Fans hit out at Puel's tactics after Saints' dismal Europa League exit

Concerned supporters have hit out at the Saints boss in online postings to the Daily Echo website and on social media.

There have even been calls for Puel to be sacked after the club failed to qualify for the knockout stages.

Here are a selection of the many posts at dailyecho.co.uk ...

SaintBobby: We all know that Saints should have qualified for this group, even with the weakened team we have this season. We have not scored the goals, and that is because we do not have enough players who can score goals.

However, what is different this year is obvious. A new manager may have lost some of the big guns, but he changed our style and has rotated the team religiously.

I do not profess to be a big football brain, but I reckon that most can see this has not worked. So now I am concerned about our PL programme. Because we do not score goals, players again might leave and then how is all this affecting the confidence of the team.

Dave74: Once again, long periods of possession, dominant football, no goals.

A good strike from the opposition - game over. Not one of their players were better than ours, they just managed to capitalize on their single chance.

We crossed the ball countless times with no height in the box, no strong shots from outside the box, their keeper was rarely tested.

We won every 'second ball', passed and passed but delivered nothing. Had we got the 0-0 draw we would've said it was a solid performance.

mike saint: Time for Puel to go. He has no idea of team selection and watching Saints under him is boring.

Saintsfan76: Puel has plenty of experience in Europe and if we had won tonight the fans calling for his head would be singing a different tune. Lessons will have been learnt tonight and the players will be feeling it just as much as the fans. But i am sure we will back. Its easy to forget sometimes how low we have been in recent years after all.

StaffsSaint: I didn't think it could get worse than Saturdays result, oh yes it does. This game, opposition have 1 shot on target, score. Away to Sparta and Inter, same thing as I recall.

The slow build up is causing us grief. We need to get back to 4-2-3-1, move or drop Redmond, and press again. Embarrassing.

kivetonsaint: Absolute rubbish, I'm not one to complain about the manager but something's not right. Why didn't Fonte play - are we preventing him from being cup tied? For the first time in recent history we are going backwards. Why is it that Redmond plays every game.

Nunner: How can you go into a vital home game with the sound of 0-0 ringing in your ears to get through. Think Puel has taken rotation to another level. Now the Europa has gone we will see how good his coaching and management is.....or isn't.

In 48 years nothing had changed for me...we can beat anyone on any day but we can't beat anyone when we really need to.

forlorn: Puel must be sacked. His idiotic defensive mentality cost us this match and our previous drawn encounter with the Israelis. Under Puel Saints seem to be incapable of launching a credible attack, even against minnows like Sheva who we should have hammered with ease. Instead Saints played a high-risk strategy going for a goalless draw and came royally unstuck when Sheva scored with what was probably their only shot on target. This was a gutless, disgraceful strategy by Puel and demonstrates beyond dispute that he is not the man to be managing a forward-looking club like Saints.

Saints fans also took to the Echo's Facebook page to vent their anger.

Robert Kenny: As expected a Puel team looking clueless and tactically inept. Please go, Puel, you are not wanted here.

Richie Bates: Absolutely furious,. Another pathetic Saints performance...one shot on target (like Inter and Prague). Awful. Sell all the best players to our rivals. Then alienate the managers. Genius.

Simon Mandy Austin: problem is puel has come in and completely changed the system and the way we play, its just not working. The koeman system last season and the one before worked so well, why fix something that isnt broken? the system wont work unless we have a big tall striker who can play at the top of it, need to sign one so badly in january.

Ian Blunden: It's no longer shocking, it's now becoming normal. Good ole Les needs to stop the spiral. That might mean he has to spend more money than he receives, God forbid!!!

Nathan Brown: Disappointing, but the fact is we are a selling club, we will never achieve anything higher than a Europa league spot unless things change behind the scenes.

Tom Browna Brown: No decent striker = no goals = no wins = big problems, poor Europa challenge, especially away from home.

Stuart Clarke: Lost for words absolutely clueless.. never known a saints team not to score goals... awful Lars-Åke Nilsson: We must save our place in Premier League now. But who can score?

James Witt: Should never have loaned out (Sam) Gallagher, it's madness we have one proper striker in the squad.