman to align more to our long term strategy but we will be pleased that you are paying for our next manager upfront in compensation fees, a manager we were considering firing 5 months ago and at this moment in time we will be intending for this to be spent on an upgrade on Koeman. That is our plan, for you to pay to improve us and for you to be weaker relatively in that position whilst giving us the money to enable that outcome. It's what we've been doing so far and how we've managed to make gains on the traditional top teams but there are no guarantees, if it doesn't work and we replace him with someone with inferior abilities (as is perfectly possible and one day that will happen by the law of averages) then it will be bad for us and we will have handed over our hard won gains for our ideology. It will be interesting, it wont be names for the sake of names, it will be records based on the clubs internal metrics. Very interesting times for both you and us I think.
Still, that is all logic and as Leicester have shown, anything can happen. Its going to be such a good season, some of the best managers in the world are coming here, the lure of England is getting so strong that even the Championship has two champions league winning managers in it next year, crazy. I think with all the money going around, the playing field becomes more even as even traditionally smaller teams can invest heavily plus who knows how the leicester effect will impact teams goals next season, we are all going to have to run just to stand still and it could be one of the most competitive seasons yet. Can't wait for it to get started.
