St Neel

Boring 1st half, yes - but even then we had the best chances to score. Never looked back after taking the lead. Everyone played well, but i think davis and redmond played really well. And both centre backs were awesome. We are playing much better technically with puel when compared with koeman, and starting to see the good results as well. Happy days

The Op might be right, but this analysis is just selective in favour of his own conclusion. There are mote than 5 reasons why teams whiich cost less can beat more expensive teams, for starters

I think the Southampton Way is in excellent health. its not just the academy - its also about signing good young players like Mane, Wanyama, and Schneiderlin (and most likely Van Dijk and Forster, and hopefully Boufal and Hojbjerg), giving them a platform to do well in, and selling on to bigger clubs once they have proved themselves in the premier league. As the article says. Yes, there are fewer academy graduates coming through to the 1st team - but you are never going to bring 2 or 3 new players into a top half premier league side every year. But there are graduates are going out on loan to Championship and L1 clubs, which is excellent. A very good article IMO

Is that to stop him trying to take players with him?

This reads to me to be the same as how we played under Koeman. Not surprising given they are both dutch

We werent too great in the 1st half today, but fell apart completley after half time again. No cohesion to our play at all. Even if VW hadnt got himself sent off, I doubt very much whether we would have scored.

Not seen a thread on this before so apologies if discussed before. It seems to me that saints are playing in a very similar style to man u. Possion football, pushing up on the wings. Very organised but with very little movement apart from the wing players. Very boring to watch imo

still would say the 13/ 14 team was better, even assuming: Cedric can learn how to defend. Van Dijk signs and is any good Fonte can step up if Van Dijk isnt any good Clasie ever handles the premier league Romeu? really? Tadic discovers his form from 1st 3 months of last season Negative I know but thats a lots of assumptions right there

Lets Compare: 27/8/15 v FC Midtjylland : Steckenburg - Caulker - Fonte - Yoshida - Romeu - Martina - JWP - Davis - Targett - Pelle - J-Rod to arguably our best team in the 2013/2014 season: Boruc - Clyne - Shaw - Lovren - Fonte - Davis- Schneiderlin - Wanyama - Lambert - J-Rod- Lallana Which is the better side, would you say? Does the "showcase club" strategy look like its improving the team? Looks very much like the poor bedwetters from summer 2013 were, actually... correct? We had a great start to the season last year, but the teams performance has steadily declined since then, as more and more quality has left. Replacements, bar the the odd exception (Alderwiereld on loan, Bertrand, Mane) have not been been good enough. The Club Board have been as self-indulgent and cocky as the ******s on here who dont criticise the club because (supposedly) they are the true, hard core fans..

Where are the Snowdon's of yesteryear?

The Outer Hebrides seem to be mainly populated by Leicester City fans. That's odd.

It is wierdly quiet. Hopefully this means we're getting business done quietly without agents using our interest to drum up more interest. Clasie was hardly mentioned earlier this summer, i was beginning to think we were no longer interested. Thenwe sold morgan and signed clasie a couple of days later.

Feyenoord are going to pummel us. And I wouldn't begrudge them either

mane and fonte copying pelle's party trick!

Reed has looked pretty good so far