Can we please stop over egging this Top 8 finish they finished 8 pts behind 7th & 13 pts behind 6th, they were not challenging for higher but holding themselves ahead of the "rest of the Premier League".
6pts less would've made them 9th, 8 pts less would've meant 10th. Would we then have been saying "Oh he got a newly promoted team to a Top 10 finish" and hailing him as a top manager. To me he got an average team to an average position against the rest of the average teams like Stoke and Saudi Sportswashing Machine. We don't need that we need a top manager not Mr Average.
Nobody is over-egging it. You're being ridiculous now. Yes, if he finished 10th it wouldn't be as impressive, what's your point? He didn't finish 10th, he finished 8th and finished comfortably 8th at that. They were never realistically going to challenge the top 7 clubs were they? You're saying "oh GHod they finished 8 points behind 7th how average". 7th placed club was Man friggin Utd, I mean jesus, this is SOUTHAMPTON we're talking about here. They finished 8 points behind Man Utd! The top 7 are clearly ahead of the rest, there is a significant gap in quality of squad.
However, I would say at the start of the season, there were a load of teams that most people would say have a better squad that Southampton on paper. Swansea had bought Bony and already had a good team, full of promising young players and established Premiership players and a potentially lethal attack. Saudi Sportswashing Machine have a squad full of French and African internationals, much better than Southampton on paper, especially before Cabaye left. Sunderland had spent heavily and they had Italian internationals, Jose Altidore, who was very highly rated in Spain, Adam Johnson, who is very talented. They bought loads of players in the summer. Norwich spent very heavily and bought some very highly rated players like Van Wolfswinkel, Stoke had an established squad, full of talent, like Crouch. The fact that people now regard Lambert as a better player than Crouch, is probably mostly down to Pochettino IMO. At the start of the season I don't see everyone seeing Southampton finishing above Saudi Sportswashing Machine, Swansea and well a lot of the clubs they finished above. People are just using hindsight and the impression Southampton have all these quality players. They weren't that good before Pochettino took over. He made them that good.
I'll finish off by saying that you think we need a top manager, not Mr average. Well wake up sonshine, a top manager is not going to come here as we saw with Van Gaal, they will always get a better offer. The talk of Ancelotti is laughable.
I'm not even sure Benitez is that realistic, even though I don't want him.
Honestly like we find with players, we are not in the market for top ready-made trophy machines. We need to get the next up-and-comer on the way up like Liverpool did with Rogers and Everton did with Martinez.