New chairman Ralph Krueger hasn’t taken long to get his feet under the table when it comes to dealing with the press and the inevitable questions he was going to be facing in his first real interview since taking charge at the club.
Mauricio Pochettino, Liebherr to sell, and players out the door were the obvious ones, and the media didn’t disappoint.
Neither did Krueger.
Zero Intention To Sell The Club
‘I wouldn’t be sitting here with a one month vision, that wouldn’t work, because I’ve really done things always with long term vision. Anything I’ve thrown myself into I don’t believe is a short kind of stint.’
Speaking more about our owner and giving his insights into her love of the club and the way she’s been energised by taking on a greater role of late, he added.
‘She cares, she has always cared, and this has always been a special organisation. She really cares about what happens here and she is very conscious of every single word that is being communicated. The warmth with which she has been received here has been a beautiful thing to watch, because that was an unknown and the people of Southampton, the fanbase, they just get it. They totally get it, and that was amazing to witness, because there was no campaign behind it or no public relations track that she was on.’
There has always been an uncertainty about Katharina and certainly not helped by all the endless press mongering of selling the club and selling our stars, but he says she decided to take a quiet position ‘less is more’ in effect and just let things evolve ‘naturally and organically’ and she’s more than delighted with how people have taken to her involvement now and she’s been enjoying it.
Again Krueger talks of already having had a few informal meetings with manager Mauricio Pochettino, but our new chairman certainly won’t be tempted into commenting on things he doesn’t want to reveal at this stage, saying.
‘I think I have been clear that my conversations with Mauricio have been positive and I would like to leave it like that today.’
Turning the conversation quickly back to previous words from him where he talked about understanding what our gaffer needed and that his role was to support him, not try and pick the team because that isn’t his domain.
‘I want him there (training ground) every single day without distractions. That is my job, to take away the distractions that can bring him or the team away from focusing on what really counts and that is playing to their potential.’
Krueger again references his experience in sport where the political implications can get in the way of the real job, and he sees his role as keeping that away from Poch and just letting him deal with what he does best.
As for whether those positive conversations have formed a healthy respect and potential friendship, he goes on to say that such has been the informal manner of their chats, they have occurred in the most unlikely of situations.
‘Mauricio and I had these conversations. We actually had a good trip to the England match against Denmark and it was great, the traffic was horrible. It took three hours to get there, three hours to get back. All the managers together in a van. Mauricio was basically sat on my lap because we had no space. Toni was stuck in the front because he was the biggest, but we have maybe had four or five situations like that that were very natural, not forced. I was able to feel the spirit of that management group running that team. There is a good leadership group there, strong, solid, good people but they are very talented.’
Also appears to tick the sense of humour box as well which will certainly bode well in our dealings with the press and with fans in the future.
As for players moving on as that is a keen topic of conversation, he maintains that we will be living within our means as a club and it’s only right we do that, but we will also be doing as much as we can to ensure we keep our top talent for as long as possible within that remit.
Again, the commercial room for growth that he talked about previously comes to the fore here again, as he talks about not taking short cuts to anything, and that applies financially to a quick sale to plug a gap, when it makes far more sense to maximise revenue streams to plug that gap without looking towards player sales in the future – which is something obviously the club have done in the past with the youth players we have seen move on.
‘That’s where the commercial growth comes in, so it’s a complicated answer because we need to work within our means. We will have a healthy organisation with no shortcuts. We are going to earn every single thing we do here, and we’re going to have to pay a price for that. You get nothing for free in this sport because if you’re doing things with shortcuts, that tree will fall over. Those roots are unhealthy, so we want to build strong roots, a strong foundation and then within that, we will do everything possible to retain the players as long as possible.’
Says everything and nothing at the same time really.
There are figures banded around for Luke Shaw for example that represent extremely good value, but that value is unlikely to diminish – if anything it will grow over the coming years with his expected development, so if we don’t need to sell then we can maximise that and retain his service for longer.
Then should a ridiculous offer come along, you can look at it in a different light, and that to me seems to be what he was driving towards.
Quotes – Daily Echo.
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