SonicBoom

Well I'm scratching my head. You tell me. Ward Prowse I guess but even he hasn't nailed down a place. Targett has played a few games but is very much the understudy. Who else? Reed hasn't progressed at all and bar a few appearances on the bench no one else has stepped up. We certainly haven't produced a Lallana type that comes from the academy and becomes a key player. And I can't see one pushing for a place now can you ?

I think Vectis is pretty much correct. The model is not the same as it was during the Cortese era. Academy products were a big part of the strategy but that is not sustainable in the top 10 of the premier league. We aren't going to produce many players who can go from the development squad playing U23 games - to the first team. It's too big a gap. In fact you can see this from the current team. No academy players have made it in the last two or three years since we rejoined the prem. St Fen, I don't think Vectis was complaining or saying we should have kept Wanyama etc. On the contrary. As we became more successful the model changed to rely less on bringing thourgh 2-3 academy players each year to selling high and buying lower. If academy players happen to make it then that's a bonus but we are not reliant on that happening anymore.

I always had a theory that if your striker isn't scoring I would park him in front of goal between the six yard line and the penalty spot (from where he will finish 9 out of ten) and get the younger lads to cross balls in to him one after the other. He just nods, volleys or hammers them in. If he does that in training then when on the pitch he will be used to hitting the net he won't overthink it. form is largely a mental thing providing you are fit and it requires a simple change of thinking for things to flow again. Anyway its just an idea..

No, no go on. Dont listen to them. You carry on. This sounds really interesting. Again.

Oh Ok. I still think there's rules though. My friend lives in Totton and his lad was at the Chelsea academy for a few years. I thought the player had to live within an hour of the ground or something but then the bigger clubs began to entice kids by offering flats etc near the training ground to the parents to get around it. The point still stands though. Your scouts will recruit kids that reflect the areas they live in surely.

I don't know if this is valid but aren't we restricted in our academy recruitment by location? I thought we could only recruit within a certain geographical area. I assume other clubs have similar restrictions. Therefore (in general terms) a team like Spurs will see far more black kids playing football in their local areas than Saints would. Harringay for example has a large black community. If a club is in an area with more black communities, then they are going to see and recruit more black kids than a team like Saints who have less black communities locally. No?

We seem to overlook the fact he's still only 21. Redmond has joined and I've seen many a post saying that Redmond has great potential and has plenty of time to develop into a really good player. Yet for some reason we don't give our own the same leeway. The England set up obviously rate him and make him captain. The club obviously rate him and he gets game time. I wish our fans would cut him some slack, he's still a very young player and despite his experience he can still improve. Would you rather we sold him at 21 only to see him flourish elsewhere and turn into a 30 million pound player?

If their system actually does make all these huge returns then why offer it as a service to others? Why not just do it yourself? I guess it's because whether you win or lose, they make money anyway - which they consider to be a better business model than what they are trying to sell to you.

To me there is something unpleasant about sports teams being "sponsored" (in reality being given money to say nice things about the service) by any sort of betting company. It means Saints are tacitly approving it and encouraging their fans to gamble. Saints are therefore guaranteed a return from their dealings with the company, the rest of us, not so much....

Seems a decent and thought through post whether you agree or not. My opinion would be that as a rule we are always going to lose an established player and replace them with someone "with potential". If we were going to replace like for like then we would be paying the same 35 million as we got for Mane, and would those players come to us? Not sure. It's very difficult to compare the new player with the old as they tend to be at different stages of their career. We won't get every one right either, but in the last few years we got enough right to make progress. Finally I'm really keen to see Boufal. He appears to be one of the most exciting signings we have made for years and I really hope the lad can develop well with us.

Good points although I don't know why we simply accept as some sort of perceived wisdom that "it takes time". Does it? Really? The players already know how to pass, trap the ball and move into space. So with a new system they simply need to follow instructions. It's really not rocket science. Was it Shankly that said football is a simple game complicated by idiots. Not only that, we must have been working on this since Puel arrived and we've played quite a few games now. I'm not saying it happens overnight but let's not just assume that the penny will drop at some mythical point in the future. It's just a change in the players position on the pitch. We are not asking them to perform brain surgery wearing boxing gloves.

I bet we use it as part of our sales pitch to potential players. We just show them the roll call of players that have passed through the club. It's a pretty impressive list. Compare it with other clubs of our stature and it's even more impressive.

Tadic is going to be quite annoyed as he just signed a new deal. He won't have expected to be straight on the bench!

It makes you wonder how the medical is done with a player that is injured as we obviously can't put him through his paces completely. I read that he is approaching fitness again though.

Although Sky say we're still 6 m away from an agreement with Lille. I hope they get it done. I really like the look of the lad. Seems to have great feet and genuinely exciting to watch. Only 22 so will improve but looks a real prospect. Only downside seems to be his injury but he's young enough to recover and I guess our medical team know exactly what to look for. Oh and he dives a bit but I'm sure he'd change that once he's in the PL.

Well he looked pretty handy in that clip. We don't seem to have anyone with a real trick in their bag anymore. The last one was Lallana and he only had the one turn.

There are also comments in the press that Everton have been talking to Ghazzal for the last two weeks at Lyon but haven't secured a deal yet.

Twitter report that Watford have bid 15 mill euros for Boufal......

Rashford won't be coming here. He's the new golden boy and Man u have plenty of games to play. Zlatan is 34 and whatever shape he's in he won't play every game, Rashford will get his chance there.

I wouldn't like to see him leave but like all fans i have a very short memory. If we let him go for let's say 10-14 million I would feel slightly better. If we then have replacement lined up in the mould of Toby or a VVD then I'm pretty sure we would get over it.

Keep him! Anyone we've bought before this season now looks a bargain as the money has gone mad. Clasie would probably cost us 20 mill if we were after him this season.

Or Fonte is angling for more money or a longer contract. Mendes asks Jose Mourinho if it's OK if he starts some rumours of united interest. Mourinho agrees as it won't cost him anything, he promises not to deny it too quickly so Saints are pressured into giving Fonte more money. It also unsettles Saints days before they play United. Possibly.

A lot of fans think it's just us that let's players go. It isn't. Over the last few years we have just been the best at taking kids or younger players for reasonable money and turning them into 20 -30 million pound players. They then go on up the line. OK Clyne and VW were different as we didn't get the full value due to their contract situation - which they wouldn't sign. Other teams like Stoke, Palace, West Ham etc haven't sold players like that, because frankly they never had any. Had the top 5 clubs come in for any of their players then they would have gone the same way ours did.

The funny thing is in modern day football you can put all these plans in place to have a structured financial future, then out of the blue an obscure royal family, some megalomaniac oligarch or even an entire country, pops up and buys the club. All those carefully laid plans are then ripped up. The way it is going right now that is entirely possible. In fact I would be prepared to bet that within the next ten years that happens to us. Money is coming in at the top end but there are only so many United's and City's. Then if you want a club you move to the next tier, so we are starting to see the Chinese buy teams like West Brom and even Wolves. Traditionally a clubs stature and financial size was largely dictated by the size of city they came from. To an extent it still is. But that could change. The global nature of the game now means that benefactor could decide he wants Leicester to compete with Barcelona and some have the money to really make that happen. For all the doom and gloom of what will happen when those guys suddenly decide to pull out of a club I don't think that has ever actually happened. Even Kat has now admitted to having the bug.

Talking of the U23's I saw the Liverpool game and noticed Ings was upfront for them. Wonder what the future holds for him. Injury has prevented him from getting much game time at Anfield but he's a decent player and now fit.