Nordic Saint

It's brilliant when youngsters can afford to go to a game with their mates, like we used to, rather than have to sit quietly with their perents in a Family Centre. If we want good vocal home support, the club should encourage it with their ticket pricing strategy. It's what Pompey are doing. They give disounted tickets to under 22s while under 17s pay next to nothing. I realize they are in League One but it's the pricing incentives to encourage youngsters which we need to look at, even if our prices are higher than theirs. Pompey season ticket prices 2017/18: Young Person (18-22 on September 1 2017): £240 Junior (17 and under on September 1 2017): £80

A lot of fans underestimate Austin's pace. He is faster, more skilful and a more prolific goal scorer than Carrillo. They are both good headers. Austin should go straight back into the team when he's fit as he makes a massive difference. But 70 minutes is about his limit. Carrillo is an impact sub. So it will be ideal to bring Carrillo on as a sub for Austin.

A lot of fans underestimate Austin's pace. He is faster, more skilful and a more prolific goal scorer than Carrillo. They are both good headers.

I'm not sure that Pelle was all that desperate to leave. I think it was more a case of the club taking what they saw as the last chance to get a big transfer fee for a player over 30. He always seems a fairly laid back chap who'd be happy whatever. Paying him a big salary for a loan or short contract would certainly cost less than the 19 million + salary we paid for Carrillo. The Chinese Super League season runs from March to November. Getting him on loan for a couple of months until Austin is fit to play again would have been a good idea.

We do have a history of signing players who haven't been starting regularly for their club. But, if we get Quincy Promes, we really will have a player who can hit the ground running. He has been playing whole games regularly in Russia and scoring goals.

Carrillo hasn't played whole games much in the last few years so I think he will mainly be used as an impact sub., which as long as he scores and helps us win games will still be OK. Long can run around for the other 70 minutes.

He was in Ligue 1 but the Premier League is much harder. "On 9 January 2015, Boufal transferred to Lille in Ligue 1, instantly making an impression, scoring 3 goals in 14 league games. The next season, he continued to impress, scoring 12 goals in 35 appearances in all competitions and attracted interest from some of the biggest clubs around the world."

Yes, lacking pace, physicality and agility, and being useless outside the box will always make a striker ideally suited to the Premier League. To be honest, that is the most positive comment I've seen about him on any of the Monaco fans' messageboards. Most just think he lacks the skill required at the top level and that he's worth less than 5m euros.

Nick Holmes - Sam McQueen? Guido Carrrillo - Gordon Watson? In style of play if not appearance.

I always read the selling club's fan messageboards when we buy a player to see how they react. When we bought van Dijk, Celtic fans were gutted; when we bought Hooiveldt, they were over the moon. Not one Monaco fan is unhappy to see Carrillo go. The general consensus is that they'd have been happy to even get 5 million euros for Carrillo. '5M de livres pour Carrillo . Ça va faire des heureux' 'Carrillo 20M, je ne m'en remettrai pas de celle la !' 'Carrillo , il a fait quoi ?'

Leave shance alone. His post has been the highlight of our transfer window so far.

He was right. He really is an ITKer, This was announced just after 3pm: https://www.bigissue.com/news/big-issue-vendors-seal-transfer-southampton-fc/

They are our big new signings! Now, all we need to know is what colour paint they've chosen for the big stadium improvement and that's our January window nearly sorted. But, hang on..... right now, Les and Ralph are working very hard on recruiting an obese barman so they can announce a really big signing.The news of Gabbiadini's sale on deadline day will pale into insignificance after all that big news. Breaking news now: https://www.bigissue.com/news/big-issue-vendors-seal-transfer-southampton-fc/

Shane Long reminds me of John Sydenham. He is fast, runs in a straight line and scores a goal about every 10 games. Long would probably have made a decent left winger back in the 60s and 70s but playing him as a central striker is a bit like playing Sydenham as an old-style centre-forward would have been. Fraser Forster reminds me of Campbell Forsyth, a big, imposing looking goalkeeper but not especially quick or agile.

That is the problem. He needs a fullback to cover for him, whereas in the modern game a wing-back is expected to both defend and attack..

A lot of players can't cope with the modern role of the wing-back. Targett is a younger version of Danny Fox. He's OK at the attacking part of the role but a bit of a defensive liability as he can't tackle and is easily beaten by a fast forward.

Good performance. Feeling much more optimistic after that. It was interesting to see the players' reactions to Pellegrino's instructions in the 2nd half. Basically, they ignored them and one or two of them made a point of ignoring them. I don't know how that's going to pan out for the remainder of the season but it certainly worked today. We still need a goal scoring striker and a tall, dominant central defender.

Off the top of my head, Blackburn, Bolton, Fulham for a start and Leicester won it. Now off you pop. The small-minded, defeatist fans like you who play the "we're just ever so 'umble little Southampton, we can't hope to compete with other clubs and should be grateful for any crumbs that are dropped down to us" card are pathetic.

Even though CB Fry tries to turn a blind eye to it, the truth is out there: 2015/16 63 pts 2016/17 46 pts 2017/18 32-38 pts ?? As for his "those huge peaks we hit after January 2014" that is total ********. Most clubs our size and many smaller ones have hit much higher peaks than that. Finishing runners-up in a League Cup Final should be considered far from a 'huge peak' for a club of our size. Teams that have done that include Bradford, Cardiff, Sunderland, Wigan, Bolton, Birmingham and Tranmere. Swansea, Birmingham, Middlesbrough and Blackburn also won League Cups. In recent years, Wigan, Hull, Cardiff, Palace and Stoke have also been in FA Cup Finals and Wigan won theirs. Even little Pompey were in 2 FA Cup Finals in 3 years and won one of them. Just about every club in the top 2 divisions and even some in the third division have qualified for Europe and most performed better than we did. Fulham and Middlesbrough reached European finals. So, our 'huge peak' wasn't even as good as Wigan's, Swansea's, Blackburn's, Fulham's or Middlesbrough's and we have a much bigger fansbase and get bigger crowds than all of them. We have the 12th biggest average home gates in the country this century, in spite of our limited capacity, and social media figures indicate we have one of the 10 biggest fanbases. So top 8 finishes and losing a League Cup Final are hardly a massive overachievement. For our size, in terms of trophies won, we are historically, just about the most underachieving team in history and it looks lke we are underachieving again and still haven't won anything. How many clubs have spent more than 80 years in the top 2 divisions and never won one of them even once? Even Reading beat us to a trophy. A club of our size should have won at least 4 or 5 major tropies by now. If we'd had a 'huge peak' as good as Swansea's, for example, relegation wouldn't be quite so hard to take.

The problem is Dangermouth, as it was with the sacking of Puel, is that there is every chance Les Reed will appoint someone worse. So we'll be out of the frying pan into the fire. We wanted rid of Eric Black as first team coach and now we've got Kelvin Davis, one of the worst goalkeepers in the history of the Premier League, with no previous coaching experience, in charge of coaching, assisted by ex-Barnsley goalkeeper, Dave Watson, neither one of them with any previous experience of coaching outfield players, and not even very good at coaching goalkeeepers.

I assume you must be one as 'Sack the board' is one of the oldest chants in the game, going back more than 60 years. Fan protests agianst failing directors have been going on as long as there has been professional football, the same as the sacking of amangers.

There is really no point in sacking Pellegrino if Les Reed is going to be appointing the next manager, as each one he appoints is worse than the previous one. We need our 'Black Box' Paul Mitchell back to find the next Pochettino. Les Reed and Ross Wilson will just bring in a worse version of Pellegrino. 2015/16 63 pts 2016/17 46 pts 2017/18 33-38 pts ?? There has been a clear decline since May 2016 so you certainly can't blame it all on Pellegrino or the Gaos. Kat, Les and Ralph have been in control for all of that period. I get the impression that Kat just lets Les get on with it, as long as he makes her money, and that, in effect, Ralph's position is not mch more than an honorary president, who just seems to be brought over to make a PR statement every few months, and he isn't even very good at that. So, Les Reed must be largely responsible for our decline. Polls show the majority of fans agree he has failed badly over the last 2 years and that, after reaching 65 last year, he should have retired and let someone younger take over. I think he is doing more harm than good by hanging on. My preferred choice to replace him would be Paul Mitchell.. There is no need for A4 paper. A simple chant of Les Reed Out at the end of each defeat will suffice.

That's nothing special for Newcastle, or most other regular top flight clubs for that matter, which have nearly all had spells like that. Newcastle finished 4th, 3rd and 5th from 2002 to 2004 and 5th as recently as 2012, under Mike Ashley, and have had 10 European campaigns in the last 20 years, including the Europa League with Ashley. It doesn't stop their fans protesting when they underachieve and know that the people running the club are no longer doing a good job. Their fans are passionate about their club and don't like to see it failing.

I think he will because, unlike Walcott, nobody else wants him.

I'm not ITK but I have a hunch they'll announce the signing of Carrillo just before the Spurs game to head off planned protests, which they'll be aware of because they do monitor these messagboards.