SKD

JWP on for Boufal, yet Redmond stays on the pitch :lol::lol: **** off now Pellegrino, you ****ing clueless ****. Take Black, Watson, Reed and Kat with you.

Or pay him whatever it takes to replace Les?

I can’t tell if you’re on a wind up, but Bournemouth are as it stands level on points with us..... they’ll no doubt be ahead of us after we play them in 2 weeks time

Trouble is they will probably replace their manager (who knows if that will have a positive impact), we won’t...

Did anyone expect anything other than this? 4231 hasn’t worked all season and believe it or not, it’s not working today. Davis is not a holding midfielder. Tadic and Redmond offer no pace on the counter. Long - whilst quick enough to get in behind the victims CBs offers **** all else Let’s see if he changes it second half. 2 up top, 3 at the back, anything.... just don’t take Boufal off.

Like it or not, that is what it has come to. We need someone to come in and organise us and build a bit of confidence again. Big Sam had palace playing some decent stuff back end of last season and he is in no way as bad as people make out. Will it happen? Will it ****, The control freak Les won’t let it.

Game over. Crawling to relegation. These last 18 months have been nothing short of a joke. Les reed and Kat, our demise is on your hands. I can’t see us bouncing back any time soon either.

I don't see what's changed really... The clubs stance should remain 'he's not for sale (if clubs know he's for sale then that weakens our hand), unless it's for a ridiculous price (£50m+) and to anyone but the Victims'.

Pretty much sums it up. The quality of opposition is pretty poor (I'd imagine BTC, or any other Southampton league team are just a group of mates, who've probably been out on the **** the Friday night before a game). To try and put it in relative terms it would be like Man City (an elite European team) playing Eastleigh or another lower national league team (BTC) and then someone like Forest Green or another lower L2 / top national league team (QK) The jump in physical and technical ability from someone like QK to Sholing (who on their day are probably the best team in the Wessex), whilst only being 2 divisions would be huge. Even though saints squad will be made out of 17-23 year old, they should have enough to stick a few past whoever they play. It will be interesting (and beneficial) for them to play a few physical Wessex teams though, in my opinion.

So far we’ve (saints) have played a Southampton Premier team and a Hants Premier team (both conveniently at Staplewood). It’ll be interesting to see how the fair against a Wessex Prem team like sholing, who not only have technically better players than the previous 2, but are physically much stronger as well. They’ve (saints) have said they’ll play home and away if needed, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they don’t get drawn away the whole time. Would expect to see them at St Mary’s come the final.

Difficult to say, but I'd probably have to say yes. Last season Koeman done pretty well at Everton... Guided them comfortably to 7th, had them playing some decent football and caused a few upsets against the big 6. Something we could only dream of at the moment Had Everton signed Giroud, as they expected, or at the very least had a plan B they wouldn't be in the mess they are now, IMO. Who's to blame for that? I don't know. Rooney was an awful piece of business, but I believe that was down to Kenwright rather than any scouting / management team.

Again, how is this relevant? I think he asked a sensible question, which as of yet you've failed to answer.

Yes, even excluding his time with us, he is a massive name in football and has a much better CV than Pellegrino. I think Koeman would be an upgrade on what we currently have, however I don't think bringing him back would be the right decision at this moment in time. Whoever replaces Pellegrino has a massive job on their hands.. over the last 2 seasons our squad has significantly reduced in quality, confidence and attacking capabilities

Agree. All in all, he generally keeps the ball very well, but also lacks the final bit of creativity in the final 3rd. He was excellent when he had flair players around him (Mane, Lallana, Tadic and JRod in form), but with the current squad especially as he is getting older, perhaps isn't as effective as years gone by. To summarise, he's a good player, who's had a decent but not really spectacular career. A great bit of business by Les / Mitchell / Cortese / Nigel (whoever decided to go and get him), and the perfect captain for us, he's a role model on and off the pitch. After us, I'd like to see him back at Rangers and help them return to past glories - I wonder if Michael O'neill was to take the Rangers job, if he'd try and get SD to go with him?

Said it in the summer, I’ll say it again... Jack Wilshere. Providing he can stay fit, which is a big ask, he’d be perfect to replace an aging Steve Davis and would add genuine creative quality to our midfield

Giroud turned down Everton in the summer, he wouldn't come to us and we wouldn't pay the money to get him to us... Good player though.

Bang on. We need someone with some creativity in the center to find Gabbiadini's runs and some pace out wide to have the option of a quick counter attack.

easy..... Out of contract - Yes Happy to let Les / Ross / Scouting team pick transfers in and out of the club - Yes Play ‘the southampton way’ (possession based football) - Yes Cheap appointment - Probably As many have said, it’s amazing how our first choice / top target is consistently out of contract

Our current style is something that they struggle against, If we keep it tight for 60 minutes, who knows. However I can't see anything but a Victims win. For me, Mane and Salah will just bee too quick and good for our defence. to get anything from it, we'll need VvD and Forster to have world class games. Having Lemina back would be a bonus as well. City is the game I'm really worried about. That could easily end up anything if we just sit off them and let De Bruyne / Silva pick holes in our back 4/8...

At the moment it's more of a single shot = goal and a goal = defeat or draw. It's a concern, we have a solid back 4 but even the best back 4 in the world can't stop average teams from having shots. How many goals conceded this season have you not thought 'the keeper should have done better there'.

Yep, completely agree. As I've said elsewhere, Les has done a lot of good at the club, but he currently has far too much power.

No one has said 8th and a cup final was a bad return though, have they. Peoples issues with Puel weren't final league position. They were his negative style, poor form the back end of last season (continued now into this season, due to a poor managerial appointment by Les), European results and play unrest.

My own opinion, but i reckon we’ll wait until Emery is sacked by PSG and try and persuade him to come. We wanted him the year Koeman left, but he already had PSG lined up. Trouble is, it may be too late if Emery lasts the season.

What, are you joking? People went mad the summer we lost pretty much all of our squad. Even Brendan Rodgers pointed out our ambition had changed. We got lucky with Koeman, he was the right man at the right time for us. We still had a number of Mitchell's targets on the black box and I think Koeman had a clear idea of who and what he wanted to bring in. I've always said our transfer strategy is risky and that one day it would come back to bite us. It now has. Ironically, the season we refused to have a clear out is the worst we've had. Also, I'm not moaning that Cortese left. As you can see from my next sentence, I said we couldn't continue as we were under him.

He has? Carlos Compagnucci (Assistant Manager) & Xavier Tamarit (Assistant Coach) came with him. Eric black was 'demoted' to 'Senior First Team Coach' and Dave Watson promoted to 'Head of Goalkeeping' How much Influence Black now has I don't know, however I do know he's generally not well thought of as a coach, has had a dubious track record and a certain ex captain of ours and some other players, still here, didn't like him (although this captain was also a d!ck following international success, so take that with a pinch of salt). I thought it was a strange appointment at the time and even stranger that he didn't go this summer.