Nordic Saint

You haven't seen Alex McCarthy in goal before then. With him in goal there could very well be 5 goals from 5 shots for Fulham.

He's lumbered us with this one until he's 33: https://southamptonfc.com/news/2016-07-21/long-signs-new-four-year-saints-contract #LesReedOut Paul Mitchell in. https://twitter.com/CluelessLesReed

#LesReedOut https://twitter.com/CluelessLesReed

There is no point sacking the manager if Reed is still here to pick the next one.

The person who brought in the right people before, our former head of recruitment, Paul Mitchell, the ideal replacement for Old Les, who surely must retire now or be forced to.

What a great goal poacher Billy Sharp is. That's 59 goals in 103 games for Sheffield United so far, which is on a par with his 9 goals in 17 games for us. It will be great to see him get his chance in the Premier League next sason. Let's hope he succeeds like Rickie Lambert did.

In Old Les's case, more like, live by bulsh!tting, carry on bullsh!tting.

It did. He got a job at Leicster!

Factor in our progress in the Southampton Senior Cup and this is shaping up to be one of the best seasons ever.

If Les decides to sell van Dijk to Liverpool, he should demand Joe Gomez in part exchange. If he could get Lallana as well, that would be a great deal for us.

The Long suffering could go on for many years because he signed a new contract last year which will keep him here until he's 33. The tickets will help to pay for it. https://southamptonfc.com/news/2016-07-21/long-signs-new-four-year-saints-contract

Good post. What a great final that would be. I like to see Saints win trophies at every level. Seeing Saints win the 2015 U21 Premier League Cup Final was a real highlight of recent years for all those of us who were there.

I don't think the Chinese government will allow Mr Gao to get any more money out of China. It took him a lot of time and subterfuge to raise the 200 million to pay Kat and he's probably going to have to use the club's Premier Leage income to pay back the loans he took out to do that.

On the day, the best player on the pitch was England youngster, Joe Gomez. After all, we are the U17 & U20 World Champions.

Only 3 clubs have been champions more than Everton, and they don't include the new kids on the block: Man City and Chelsea. But, it does show that the 'big club' group is constantly changing.

I remember being very impressed by him when he came on as a sub for Real Sociedad in a pre-season friendly at St Mary's back in 2013. He looked the classiest player on the pitch. He was relatively unknown and hadn't broken into the French national squad then and we could have signed him for around 12 million but obviously nobody at SFC thought he was worth it.

It's the final hurdles we seem to fall at. Altogether we've been in 14 FA Cup & League Cup semi-finals. You'd expect us to have 3 or 4 trophies. In contrast, Pompey, who were only in the top flight for 33 seasons in their history, were in a total of just 7 semi-finals. Even Leeds have only ever been in 13 semi-finals. It could be down to repeated bad luck or perhaps we are just too nice and content to make up the numbers.There has never been much of a ruthless or arrogant streak at Southampton.

In a table based on average league position over the last 50 years, Saints are 11th. http://www.skysports.com/football/news/11096/10881263/ultimate-league-reveals-liverpool-are-englands-top-team-followed-by-man-utd-and-arsenal

I don't think we'll get relegated this season because there are clubs with even weaker squads than ours. But we have been turned from challengers for a European place into relegation battlers and if the squad continues to get progressively weaker, our luck will run out in the next few seasons. We seem to be repeating what Bolton did a decade ago. We should learn from their mistake of letting an aging, stubborn administrator have too much power at a football club. I posted this some time ago on another thread: If we keep Reed until he's 70, there is a danger that we will turn into the next Bolton. From 2003 to 2007, under the direction of Phil Gartside, Bolton finished in the top 8 of the Premier League in 4 consecutive seasons, qualified for Europe and finished runners-up in a League Cup Final. All the while, Gartside became ever more powerful and stubborn, ending up making nearly all decisions at the club. They then slid into the bottom half of the table, where they struggled for a few seasons before eventually getting relegated. For Phil Gartside read Les Reed. "Broken Bolton: where did it all go wrong for Wanderers?" "It is certainly starting to seem like a trick of the mind that Gartside was once regarded as one of the sport’s more impressive administrators, thought of so highly he was given a place on the Wembley board and put in charge of the FA’s selection process." https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2014/oct/11/phil-gartside-bolton-wanderers-abyss

Celtic have got a new head of recruitment, Chelsea's former chief scout, Lee Congerton. They've done very well to get him. Scouting and recruitment have always been the key to Celtic's success, more than the manager, the same as they were for us when we had Paul Mitchell. It will be interesting to see if Congerton can unearth gems in the transfer market, like Wanyama and van Dijk, as well as John Park did over the last 10 years. Brendan Rodgers didn't like the amount of power Park, with his job title of head of football development, had at Celtic and there was a bit of a power struggle, similar to that between Koeman and Reed. Park is now looking for a well-paid Les Reed-type position.

That's what people said about the last one but I don't think he'll take Leicester down. The weak squad is more of an issue, especially in attack. But, there are quite a few smaller clubs, like Swansea, Huddersfield, Burnley, Brighton and Bournemouth, which should prove to have weaker squads than ours by the end of the season.

It's too early in the season to judge but it would be nice to see Everton relegated for a change.

Probably a blessing in dsguise. Northampton have been drawn away to Pompey in the 2nd round. Full second round draw Northern section Port Vale v Shrewsbury Town Rochdale v Doncaster Rovers Fleetwood Town v Group F runner-up Blackpool v Mansfield Town Walsall v Bury Lincoln City v Accrington Stanley S****horpe United v Leicester City U21 Group F winner v Oldham Athletic Southern section Group C winner v Forest Green Rovers Gillingham v Oxford United Group D winner v AFC Wimbledon Portsmouth v Northampton Town MK Dons v Group D runner-up Luton Town v Group C runner-up Swansea City U21 v Charlton

We've been in the top flight for 41 of the last 50 years. We finished in the top 10 in 15 of those and our average position the top flight is 11th. We have been in the top flight more than we have been in any other division and we have also been in 14 FA Cup & League Cup semi-finals and 6 finals. As our resident misery, you obviously prefer to ignore the good times.

A Charlie Austin hat-trick, even in a closed door friendly against a team from a lower league has to be one of the highlights of our season so far, and is a massive improvment on our defeat to Wolves Reserves so you can understand why Pellegrino was so happy. Seriously though, Austin should start against Liverpool. Nobody else has looked liked scoring that many goals all season.