Nordic Saint

Unfortunately, Gao is not a very successful businessman, which is why his business is only worth a fraction of what it once was and why he had to borrow the money to buy the club. Wolves, on the other hand, really are owned by a successful businessman, who is one of the wealthiest men in China: a description which cannot be applied to Gao.

Our home games against them are usually entertaining and high scoring. You have to go back 14 years to find the last time we scored fewer than 2 goals at home to Newcastle. So, let's hope one or two of our strikers find their form in this game.

Great performance from Jack yesterday. Most of us thought we'ce concede goals at Bournemouth but the main reason we didn't was a big change in the centre of our defence. We often keep clean sheets when Stephens plays. It's noticeable how many of our best defensive performances he has featured in, including the 0-0 v Burnley, the 1-0 win at Brighton, and the 1-1 at Everton in the EFL Cup this season and the 0-0 draw at Man Utd and the 1-0 win at Swansea at the end of last season. He is developing into a very fine player. Hopefully, he will go on to become the replacement for Fonte and leader of our defence we've been looking for.

""Claude Puel defends his record as Leicester City manager and calls for patience following fan unrest" With only two wins in 12 Premier League games, Puel's position has come under scrutiny." Yes, Leicester fans have wanted him out almost since the day he arrived. These comments in the Leicester Mercury sum up their feelings: " In this Puel tenure its hard to see improvement....games are boring and turgid at times and we create very little. I think people would believe in him more if there were some signs of improvement or an end game in site. The endless passing side to side and back is just painful to watch. He lacks inspiration, baffles everyone with his team selections and substitutions." "It gives me no pleasure to say it but Puel needs to go. I don't think we can progress with him holding us back." "Just get rid of him, the fans hate him, the players hate him, and he is the most DE MOTIVATIONAL MANAGER i have ever heard, CHEERIO.................."

They're saying, "Shane Long is absolute garbage." We're never going to be able to sell him now. https://sportslens.com/fans-react-to-southampton-striker-shane-longs-display-for-republic-of-ireland/247887/

Oh yes she did. She charged the club 5% interest for loans, which had to be paid back to her in full before she pocketed £210 million from Gao for his 80% share in the club. Apart from the interest she gets on the money her father left her, that has been her main source of income. Almost nothing is left of the MALI group of companies she inherited from her father. Kat sells off or liquidates companies; she doesn't develop them and if she is 'royally minted' why did she want the £210 million from Gao?.

'Wesley Hoedt has hinted that the club’s issues at the back are down to Mark Hughes not doing enough work on it on the training pitch.' The 24-year-old said, via the Daily Echo: “In Italy they spend days on defending instead of moments of days." “That’s just the difference in culture. In Italy we did two or three extra training sessions a week only for the defensive unit.” The laziness which runs through the club from top to bottom, from tired old Les through Hughes and the coaches to the players, is a real problem. We need someone to introduce a culture of hard work back into the club.

Lander Sports Development's share price, which has been in steep decline for the last year, has now absolutely collapsed from a high of 21.33 yuan in 2015 to just 2.78 yuan today. Gao's main business is now in serious trouble and he will struggle to pay back the money he borrowed. Like Kat before him, his main source of income will now have to be Southampton Football Club because Lander has gone the same way as MALI.

The thing is we all know Hughes is going to be replaced at some stage this season. The exact timing of when it will happen will be influenced by how it will affect the club's image in the media as much as it will by results, which nobody really expects to improve much. Sacking several managers in a short space of time always gets a bad reaction from the media, unless it involves one of the big clubs, like Man Utd, Chelsea or Real Madrid, who are allowed to be ruthless in their pursuit of success. Clubs like Southampton are expected to suck it up and just live with the fact that they've got a cr@p manager.

I don't think that would do much good. Landersports are in even more trouble than we are, probably also as a result of "relying on 'failed shambolic mismanagement' that has cost ....millions of pounds."

If we had Darren Moore as manager but we haven't: we've got Mark Hughes or whatever useless manager Old Les replaces him with so we won't be topping the division. Another relegation struggle is more likely.

The first years back in the PL: Fonte Lallana Lambert The players who helped take us to 'the next level' Mane Wanyama van Dijk Fonte is incredibly underrated by Saints fans. He was very influential in our rise. He was our leader on the pitch. He helped lead us to our three top 8 finishes, Portugal to the European Championship and, currently, his Lille team to 2nd place in the French League.

I agree with you, Micky. There were at least 30,000 there. In fact, I've seen plenty of 30,000 gates at St Mary's with more empty seats than there were for the Chelsea game.

Pity it didn't happen then. It's going to take so much longer to repair the damage he's done. He has now got rid of just about everyone who was doing a good job.

You aren't very bright, are you?

The same people who laugh at the idea of a successful, young, up and coming manager like Darren Moore, are the usual suspects who were against the idea of Eddie Howe. They prefer the old, experienced failures like Pardew, Bruce, Moyes and Hughes and they are, of course, wrong. The chance to get Eddie Howe has passed. Darren Moore would be a great choice right now.

Well, they're not: they're a level above us nowadays.

We haven't won any of our last 4 games against Burnley so it's not much to imagine,is it?

As things currently stand, Bournemouth are 5th in the Premier League with 5 wins from 8 games. It's taken us 30 games more than that to get that many wins.

Anyway, getting back on track, what exactly makes Ross Wilson any more qualified than the average fan on here to be our head of recruitment? Was it that he never played football, had a degree in Social Sciences from Strathclyde University or the fact that Les Reed had lunch with him and took a shine to him? If Les Reed hadn't liked him, would he have got away with wasting 100 million pounds on dud players no other club wants and still kept his job? In any other job that would be considered an awful lot of money to waste. He's certainly a very lucky boy that Old Les has his ass covered.

I'm hoping that, like Ward-Prowse, he will one day get at least a few minutes on the pitch for England because I love ramming this down Pompey fans' throats, when they start going on about their 'history' and being a 'big club': England internationals Southampton David Armstrong James Beattie Ryan Bertrand Wayne Bridge Arthur Chadwick Mick Channon Nathaniel Clyne Peter Crouch Bill Ellerington Tim Flowers Fraser Forster C B Fry Kelly Houlker Kevin Keegan Adam Lallana Rickie Lambert Bert Lee Matt Le Tissier George Molyneux Terry Paine Tom Parker Alf Ramsey Bill Rawlings Nathan Redmond Jack Robinson Jay Rodriguez Luke Shaw Alan Shearer Peter Shilton Fred Titmuss Arthur Turner Danny Wallace James Ward-Prowse Dave Watson Steve Williams Mark Wright 36 Portsmouth Jim Allen Sol Campbell Peter Crouch Dan Cunliffe Jermain Defoe Jimmy Dickinson Jack Froggatt Peter Harris Mark Hateley Kelly Houlker David James Glen Johnson Arthur Knight Len Phillips Jack Smith Fred Worrall 16

Poor Turkish's obsession with me is bizarre because I'm really nothing special. He's followed me around on football messageboards like a pet dog for nearly ten years. But, with his boasting about what designer labels he has in his wardrobe and how he looks in the gym, I can't help thinking he'd be better off posting on Mumsnet.

I think if you took an average of the managers and players posters on here think we should have signed over the last two years and compared it to who the 'professionals' at our club actually signed, we'd come out ahead of them. Since Paul Mitchell left, our recruitment all seems to be just smoke and mirrors, Vestergaard 'a big bloke' at centre half who isn't very good at football, being a classic example. Would any of us have chosen him? I think not. We all knew he was too slow. It was no secret.

Javier Calleja was my long-term choice when we sacked Pellegrino, a young up and coming manager. Paul Cook was my short-term fix: a motivator to keep us up. Who knows how they'd have turned out? Choosing the right manager is certainly not an easy task but I think that our previous head of recruitment, Paul Mitchell, had it as close to an exact science as you could get and that he probably deserves more credit for the Pochettino appointment than Cortese who went along with him to see an Espanyol game, where he claims he noticed him, gets. The one thing most of us agree on, however, is that appointing the usual suspects, Pardew, Hughes, Bruce and Allardyce, reeks of setting your stall out to finish 17th.

Gazzaniga suffered from the coaching of Dave Watson. I always thought he would do better if he could get away from him. Forster's career has been wrecked by Watson. It will be interesting to see what he does to McCarthy and Gunn, who, at the moment, seem OK. The best scenario would be that Watson has learned from his mistakes and doesn't repeat them.