Southampton should fire Ronald Koeman over Chelsea comments
Southampton manager Ronald Koeman openly lobbied for the Chelsea job on Dutch radio
Ronald Koeman is very lucky that I’m not in charge of Southampton at the moment. If I were, he would be unemployed.
Koeman had the audacity to openly express interest in the Chelsea job on Dutch radio. The Mirror reports that Koeman hopes his countryman, interim Chelsea boss Guus Hiddink, will put a good word in word for him with Roman Abramovich. Even if Koeman does have his eye on the Chelsea job, expressing his desires publicly should be grounds for immediate dismissal.
Don’t forget, this is the same manager who has been highly critical of his players having their heads turned by bigger clubs as of late. You can be certain that if Saido Mane or Victor Wanyama went on an English radio program and expressed their desire for a Chelsea move he would be livid. It’s really an amazing double standard.
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It’s also not as if Koeman has the Saints firing on all cylinders at the moment either. He has the Saints sitting tenth in the Premier League which certainly isn’t punching about the club’s weight. Perhaps he should spend more time focusing on his job at the South Coast rather than worrying about Chelsea.
How can Koeman realistically expect his players or the higher-ups at the club to trust him after these comments? He’s clearly not invested in the Southampton project long-term so it will be easy for his players to tune him out. When he opened his mouth to talk about Chelsea he lost the entire dressing room.
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That’s why Southampton should draw a line in the sand and dismiss Koeman immediately. To let him stay is telling their players that it’s ok to use their club as a stepping stone. While that might often be the financial reality at Southampton, it’s not a philosophy that the club can embrace.
Southampton deserve to have a manager who is focused on the task at hand. They have a big enough budget and enough talent on the squad to compete with anyone in the Premier League. They might not be in position to challenge for a title, but they should be aiming to break into the top eight consistently. They even have enough ammunition to break into the top four if things break right.
Managers like Ronald Koeman repeatedly demand blind loyalty from their players when it comes to interest from other clubs. His comments about the potential Chelsea opening make it exceedingly hypocritical of him to ask that any longer. He’s lost the Southampton locker room and now he should lose his job as well.