Nordic Saint

At the time of the sale wasn't it reported in the Echo that there would be no changes to the board for the next three years? So, presumably that was a clause written into the contract Gao had to agree to.

Yes, he seemed to regard a 0-3 defeat as something of a victory. He was obviously expecting worse as in his last two seasons there his Stoke team were on the receiving end of some real drubbings: 0-4, 2-4, 0-5 v Chelsea, 1-4, 2-7 v Man City, 0-4, 1-5 v Spurs, 1-4 v Liverpool & 1-4 v Arsenal.

The change in the quality of our recruitment would largely be down to the change in our Head of Recruitment. Ross Wilson got by in his first few months here as we bought players his predecessor Mitchell had already identified, particularly van Dijk, whom we'd been linked with before Mitchell went to Spurs. but since then we have seen that Wilson is simply not up to the job, our transfer budget has been woefully wasted and the quality of our squad has badly deteriorated. The key figures who were responsible for our success: Cortese, Mitchell, Pochettino, Koeman, Fonte. They've all gone now.

His Lille team are 2nd in the French League with only PSG ahead of them now. What a fantastic end to his career it will be if he adds a French League winner's medal to his European Championship winner's medal and goes on to play in the Champions League. He was an absolute legend for us and the best captain and leader our team has had this century. He deserves this success.

Yes, the eight points we got from our relatively easy first five games last season cushioned the blow of the later defeats by the big six and were what ultimately kept us up.

Just as long as he's not stupid enough to have three goalkeepers as first team coaches.

I see Paul Cook's win percentage at Wigan is now up to nearly 60%.Thank God he left Pompey after getting them promoted as at the rate he's going he'd have got them into the Champions' League. Couldn't we get him as our manager as well as some of his best players, like Nick Powell?

That is the sort of lazy thinking that brought us Hughes. You could add Pardew to that tired old list as well. They are all managers who've run out of ideas, whose careers have been in decline for some time. What we need is a manager whose career is in the ascendant, like Darren Moore (win percentage of 56.3% in his current job at West Brom), Eddie Howe (win percentage of 43.7% in his current spell at Bournemouth) or Paul Cook (win percentage of 58.8% at Wigan). There are also many more successful managers to choose from outside of this country.

I think Vestergaard is even more of a liability than Hoedt. His one asset is his great size but he seems to be easily brushed aside. As for his ground play, he just doesn't have the quickness of feet you need to survive in the Premier League. Premier League managers are now aware of his chronic lack of pace and they are all going to exploit it. With Hoedt, there is still some hope that he could be coached into being an adequate footballer if our first team coaches weren't goalkeepers. Yoshida is the best central defender we've got and most importantly, he's the fastest.

Stoke's decline under Hughes over the last 3 years mirrors our own decline in the same period: 2015/16 Saints 63 pts Stoke 51 pts 2016/17 Saints 46 pts Stoke 44 pts 2017/18 Saints 36 pts Stoke 33 pts I you want a decline, he's your man. His predecessors, Hodgson at Fulham, Warnock at QPR and Pulis at Stoke were all more successful than Hughes was after he took over from them.

We are seeing it now. We are becoming the new Stoke: a dispirited team with a shambolic defence. Mark Hughes' record in his last 50 Premier League games as manager at Stoke and Southampton: P50 W11 D13 L26 F49 A86 Pts 46

We haven't had the negative PR campaign against him yet: bad influence, billy big boots, greedy etc. But, it sounds like he might be the next one to be added to the 'defectors' list, as the club is running our of players they can get a sizeable transfer fee for.

They were missing their best player, Pascal Gross. We've been incredibly lucky so far this season to face Leicester minus Vardy, Palace minus Zaha and Brighton minus Gross.

Well that's the easy games out of the way: possibly the easiest set of opening fixtures we've ever had in the Premier League. We'll only really be able to rate the team after we've played one of the better teams. We've still got all 12 fixtures to come against the big six. Early evidence againts weak opposition suggests that our central defenders will be far too slow slow to cope against the fast-paced strikers the top teams have.

Does anyone? The club's famous policy, which they happily basked in the light of, was discovering talented young footballers and selling them on for profit (usually to Liverpool). The problem is that the man who discovered the cheap talent, our Head of Recruitment, Paul 'The Black Box' Mitchell, is no longer here. So, now, under his replacement, Ross Wilson, we are faced with the problem of buying expensive players and then finding a way to offload them for free to anyone desperate enough to take them off our hands.

Jose Fonte's Lille side won today and are now 2nd in the French League. His brother Rui Fonte played up front but Pied has yet to make an appearance.

Police getting things wrong shocker. Perhaps among their well-publicised staff shortages are the people who can count properly. Another interesting figure I saw in the media recently: nobody is convicted for 97% of the crimes committed in this country.

I really hope he gets at least 45 minutes on the pitch, perhaps against Switzerland. It's always great to see another Saints player capped for England.

3 away wins in 3 different competitions in 8 days! Our teams are winning again.

Two away wins in a week! Fan-bloody-tastic. Well done Hughes and all the players. Having a goal poacher like Ings is really making a difference. It gives a lift to all of the team when they know there is someone they can rely on to put the ball in the net. When was the last time we won 2 away games in a week?

Moussa Dembele joins Lyon for £19.7m. What a bargain when you consider what we paid for Carrillo.

Yes, I re-read it. You are right. It just seems to be the opnion of that writer but, as you say, he is a prospect and already attracting attention. He's one of those players who is so good you can't fail to be impressed whenever you see him play.

Sunderland want him. He is one of our best young players and potentially already the most talented young central defender we've got. https://www.footballfancast.com/league-one/sunderland/sunderland-must-sign-christoph-klarer-on-loan-from-southampton-before-deadline

Forest seem to have followed Wolves' example by bringing in Portuguese players, João Carvalho, Gil Bastião Dias, Diogo Gonçalves and Tobias Figueiredo, and it's working for them too.

Largely agree with this. But, I would say Yoshida and Bednarek instead of Vestergaard and Hoedt because I think last night we saw our best central defensive pairing.