Pearson Out, Poortvliet

It looks like Nigel Pearson got a big "thank you for saving us from relegation" today in the form of being shown the door. Southampton announced that they will not renew Nigel Pearson's short term contract that comes due in a month. Instead they will be bringing in Jan Poortvliet. Who? I was wondering the same. Poortvliet's CV has clubs like Den Bosch, Roosendaal and Stormvogels Telstar. Seeing a new gaffer in charge who's biggest club managed is Southampton isn't exactly the sort of thing to get the fans excited.

The Ugly Inside, a Southampton Saints online fanzine, has more on the appointment of Poortvliet at their website.

Another Tie For Saints

It's the same old story with Southampton yesterday. Again they played well under Nigel Pearson . But the defense again let the team down allowing Blackpool to score twice in five minutes early in the 2nd half. Luckily for Southampton Stern John equalized in the 63, raising his goal total to 15 in league play.

The real problem for the Saints isn't that they haven't won a game in their last 10. Southampton's defense has returned to the form they had earlier this year of letting in goals. They have had a shutout since Jan 12th. As much as many Saints fans seems a bit happy, or at least relieved, that George Burley left to take the Scotland job, the change in managerial positions (Burley -> Dodd/Gorman -> Pearson) has done nothing in the way of getting the back line to tighten up. The Pearson era has ushered in 8 goals in 5 games. That isn't much worse than how Saints have done at most other times this season. Nevertheless, it's not the sort of issue a team wants to have going into a relegation fight.

On another note, I ran across a nice new blog my Mike Whalley to follow : http://mikewhalley.wordpress.com/

Saints New Manager - Nigel Pearson

As a Saints fan it's good to see the club putting to an end the ill-advised Dodd & Gorman managerial partnership. I'm sure it was meant to be temporary but with all the forewarning they had of Burley's departure, they didn't seem to be making much of any progress on replacing him. There was a lot of speculation lately that they wouldn't be filling the role until this summer. Maybe it was due to their mad search for a new investor; maybe it was just hoping that things would magically get better. With the team winless in league play since D & G took charge, it seems the suits felt pressured to make a move.

And they did for.....

...Nigel Pearson. That's right, the business minds at Southampton decided that instead of spending time find a permanent gaffer to guide the squad they'd replace their temps with a temp. Pearson is on a rolling contract. Now if there's ever a sign of a manager desperate for a team and a team uncommitted to a manager this is a painfully obvious one.

So why did the Saints sign a guy like this? And at that with little commitment on the part of either party? Are they really that desperate?