Ex Lion Tamer

The whole thing about youth recruitment is that you invest in a load of players and then one of them comes off, which pays for everything

What is it about the £126m we've spent this season that makes you think we'd weaken our team in a key position to save money?

I honestly don't know why people think Sulemana will leave. The guy has no end product. No one's paying close to the £20m we bought him for

Because fans judge players individually and usually based on what they do with the ball. Managers are interested in the team shape and what players do without the ball

I wonder if the high fitness demands of the modern game make these sort of players less viable. Walcott was lightning quick to start with so perhaps is able to still cut it

Obviously relegation is the likely outcome but any/all of our last three games could be against teams with nothing to play for. They're all winnable

This was a problem under Ralph and its a problem for us again under Selles. The pressing game is great against a team that comes forward because you can disposess them quickly and break. Breaking down teams that come to St Mary's and sit back was a problem under Puel as well, come to think of it, although not in that case because he played a high press.

The thing is, the nature of our model means we shouldn't really judge most of these players until they've been with us for a couple of seasons. The trouble is they're being thrown straight in and expected to get us out of a relegation battle

A year in the Championship might be good for him though

He was only a sub at Rennes. He may have potential but it was visible a mile off that he wasn't going to come in and improve our team

Also a reminder of why there are still plenty of points for us to pick up this season even against teams we wouldn't ordinarily back ourselves against. (although to be honest I still think we're getting relegated)

The counterpoint being that we wouldn't have put the club on as strong a footing long term. We might have stayed up which is obviously a good thing but after a season or two we would find ourselves with lots of ageing players who would need replacing for even more money, and less scope to make profit on the new players. Also we tried to sign a £40m striker and couldn't pull it off for whatever reason. Relegation is shit obviously and I wish it wasn't happening. But we do have a really strong pool of talent now that we can either sell for decent money or keep and use for a rebound

Clear thread across almost all of those signings are that they are promising players but not yet good enough to keep us up

If you have a list of candidates in order of preference with Selles in the middle, it makes sense to slow things down once you've crossed off everyone above him

My view: Hindsight tells us he should have gone but there was a reasonable argument that with financial backing he may have been able to turn things around. He had had really good spells in the past with much less backing This was a cock up, for sure. I think the plan was to get a striker but they chose ambitious targets and didn't have simple back up options This was a mistake, it's so hard to bring keepers through young. This position should be treated separately within the overall strategy Really hard to begrudge him the move when he wanted to leave. Players aren't just pawns that you do whatever you want with. What would morale in the rest of the team look like if we denied him his wishes? The problem was not replacing with enough depth I don't think enough recognition is given to how good his record was with Luton but the interview process clearly needs to be looked at It's difficult to bring in quality before the end of the window. Agents always want to spin things out and get the best offer I think its understandable to give him every chance before pulling the trigger. Wolves was clearly the point it became untenable

It would be negligent if we didn't

That doesn't help, of course!

You would think. I don't know much about his personality or leadership qualities though

JWP may wear the armband but there's absolutely nothing stopping other players from shouting/encouraging/organising. The real problem is a lack of senior quality at centre back / DM

He kept Leeds up last season when they looked on course for relegation. I'm not super excited by the appointment but that is the logic

That's one club. Meanwhile there's people on here who want to give Lampard and Gerrard a go after their failures

Bruce wouldn't actually be the worst shout, as long as it's just till the end of the season. He tends to get teams playing well at first before stagnating. Could do a Mark Hughes for us. Won't happen though

It's not that top players can't be great managers, but I've seen enough of Lampard and Gerrard to know that they are not going to make it at Prem level

Please God not Lampard or Gerrard. If they hadn't been top players then no one would be giving them a second thought

I don't disagree but that's what they'll be thinking