Nordic Saint

Why do we have to leave transfers to the last minute, when there are several months to sort them out? It might save a bit on the summer wage bill, but it's like saying the pre-season training programme is irrelevant as any player can just walk in at the last minute and play as well as the ones who had the club's pre-season preparation. The club has got lots of money from the sales of Wanyama, Mane and Pelle, not to mention the 100 miillion plus PL money and our first Premier League game is in 2 weeks' time and if you believe the club's hype, 'the Black Box' is supposed to have our targets lined up months, if not years, in advance.

I keep reading reports that Premier League clubs get around 100 million in prize and TV money annually, and Saints seem to make a profit every year in the transfer market. So, where does all this money go? The stock answer on messageboards is that it is all used to pay off Cortese's overspend on the Academy. But, that really doesn't add up. I'd have thought, the club could afford to spend all of the money received in transfer fees plus some of the PL money on players but we don't seem to. My transfer ambition for this summer, stated in a post eraly in this thread, was not to spend a fortune on new players but just to spend what it took to keep last season's best players here, including Mane and Wanyama. Some on here say the only reason players only leave us to get more money so according to that argument we should have had enough money to keep them here.

Barcelona signed him for €34 million, plus €7 million in add-ons, just 1 year ago, and his wages would certainly be more than we're prepared to pay. If he comes to the Premier League, it's more likely to be to another club which spends that sort of money. This speculation reminds me of the Ibramovich rumour.

Good point about playing Cedric farther forward. He could benefit from that the same way Bale did. Cedric has great pace and, although he is an excellent tackler, is a bit short for a defensive role, especially when dealing with high crossfield balls. Cedric in front of Trippier would give us a strong right flank.

I think Paul Black Box Mitchell had Trippier lined up for a move to Saints before he went to Spurs. It's a bit strange that Spurs should already consider him surplus to requirements. But, I still think he'd be a good signing for us. I guess Van Dijk was Mitchell's last signing for us and we were lucky to get him as Spurs decided to take Alderweireld instead. Perhaps Trippier and Dele Alli would have come here around the same time if Mitchell hadn't left. Mitchell's usccess rate is not 100% but he seems to be getting some very good players for Spurs. Janssen and Wanyama are excellent additions.

Not really. He was dropped from Norwich's starting lineup a few times but all of the details are here: http://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/nathan-redmond/leistungsdaten/spieler/129078/plus/0?saison=2013 http://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/nathan-redmond/leistungsdaten/spieler/129078/plus/0?saison=2014 http://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/nathan-redmond/leistungsdaten/spieler/129078/plus/0?saison=2015 Players usually improve at Southampton but Redmond's never really shown himself to be much of a goal scorer so I certainly wouldn't expect him to provide anywhere near as many goals as Mane would have this season. But, he certainly should be more than capable of replacing Juanmi. I still hope we bring in a new striker before the end of the summer and it's quite possible we will.

I think he has. But, you are right, Norwich fans have always described him as good but inconsistent. In my opinion he is an excellent signing if he has been bought to replace Juanmi but not as a replacement for Mane. Redmond scored 11 goals in 112 appearances for Norwich and 7 in 62 appearances for Birmingham, so he averages 1 goal every 10 games, which means we shouldn't expect more than 3 or 4 goals a season from him.

He was 29 in January so that will take him throught until he's 33.

No other Premier League club bid for Austin, Pelle, Cedric or Redmond, which is why we managed to get them. We don't get involved in bidding wars. I did wonder at the time, why no other club bid for Austin. After last season we now know why. I actually think that last summer we would have competed with Leicester in the transfer market but now, no chance. The proof of the pudding is in the eating. If this season we prove to be the maestros of the transfer market, then great. Our first fixture this season means we have a real chance of going top of the Premier League for the first time ever, even if it is just for one week. How I would love us to get off to a flying start like that and shove that one down Pompey fans' throats. Signing replacements a few days before the opening game won't help us get off to that flying start, even if it does mean we've reduced the summer wage bill.

As has been pointed out many times, we can't compete financially with other Premier League clubs even the likes of Crystal Palace and Stoke, so if another PL club is intereted in a player too we might as well forget him. That means any signing we make will be leftfield. If that results in us getting another Mane then no problem. But I wonder if now that Paul 'Black Box' Mitchell has moved to Spurs, we are capable of unearthing another gem like that. i guess we'll soon find out. Fingers crossed.

We need a very good striker to replace both Pelle and Mane and their goals. We already had Rodriguez and Austin in the squad last season so I certainly don't consider them to be replacements and Nathan Redmond is a midfielder, not a striker. Sadly, the odds look stacked against Rodrguez ever again being the player he was before his injury and Austin's injury problems last season soon explained his cheap transfer fee and why no other club wanted him. They could both well be players whose best years are over because of injuries. I also don't see any defensive midfielder in the squad now as good as Wanyama. I was very disapointed by what I saw of our youngsters last season in U21 and Youth Cup games and their first team appearances. I don't know why we've kept Gallagher. About the only one who seemed to make progress last season was Alfie Jones. All of the others, including Reed, Targett and our once most exciting prospect, Sims, seemed to regress. Since Dodd and Williams left, the Academy production line has stalled badly. If Puel is forced to play youth, our results will suffer and for what reason? So youngsters can be put in the shop window?. To sum up, Redmond looks like a good replacement for Juanmi and Hojbjerg should be an improvement on Clasie, who I hope will follow Steckelenburg to Everton, but we still we need to buy very good replacements for Pelle, Mane and Wanyama. None of the youngsters look good enough to do that. On the positive side, we still have most of the players left from the team which finished 6th last season. But, really we needed to keep all of them and then add a few more in order to have a squad strong enough to do well in both the Premier and Europa Leagues: a bit like Spurs have done this summer.

May 2014: https://www.theguardian.com/football/2014/may/20/luke-shaw-gutted-southampton-sack-academy-coached

We may have great facilities but they don’t count for much without the right coaching staff, and the turnover of coaches in our Academy seems to be very high. Players in the upper age groups don’t seem to have progressed much since Dodd and Williams were sacked. I notice the club is now advertising for a new assistant coach for the U18s. Does that mean another one has been sacked? From what I saw of the academy games last season, and I saw quite a few, the most promising players, like Sims, Gape, Gallagher and Reed, all seem to have gone backwards. We don’t appear to have a single player in the current England U19s squad, which is doing so well in Europe. Luke Shaw gives a lot of the credit for his development to Dodd. Would it be possible to get him back again?

If you have players who aren't good enough to be wanted by clubs prepared to offer them bigger salaries, like Francis Benali and Kelvin Davis, they will stay with you forever. If you have outstanding players of the calibre that usually get paid bigger salaries than you are prepared to pay them, like Shearer and Bale, then they won't stay. There are, of course, exceptions to every rule, and Le Tissier was a gem of an exception. I doubt there is anybody working at the club, from cleaning ladies, through admin staff, to Les Reed and Ralph Krueger who wouldn't move to another club if they were offered a lot more money to do so. Clearly, they have't been, which is why they are still here.

The point of the thread is that it means, by that argument, most of our best players 'clearly aren't committed' every year. The truth is that becoming a big club costs money. The clubs that had the biggest ambitions and invested the most early in football history became the biggest. It didn't just happen by chance and it takes time. The first step is to build a big stadium. That is the common factor nearly all big clubs have. Increasing the capacity at St Mary's to 40,000 would be a big step in the right direction. It will be interesting to see if Leicester do that because until they do, they still look small in the eyes of players, fans and the media, in spite of just having won the Premier League. Big clubs usually became big because they had wealthy owners who poured money into them, as has happened at Man City recently. Getting one of those is, to a certain extent, down to luck. All employed people who work for money and change their job for a better salary could be called 'mercenaries'. I understand that ordinary people are jealous of the ridiculous amounts of money top footballers earn but the same could be said of film stars and other famous people at the top in sports and entertainment. They needed an exceptional work ethic and great talent to get to the top of the pile. If you want the best, you pay the best salaries. That's true of most professions.

No, you're not wrong. Saints really did sell Luke Shaw and Calum Chambers.

So far, I'd say that Spurs, with their signings of Janssen and Wanyama for what are by today's standards very reasonable prices, have done best. They will certainly be challenging for honours again. Vincent Janssen looked Holland's best player when they played at Wembley and is similar in style to Vardy. Leicester, with Mendy and Musa as well as a couple of decent squad players, have done well so far too. There are rumours that West Brom are lining up Borja Baston as a replacement for Berahino. If so, it will be interesting to see how he does, as he was one of the top scorers in the Spanish league last season.

On reflection, you are probably right about him nowadays, Turkish. He probably isn't used by the club any more. I got the impression he was hired in the Cortese era and still posting on his behalf and several other people suggested that, as he was very active around the time Cortese left. However, the policy of planting posters strategically on the internet to argue the club's case when it comes under critcism, especially in times of crisis, appears to me to be continuing. The cascade of 'ITK leaks' about Koeman which suddenly came cascading out of the club, about him being lazy, unpopular with staff, not interested in the Academy, having undermined Targett's confidence, players now wanting to stay because he had left etc seemed to be orchestrated. You don't suddenly get that many leaks without the club sanctioning them. Some of the stuff about his contract negotiations could only have come from someone very high up in the club. I'm sure many people will tell me I'm totally mistaken. Maybe there is just a group of people with connections to the club who chose to post their ITK info at the same time. By and large, as we all support the club, it doesn't do much harm and in the case of transfer activity is of interest. But, I do wonder about the veracity of some of the things said about players and managers who've left.

It appears the club uses a few so-called 'ITK posters' for PR purposes. i assume they are sub-contracted and paid to do that job. The information would therefore be, as you say sanctioned by the club so the posts about transfer targets in particular are reliable, even if we don't eventually manage to sign the target. Those that appear to be working in this PR operation include areasix on the Uglyinside, and Rooflas and Armchair champ in the Daily Echo Saints news comments. I guess that Jack Schitt is part of the operation and presumably 1 or 2 posters on here but I don't know which ones. I guess a couple of PR writers could cover most Saints-related internet forums by using multiple usernames. The information about transfer targets is probably fairly objective but some of the other stuff relating to players and managers who leave may not be. The stuff about Mane wanting to stay because Koeman had left, for example. just seemed to be part of a general smear campaign. One of the people who used to do the PR on the Uglyinside had the username Clickinsect and it turned out he worked for a small PR company which did football-related promotion work mainlky on YouTube. I should imagine he uses another usrname now, as he took a lot of flak.

Kelvin Davis, like Benali, stayed with us for a long time but he was never, by any stretch of the imagination, a great player. In fact, he even made it into the all-time worst Sunderland XI. Irish interntaional, Tommy Traynor, with 434 first team appearances over 14 years for Saints would be far more deserving if we were doing it on the basis of longevity of service. There are no appearance stats for CB Fry on Wiki but I doubt it would have been more than 100.

1st team appearances for Saints (according to Wiki): Paine 713 Channon 510 Le Tissier 443 (Branfoot cost him quite a few more) Fonte 243 (will probably go on to more than 300) Davies 240 Lambert 207 Bates 202 (none in top flight) Shilton 188 Keegan 68 Ted Bates was a fairly average footballer and he was not, as many people think, from this area. He initially signed for his local team, Norwich, but never broke into their first team. His statue is more to mark his achievements as a manager and director and the fact that his career here, in 3 different roles, spanned so many years.

As the majority of teams in the competition will be fielding their first teams, it will definitely go into the record books as a first team fixture.There would certainly be a capacity crowd at Fratton Park for a night game which our academy players would not find easy. It's the best posssible derby game as far as Pompey are concerned as they will be facing a weak Saints team. It would, of course, be great if we won it but, I'd much rather we got them in the FA Cup when we would almost certainly beat them and get revenge for our recent winless run against them.

A whole season of 'you're not fit to wear the bra' chants and it's going to be worse for whichever player gets picked out for the 'looks like a woman and he wears a bra' song. Let's face it, although we can laugh it off, the club didn't really need to heap this embarrassment on the players and fans.

Our players and fans are certainly going to get a lot of stick from oppostion fans for wearing a bra this season. I guess we'll just have to get used to it like Brighton fans have had to with the boyfriend songs. Four Four Two's take on the bra shirt: "giving the wearer the impression that they’ve donned a brassiere over their shirt" http://www.fourfourtwo.com/features/whos-got-best-and-worst-kits-premier-league-season-you-decide

Not if they beat us, and our U21s certainly aren't guaranteed a win against them. You can just imagine the gloating if they win and presumably it would go into the record books as a first team fixture.