Saints ditched sinners
The truth is growing clearer by the week. It was not, as everyone was led to believe, their crown jewels that Southampton cashed in on last summer.
No, the south coast club were shifting out the dead wood instead.
Rickie Lambert and Adam Lallana, it turns out, were the sort of fringe players which Liverpool required to supplement their squad for away days at the little grounds. Places like the Bernabeu, etc.
Calum Chambers went to Arsenal, gets booked most weeks and is given the runaround by Ecuadorian wingers in Wales.
And the former manager Mauricio Pochettino? Well, that is a laugh! He has been a right shambles in his new post at White Hart Lane.
No wonder Ronald Koeman, Pochettino’s successor, appeared so smug when he tweeted a picture of himself looking like the King of Southampton on Sunday.
While the rest of us were reading a different script in the summer, he obviously got the right memo.
Pellegrini’s halo slips
It was Harry Redknapp who once, saliently, observed how the pressure of Premier League management turns even the most urbane types into rabid loons.
Citing the case of Arsene Wenger and his dwindling fortunes as Arsenal manager, Redknapp suggested the “professor” had turned in to one of the nutters.
“In fact, he is one of the key nutters,” the former Tottenham Hotspur manager said of Wenger in 2010.
It happens to the best of them, apparently. Manuel Pellegrini was acclaimed by banners at the Etihad Stadium as “This Charming Man” when he delivered a Premier League title in his first season with Manchester City. He was uber-cool, and uber-successful.
And now? A few defeats and a draw at Redknapp’s Queens Park Rangers later, and Pellegrini is even getting into unsightly scraps with Sam Allardyce, the West Ham United manager and a recent critic.
“When you are a manager and win you have all the solutions,” Pellegrini said.
“The same manager, we last year scored 14 goals [against in four games] and he didn’t have the solution.” So there.
Doing the Pard yards
“The fans were revolting.” Alan Pardew’s review of Newcastle United’s supporters was not the most sympathetic, but then, hey, he had probably been called a lot worse.
Five wins in five, and the search Pardew has dialled in to his sat-nav has changed from “dole office” to “Europe”. Somehow.
Mike Ashley, the Newcastle owner, has received qualified praise – as well as the gratitude of Pardew himself – for sticking with his manager through thin and thinner.
Forget about the fact Ashley probably had not noticed what was going on at his basement-dwelling primary club as he was focused on a takeover of Glasgow Rangers for much of that time.
Maybe the change in fortunes has set an example suggesting managers should be given more time in a business that often appears to have ADHD.
That said, whatever happens next, the impression persists that Pardew will only ever be two defeats away from a crisis.
pradley@thenational.ae
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