Saint Albert

Thanks for the commentary.

I think Clasie would do well if he got a run of games. Can't see that happening here, unfortunately for him.

Tidy finish by Gabbi.

That slowed the commentator down a bit.

According to Get French Football on twitter: "Breaking | Southampton are to sign Mario Lemina from Juventus for €18m, player to undergo a medical in the next 48 hrs, according to RMC."

Here's a recent bit on Lamina: http://outsideoftheboot.com/2017/07/11/scout-report-mario-lemina-juventus-midfield-dynamo-outcast/

The Spanish radio commentator sounds like he's on speed.

If you read the comments, Galatasary fans seemed to think he was heading their way last month.

The goal apparently came from a JWP corner.

It didn't make any sense to me.

The club tweeted that it will not be streaming this game due to the other 3 pm kickoffs.

If I remember correctly Kelly was one of the tweeters who reported that an offer was made by Liverpool and a deal just about done on VVD, right before June's media **** storm. That was quite damaging for his credibility, even in the eyes of the scouses.

I'd be interested in reading the original Times article that the Star is reporting on. Shame about the paywall.

It's rare but you could argue that it happened with the Rooney / Lukaku deal.

There's a few reports out there that Chelsea have offered Christensen to Inter as a make-weight in a deal for Candreva.

A lovely thing for the Dutch manager to say. I wonder...if VVD is fit but refusing to play, can the club hold him back from international duty? Is he even eligible for selection? The Dutch are in an uncomfortable position in their group, and have a big game coming up against the French.

If you believe the stuff that was spewed around in the media in June, VVD wants them because they NEED him. He sees himself going down as some kind of Liverpool legend among their highly emotional, hero-worshipping fanbase. On other teams like Chelsea and City, he would be just another player subject to rotation. I'm pretty sure one media report had him criticizing City's tepid supporters and praising the passion of Liverpool's, who remind him of his time in Celtic. A short answer would be VVD has an unusually large ego.

It would be nice if they took the geoblocking off the club's feed for the game.

He's looked decent in the pre-season games that I watched. He set up two goals against St. Etienne. (n.b. I missed Wednesday night's match).

RAWK is having a bit of a moment following the Chelsea "bid". Interestingly, some of them have realized that months (years?) of winding up Saints fans on social media may be working against them, resulting in an "anyone but LFC" momentum. Anyway, the RAWK VVD thread (where all mention of SaintsWeb is banned) is presently on lockdown with the following message from their Mod, who apparently finds punctuation confusing...

Romeu. He's one of the first names on the teamsheet. He also seems to have a good character, but I would have said the same thing about VVD last year.

I really don't like the idea of VVD and his agent being rewarded for acting like complete knobs. I also don't like the idea of the board backing down after taking such a public stance against the move. Unless Pellegrino regards the situation as unfixable, VVD should stay another year, and as he watches the Champions League on the telly, he can contemplate how his agent and Liverpool arsed up this whole process for him.

Could be. I recall that the prevailing opinion at the time seemed to be that it was his agent, though.

50M plus add ons seems a bit light to me in today's market. This Matt Hughes article is behind a paywall but describes Chelsea as being confident they can get a deal over the line, and they are willing to exploit the poor relations between Saints and Liverpool. Also Conte persuaded his club to make the offer. This may flush Liverpool out of the weeds and test their "we have no further interest in VVD" stance, which as we all suspect, is completely false.