When Feyenoord lost not only Ronald Koeman but saw him take Pelle with him, the difference between how they behaved and how English fans do was marked.

When Ronald Koeman left Feyenoord there was no outpouring of hate from the Feyenoord fans only an appreciation of what he had done for their club and best wishes.

When he returned weeks later to take Graziano Pelle with him again there was no hatred towards the manager and accusations of raping the club, likewise with Pelle absolutely no vitriol from the supporters on social media only thanks and best wishes, indeed last season and even the friendly at Red Bull Salzburg saw Feyenoord fans come over to watch Saints and cheer on their ex manager and player, it seems as if Saints are the second team for every fan of the Rotterdam club at the moment.

Again with the news that Jordy Clasie will be joining his old manager at St Mary's was not greeted with uproar, just the thanks of the Feyenoord fans for his contribution to their clubs cause and more best wishes.

Contrast that with the way that a player or a manager leaving an English club is treated by the supporters who once worshipped them. OK sometimes a player leaves and does so with his reputation amongst the fans of his ex club intact, but that is the exception rather than the rule.

English fans seem to feel that players should be loyal to a club for the rest of their career, they cannot see why a player would want to move on to further his career, they see it as disloyalty of the highest order and it is almost as if once he has agreed a move a player has to get out of town before the lynch mob appears at his door.

In 2015 the lynch mob though is formed on twitter and it seems to turn ever drama into a crisis, turning normally sane fans into rabid frothing at the mouth madmen.

Of course a Saints we are no different and there seems to be no consistency as to what player should leave with our best wishes and which should not, Ok when someone like Dejan Lovren leaves after only a year that is understandable why the fans get upset, but Adam Lallana had given the club years of service yet he was still public enemy number 1 or perhaps 2.

Morgan Schneiderlin will leave with the fans or at least the bulk of the understanding why he is leaving, it still wouldnt help Morgan if he was on fire in Above Bar, he would find it difficult to find anyone willing to urinate on him to put it out, but he doesn't leave on bad terms, in truth the only real difference in the transfers of both Lapland and Schneiderlin is that the latter knew when to keep his mouth shut (or at last this summer he did)

So that is the difference between fans in Holland or at last Feyenoord who are known as the most passionate in their country and those in England, perhaps its the problem with the Premier League culture over here, but we see things differently, everything is "now" whereas in Holland they seem to see the big picture, they accept that players and managers do not stay for ever, they appreciate their contribution whilst they are there, but know that everything must at some time change and move on.

Perhaps its a culture we would do well to adopt over here

Photo: Action Images

warnfordcookie added 08:42 - Jul 14 Yes I agree Nick it is nice to see the great commentsabout Spider and parting on good terms and I hope there will be no animosity towards Toby when he returns or even Clyney, although he did string everyone along for quite a while, these are three players who contributed greatly to a wonderful season last season.Let's celebrate the good but remember that times move on. As a younger man I remember my devastation when Mick Channon joined Man city and even wrote to him asking why, got a reply too, much tresured. Some of the nastiness from "fans" of Liverhampton towards Sterling is sickening this is a still very young player who feels he's worthy of a new start. Good luck to all new signings everywhere, just hope ours prove to be the best! 'specially that Rodriguez forward we signed from Staplewood he looks the business!!

1

ItalianSharpey added 08:55 - Jul 14 I agree to some extent but it's always easier when one of your star player goes to play abroad and so you know you definately won't be facing them the following season . In the case of Morgan, i think that everyone could see that his quality and that he deserved to be playing in the champions league and as such to go and play for a massive team like united after having behaved himself and given everything for saints over 7 years, will never cause a big problem as shown by the comments on twitter and facebook etc. Players like Lallana, Lovren or clyne going to teams like Tottenham or Liverpool, whilst we all know in our hearts that they are bigger teams than saints and especially a team like tottenham has the added lure for the player of living in London, but i think that for fans like us of a team on the up like saints, it's hard to swallow to see these players jump ship when our objectives are very similar to the tottenhams and liverpools especially when they profess their desire to play at the highest level which is often not the case......and strangely enough with double the salary.

2

zitlig added 09:45 - Jul 14 I for one appreciate the shift Spider put in last season after being told he was going nowhere. Who says you can't keep a player who wants to go? Saying that if he'd gone to Spurs my voodoo doll would have come out of retirement.
1

IWOZTHERE added 09:57 - Jul 14 I think football is more tribal over here, with some supporters so obsessed with their own clubs that they are unable to think 'outside the box.' It's a bit like this forum, anyone who doesn't agree with their one dimensional ideas automatically becomes 'the enemy', a pompey fan, or even worse...a neggie! If they both play, It will be interesting to see if there's a difference in the 'welcomes' that Shaw and Schneiderlin get this coming season.

0

AndrewB added 10:15 - Jul 14 A lot of good points. On the subject of player loyalty one of our recent players is being overlooked. One of our recent players who showed great loyalty and did not get the playing time he deserved was Jack Cork , eventually moving in order to play. He was sold for a silly price and has not been replaced yet. We missed him in the latter stages of last season and Swansea cannot believe their good fortune. Best wishes to Jack.

2

BaselSaint added 10:45 - Jul 14 Morgan kept his head, knuckled down, increased his worth and was totally professional. I appreciate that. Good luck to him. Welcome Jordy Clasie.
1

GeordieSaint added 10:48 - Jul 14 Maybe if they had all gone to Ajax the Feyenord boys wouldn't have carried on supporting them?
3

SaintBrock added 10:51 - Jul 14 So what you're saying Nick is we should adopt the Scousers as our second club? Grateful if you could publish a train timetable and fare structure for next season so we can plan to get up to Anfield every other week.
2

SonicBoom added 10:52 - Jul 14 Easy to be magnanimous when your favourite sons leave for a foreign team......
4

Jesus_02 added 11:15 - Jul 14 With regard to the players that have followed him, I think the difference is 2 fold. Saints are paying above the market value and he is taking them out of the league all together. If he had left for Ajax or PSV and taken half the team I don’t the response would have been so favourable. I bear no ill will to any of the players that have left (yes even Lovren (he made us 14m and was just an average player!)) I am concerned that the club have dealt very badly so far this year and I don’t like the direction in which we are going at all. We have shown our hand as a selling club and that has seriously affected our ability to get top dollar and subsequently. Morgan was the second best player in his position (behind Mata) last year, is Sterling really worth £25m more? For 3 more goals out of 10 more appearances .. seriously?

2

saintsnutcase added 12:09 - Jul 14 Nick, we have now lost NINE first team players in about 12 months, all to teams around or above us in the Prem. And I do not think we have got good prices this window. Do you seriously think we can replace Schneiderlin for the amount we got for him? The fact is that we have lost all of the players from the Poch team that could play at a higher level. I am amazed that you think this is OK!

1

SanMarco added 12:26 - Jul 14 Its just a fact of life saintsnutcase. They all wanted to go and went. Its not 'ok' but the players have (nearly) all of the power. I think the atmosphere in football compared to what it was in my youth is conditioned by the endless possibilities for everyone to talk. In the 60s you rarely heard a player talk in the media. Maybe you got 2 minutes of Revie and Shankley at the end of MOTD. Now with all the media - players talk the whole time. They say what the fans want to hear (who wouldn't) and then when they leave they are upset that we took them seriously. Imagine if Lovren or Toby had have said: " I am delighted to be joining Saints but it is just a stepping stone and I plan to be off next year"...

1

SaintBrock added 12:50 - Jul 14 If you are in a job and there is no headroom you leave, right? Many Saints players clearly perceived this, as saintnutcase points out 9 of Pochettino's team did a runner for that reason. So why? Did they have more faith in Nic Cortese than Katharina Liebherr when it came to ambition and drive for the champions league? Makes you wonder. If Ryan and Jay have good seasons and even JWP will they too flag up their ambitions on social media to be at a bigger club followed by yet another exodus next season? About five or six years ago on a different website forum I suggested that fans should stop all the in-fighting and blood-letting and hand wringing about players leaving and our future because at the end of the day the only people left in St Mary's in 5 years time would be US, the loyal, ever suffering fans. And so it will be again in 2020 when none of the characters in this multi-Act Comedy will be around this neck of the woods. We are the should of the Club, the others are money laundering.

1

SaintBrock added 12:52 - Jul 14 SOUL of the Club
2

BoondockSaint added 13:51 - Jul 14 So Feyenoord supporters should just be happy with their lot and be our feeder team? Maybe they should start buying our gear to give us more money to by their players? Should we cheer for our ex-players to score against us? Be happy when they climb higher in the table? After all, we're just the Saints, how dare we want to be successful! Should we change our name to the Cuckolds? IWOZTHERE-all sports, everywhere, are tribal-it's the whole point! And I would strongly disagree about this site-if there is disagreement, it's always civil with a bit of bantering, but no abuse. Our main weapon is sarcasm. (See above)

1

10i added 14:06 - Jul 14 A pretty bad article... People in countries like the Netherlands and e.g. Austria know that their players will move on to bigger leagues. And they appreciate if they make some steps forward in their careers. Especially if they gave some years of their service, like what is happening here to Morgan now. But it is totally different if they change clubs within the country. Players that e.g. leave Rapid Vienna for RB Salzburg, though RB are champions year in, year out, they are absolutely hated, like it would be for Feyenord if they all had left for PSV or Ajax. But if they leave Rapid for Germany or England there is no problem... For some time RB Salzburg was the exception as they played great in Europe. So even Mane was hated for being there just for a short time and then leaving for Southampton which last year was not considered a step forward by their fans (just financially) - though it of course was.

2

Blogs 32 bloggers

Rochdale Polls