Nordic Saint

For those who are now saying Wanyama wasn't very good for usm this is what I and most objective fans thought of him when he was here.

Just as long as Clasie doesn't come back at the end of the year I'd also like to see us get rid of Long to free up a place for a goal scorer.

Does the 1-year loan mean we'll be stuck with him again at the end of that year or will that be the end of his contract? I can't see any club being prepared to pay a fee for him.

Davis is something of an unsung hero, a bit like Marsden used to be. He offers more than most of our other midfielders. His work rate, drive to win and skill are sorely missed when he doesn't play. The Wolves game was crying out for him to come on.

Totally agree. We could do even worse than we do with Redmond and Tadic by playing Long and Ward-Prowse. Out of the frying pan into the fire.

10 of them look OK but playing Ward-Prowse would just guarantee another Southampton Nil reult and I expect Pellegrino has realized that by now.

I've noticed that at Portmouth they've made massive efforts to ancourage youths and young men to attend games without their parents by offering them dirt cheap tickets, while at Southampton we have the ever expanding family areas, where the culture of polite silence is developed, taking over the ground. Of course, having a home kop would make a massive difference too. At home games our most vocal support is divided and hdden away in the corners of the away end, where the acoustics are at their worst, so they are easily drowned out by the away fans. Portsmouth season ticket concessions 2017/18 Young Person (18-22 on September 1 2017): £240 Junior (17 and under on September 1 2017): £80

So, how do we know he refused to back down and to whom exactly? Old Les stirring again? He does it with nearly every player and manager he sells. Do any of the players trust him or feel any sense of loyalty to him any more? I doubt it.

A Premier Legue title and a Champions League quarter-final, 4 major tophies, 7 Championship/2nd Division titles..... You can dream but I don't think it's going to happen

How on earth would we know details of a player's confidential contract??? This happens far too often. Old Les is a devious old f@rt.

That was the way we used to conduct business transactions -discretely- before and, yes, it was better. The Club now is more like a soap opera, with every player and manager who is sold cast as the evil villain, and Les Reed as the hard done by hero.

I dislike van Dijk as much as the next man, but 'the Club' - I'm guessing this basically means Les Reed - invariably seems to to get involved in a protracted, acrimonious mess with lots of negative stories leaked to the press, when nearly all of our players and managers are sold. The Club gets its money in the end, even if it is a bit less than it might have been if things had been handled better. Surely it would be much better for the Club's reputaion if negotiations and discussions between administrators and players which take place behind closed doors were kept private. This would help rebuild th trust which no longer seems to exist.

It's not expensive buildings and rooms full of videos that brought us success but the people who used to work in them. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/southampton/10843902/Luke-Shaw-dismayed-as-Southampton-sack-academy-coaches-Jason-Dodd-and-Paul-Williams.html

And I don't think the Academy has ever really recovered from the sacking of Dodd and Williams.

Paul Mitchell > Ross Wilson. Recruitment at all levels has deteriorated badly in the last couple of years. Mitchell, not Reed, was the real brains behind our success.

I think the goalkeeping problems at the club are more to do with the coach than the players. They can't all be poor goalkeepers. It will be interesting to see how well Gazzaniga plays now that he has had some time away from Dave Watson.

And they thrashed our U23s 3-0 so we must have been holding back a lot more.

Looks like we're on course to beat that highest attendance by several thousand, with a 20,000+ crowd.

He seems to be getting some basic errors coached into his game, which he never had before. He used to push balls wide or even catch them. Now, he always parries them forward. He has also lost his spontaneity and now takes time to think about everything he does, from kicks to throws and even saves. This slows down our game and also costs us goals. Again, I suspect this comes from coaching. People forget, but Forster used to be a much better goalkeeper than he is now. The same applies to all the goalkeepers at the club. Gazzaniga seems to have improved since he got away from Dave Watson. I think Forster would too.

In cash terms, he is worse than broke as he's got over £200 mill in debts to pay back to banks plus interest. It's going to tak him quite a while to get out of that mess, especially as the Chinese government are on his case. Other than selling Lander and SFC assets, there don't seem to be too many options available to him now. I wish him well and hope he can make a success of it somehow.

That was a very entertaining game of football. Everyone in the 31,424 got value for money today, even the West Ham fans. On this evidence Mario Lemina looks a great signing. He can tackle and make incisive forward passes. Our midfield reverted to slow movement and sideways passes when he went off and Ward-Prowse came on. But, the introduction of Charlie Austin saw us home. Yoshida, Romeu, Lemina, Gabbiadini and Austin all played well. Redmond and Long didn't and nor did Ward-Prowse but as people have pointed out, JWP is still young so there is hope. He needs more pace and bravery, however, as he rarely competes 100% for 50/50 balls - the complete opposite of Romeu, who battles for everything and never pulls out of a challenge. Lee Mason showed real guts to award an iffy penalty in the 93rd minute when most refs would have bottled it.

Here's to winning a trophy for a change! I hope the Gaos can help us achieve that and wish them well.

To be honest, I feel a bit sorry for Mr Gao. Kat seems to have taken him to the cleaners. He's 65 now. I hope both he and his daughter are astute enough to clear their debts and see both Lander and SFC make progress. Chinese entrepreneurs tend to be very hard working and money and family are everything to them. In the Gaos we trust.

I assume all of the money he borrowed has gone into Kat's bank account. I guess most of the Club's income from PL prize money and player sales has ended up there too to cover any loans which had to be cleared before the deal could get through, leaving both Mr Gao and the Club a bit short of spare cash.

They're from China, not Goa. Mr Gao is a retired policeman so he probably wouldn't approve of bad language.