Ex Lion Tamer

It's almost as if managers aren't committed to speaking wholly truthfully in press conferences

Are there keepers out there we could sign at Championship level who are good with their feet and also consistently good shot stoppers?

Why would you expect this though? Has it ever happened? To any club even, let alone Saints? Still needing to ship players out after the season had begun was as sure as night follows day because teams won't raise their bids to what they should be until late on in the window. I agree it may affect our performances which is shit but there was never any changing it. And it can run both ways - we have some excellent players still with the club who will otherwise leave.

Not sure this is actually true - he said the only club he would leave for was Girona and otherwise saw himself at Saints for the rest of his career

I'm too burnt by David McGoldrick to think Ballard will get any more than 2 goals this season

Would you say that about Lemina, for example?

IF the following players stay next season, how many goals do you think they will score? My predictions as follows: Alcaraz - 18 A Armstrong - 16 Tella - 15 Sulemana - 9 S Armstrong - 8 Mara - 7 Aribo - 6 Djenepo - 4 Edozie - 3

By the end of the season Armstrong will be in double figures for goals and we'll be saying he played a useful role alongside the (better) striker we signed

Mowbray is the off field appointment I'm most excited about really. Hopefully he can unearth some gems

Tella only has two years left on his deal so I can see us being willing to go a bit below £20m to get a deal done. Sulemana has a long contract and there's no logic to taking a loss on him - if he wants out then I think he'll have to go out on loan to try to build up his reputation for a sale next summer

If we're serious about promotion, then we need plenty of firepower

Call me an optimist but Stewart now and then Prioe at the end of the window when the price comes down doesn't seem out of the question

He's had a bad achilles injury and a couple of hamstrings but I'm not sure this is the sort of recurring thing we should be worried about into the future?

Yes that's exactly it, time on the bench and maybe the b team. Just time out of the spotlight to reflect and work on his game, and rebuild his confidence

Baz needs a season out of the firing line, for his own benefit

My thought too. I wouldn't be writing him off at Championship level

I'm definitely interested to see what sort of deal we've struck for Sulemana. Hard to see those French clubs paying £20m? We might go down to £15m at a stretch I suppose. But a loan would suit both parties more I'd have thought

I think we are in a better financial position than most relegated clubs but Tino is also a particular case - I doubt he is on huge wages, his contract has three years left to run, we'll only get a % of the fee and he doesn't seem that desperate to leave. Why would we sell on the cheap? I thought the £30m made no sense and it turns out it's all nonsense coming from Newcastle

Depends how much revenue we need to balance the books, and if we think KWP is staying then it makes some sense. But I still fear the club is making a misjudgment about his value

I just don't see why it's hard to believe that the player is content to stay but saints are pushing the move because they want the transfer fee. Instead we have to believe that all players are money grabbing mercenaries who will brief the press that they want to stay even though they want to leave

Why leave Chelsea in the first place if money and being at a big club is all that matters?

These things are so much less black and white than you're making out. A young player can easily be led/persuaded by an agent into making a move when they didn't really want to. They may even think they've made the decision themselves but were in fact guided into it. It's simply way too cynical to think that players only ever say positive things about staying at their current club as a cover for their desire to leave. They can easily just not say they want to stay, and often do. Anyway, it's equally plausible that Newcastle and Saints have cooked up the transfer and both Tino and the agent are just going along with it as they have no other option

It's easily possible that Newcastle, Southampton and possibly his agent have cooked it up without the player being particularly keen

I'm also baffled that there isn't interest in KWP. He'll only have a year left on his contract next summer so it will cost us more to keep him

Depends if he fancies it but surely a good team in Europe would like him