Saint Albert

Yes they have. Their sources ought to do a bit of research.

I should have added that it's Crook.

Nothing new here from the Sun but they do list Chelsea as one of the interested clubs: https://www.thesun.co.uk/sport/football/2793204/southampton-want-martin-caceres/

He's been linked to 3 PL teams so far. It is impossible for two of them to sign him. If he needs a few weeks to get his fitness up, I believe that will only see him missing one PL game since the week following Sunderland away is the FA Cup, and the next is Wembley. Make it happen Les.

Seems like we're in a sticky situation with our CBs, making it a risk well worth taking. It's not like we're stumping up a 15 mill transfer fee. I'd be surprised if we offer him potentially ruinous wages. This is Southampton after all.

There's only three PL teams with full 25 man senior squads: Palace, Swansea and Sunderland.

I took mine from a way better source (the Daily Mirror!) Anyway I count 23 players on the PL's list.

I habitually count to 40. It was ingrained following just about every PL season in the 90s. I remember the year when we survived in favour of the late Alan Ball's Man City on goal difference (at least I think I remember it). Back then it was difficult to follow the PL in Canada. I had to find out that Saints had survived by looking at the stats section of the sports pages in the Edmonton Sun on Sunday morning. I would be shocked if we are relegated this season. We have a 6 point head start, and some very poor teams below us with their own morale, performance and injury issues. One or two of them will surge. They always do. We have winnable away games against Sunderland, Watford, WBA and Boro. We have winnable home games against Bournemouth, Hull, Palace and a Stoke team that will probably have nothing to play for on the last day. Yes it's a little more interesting than it should be thanks to a horrible run of results, key injuries, poor transfer decisions (not replacing Fonte) and I have lost a lot of confidence in Puel, but Barry Gabbiadini looks like he knows where the net is and surely the defending can only get better.

Saints named a 23 man squad, so there may be an opening for a free agent player.

I picked this up from one of the Palace forums: in order to sign a free agent a PL team has to have a spare slot available on the roster of 25 squad players submitted by Feb 3. Palace submitted a full squad of 25, so cannot sign Caceres. I wonder if any of our residents rules experts agree with this?

If you like really long lists, Transfer Market has a web page with all of the available managers. There's some real gems like Bob Bradley: http://www.transfermarkt.com/trainer/verfuegbaretrainer/statistik

I was thinking something similar re Pardew. Big Sam's record at Palace certainly makes Pardew look better. Plus he's brought in so many new players, whatever happens for the rest of the season good or bad for them would seem pretty disconnected from the Pardew era. Personally I think that so many changes in the middle of a season would make it difficult to produce a cohesive squad.

My opinion on Puel has changed over time. I did not jump on his appointment at the beginning, thought it best that he get a chance no matter how underwhelming he seemed at the time. I liked the rotation, since it seemed like the best way to handle the fixture congestion. I have also enjoyed seeing young players like Sims get a chance. This season, he's had bad luck with key injuries and even worse he has had to deal with Uncle Les' unfathomable decision not to bring in a replacement for Fonte, having sold him. Well, Saints supposedly have a list of options for all positions including manager. If we lose to Sunderland next week that would be 7 losses from 8 league games. Surely no-one could survive that. There's then a 15 day window until the next match at Wembley, which would seem like a decent opportunity to appoint a new manager and give him time to work with the squad. This was a "too clever by half" appointment by Les. Yes Puel ticked all the boxes including youth development and European experience, and he is supposedly a training ground coach, and he likes the same system that the club supposedly likes, and he does not complain publicly about the club's parsimonious, business-like transfer policy. Surely the best option was the best manager available, not the one who met all the club's various criteria. There were some good names in the mix last summer, but I suppose we'll never know if they were truly contenders.

If you're going to to sack a manager, the competent time to do it would be before or during the transfer window, so the new man can identify weaknesses and bring in new players. I can't see Les pulling the trigger now. I'm starting to think that he should.

That's W.Ham's first win at St. Marys. We lost to an average team, again. I'd suggest that Les relieve Puel of his duties but he'd probably just replace him with Black.

Kat is in the stands with Ralph. I wonder what she's thinking?

He's injured. Boufal is coming off.

Boufal looks hurt...

Barry just missed a sitter.

Carroll's coming off for Lanzini

Davis OG. This really sucks.

Bloody hell we just cut them open but couldn't finish it off. Now they have a dangerous free kick off the counter attack.

It is predictable that our 3rd and 4th choice CBs would be a weak link. Shame Les couldn't get a deal over the line in January. Still, 45 mins to go. Barry looks good. You never know...

J-Rod forced a decent save.

1-2 Obiang.