Alanh

With Connolly leaving we were always going to buy a new striker so the purchase of J-Rod makes sense. Sharp's departure was more down to him being a victim of the change in formation to 4-3-3. Difficult to see him playing as the central striker in that formation with relatively little pace and no aerial threat.

Major overreactions on here IMO. Kelvin's not perfect and I'm sure this season is his last as a No1 for us. It would have been great to buy a replacement in one of the last three windows, but he's been exposed by defensive errors from midfielders and defenders in every game. Let's see how he does against the likes of Reading, West Brom, West Ham, Villa who are our real competitors in this league rather than some of the best attacking talent in the world - RVP, Tevez, Podolski, etc.

If we had played those four matched throughout the season and got zero points from them rather than in the first four games them few people would be panicking. IMO the time to be convcerned is if we are more than 3 points adrift at the bottom after 10 games. Yesterday I thought the real problem was in midfield where Arsenal, especially Cazorla, were allowed too much time on the ball and as a result were able to play through us in little triangles. They obviously have much better players than us in this area of the pitch and so it was disappointing that we didn't seem to have a strategy (or implement a strategy) to counter their fluid play. On the odd occasion that our midfield got the ball we conceded possession too easily and aften in our own half and as a result of both of the above our defence were under almost constant pressure in the first half. The big test comes in the next four matches. We need to pick up points and get a couple of clean sheets. That will help the confidence levels and give some of the newer players the chance to settle into the system.

You could argue that based on us playing 4-3-3 with one central striker that RL and JR are first and second choice while Mayuka, Guly and Lee can also play there, so you could argue that Billy was 5th choice. I don't believe NA sees the squad in terms of 1st, 2nd choice etc, but rather as a group who are each capable of delivering something different. I reckon the conversations was something along the lines of NA saying that he wanted to keep BS but couldn't guarantee match time. At the same time an offer had come in from Forest which NC was happy with which they felt duty bound to tell BS about.

Completely agree. Those saying nothing was done about the defence are ignoring the fact that we brought in Clyne who has been a top performer in each match so far, and Yoshida who is captain of his country. I fully expect him to claim Fonte's place and hope he forms a strong defensive pairing with Jos. In this window we have brought in a keeper, 2 defenders, a CM, a winger and 2 strikers (if Mayuka is s striker). That stikes me as strengthening across the whole team rather than selectively ignoring certain areas as is being suggested by some. To answer the OP, until we see GR play there is now way of telling whether it is £12M well spent so too early to answer the question with any certainty.

The @Southampton Way' isn't new this season. We are implementing the same passing and moving, possession style of football that we have done since Adkins arrived. The formation is a slight variation on last season and some players are getting used to their differing responsibilities but we still look like the Southampton of last year when we get on the ball and knock it around so I don't see the 'big unfocussed leap' that you are referring to. You're right about the possibility of losing players if we go down, but we could also lose players if we / they are successful as Swansea have found out with Allen and Sinclair.

He was excellent yesterday. He tired in the last 15 mins as many of our players did and I had him down as a candidate for substitution when AL was taken off instead. He went down with cramp towards the end which hilights that he is still getting used to the pace of the Prem. he had one nervy moment inthe first 15 mins when he just hoofed a clearance, but after that he was composed andmeasured all afternoon and compared favourably alongside Davis who has much more experience doing a similar role. If he develops as he should then we've got a real asset on our hands which hopefully we can keep.

Kind of irrelevant as Al Fayed doesn't own it anymore.

The main reason we haven't sold out yet are it's August so loads of people are on holiday . We didn't sell out our first game at SMS and rarely do sell out the first home match of the season for that reason. In addition we're playing Man U next week so any fans who needed to be selective about which matches they can attend are more likely to try for Man U tickets first. That might mean that Wigan tix are a fall back plan for those that are unsuccessful and consequently will sell nearer matchday.

The Ravi Shankar bel puuri house in Drummond St, near Euston is excellent. All veggie buffet for about £7 per person. Certainly beats your routine curry house.

Thanks, published on the OS after I last searched.

Anyone know how much the tickets are for this one? I can't find the info on the OS.

I enjoyed it, but was disappointed with the atomic bomb plot device. It lead the movie to one predictable conclusion. Thought Bane was good, but nowhere near as good as Joker or Scarecrow. I guess the bad guy had to be different in this film but Bane didn't have the unpredictability or either Scarecrow or Joker which made them both compelling on screen. I thought Anne Hathaway was very good as Catwoman, much better than I expected. Also, I think filming so much of the city shots in daylight felt wrong. I always think of Gotham as a dark, shadowy place and so it felt wrong to see so much of it in daylight.

The last time a No 3 was needed was when Liverpool had Reina and Doni sent off in quick succession and Brad Jones had to step in towards the end of last season.

I think you might be right about CB's we might only see one come in if Dan Seaborne does enough to convince the management that he can make it after his injury. I think we'll almost certainly see two keepers come in as Forecast is clearly not rated as he never came close to challenging Bart of No 2 status last year. A PL squad needs three keepers so I wouldn't be surprised to see a youngster and a more experienced player come in before the end of August.

So the FL's ruling means that the players know that all football creditor's have to be paid and that Pompey have a couple of parachute payments in the offing with which to make those payments so IMO there is even less chance of them walking away for peanuts now. If the majority of the PPs are going to football creditors I think that the two ways for Chinny to get his money back are 1) sell the ground to a new owner for whatever he wants, or 2) rent it to a new owner for the long term. I think that the onoy way the PST bid is now going to work is if they restructure their bid so that they use the bulk of their money to buy out Chinny, buy the club for £1 in the knowledge that there will be very little PP available post purchase and they have to runthe club on gate receipts under the watchful eye of the FL. Sounds like a 5 year plan for relegation to the Conference to me!!!

Mick Williams is insistent on Twitter that if the club is liquidated the players will not receive the wages that they are owed. Obviously he's biased in that he wants them to reach a compromise agreement so that the trust bid can progress, but not sure that he's right otherwise why would the PFA have mentioned the £23M?

1. No official handicap but probably around 20 2. Hum the tune of the Blue Danube as it's the perfect rhythm for a golf swing 3. try to keep your right knee as still as possible during your swing.

NA always talks about the squad so I think the concerns that people have over record signings being on the bench are not valid for him. He'll be thinking about the 18 man squad for day one. I'm pretty sure that we'll go 4-4-2 with two holding central midfielders. So for the first match of the season I'd say that we'll see 3 or 4 new players in the 18 man squad along with the core of last season subject to fitness and by the end of August there will be a couple more new faces added. I'm going for something like the following: Davis Richardson New CB Hooiveld Fox New RM Schneiderlin Cork Lallana Lambert Rodriguez Bench New keeper Fonte Hammond Guly Sharp Lee New midfielder

I go with my son (u17 concession) and Dad (OAP concession) and we are planning to relocate across a block or two as the central Kingsland is now premium. I figure a slightly less central view is worth it for a saving of more than £450.

Fox and Richardson had that attacking responsibility and did it very effectively all season. They may not get the opportunity to do the same next year when they are up against higher quality attackers buit I can't see us changing far from our preferred 4-4-2 with the midfield 4 either adopting two central defensive players and two wide attackers, or a diamond.

Villa, Everton, Arsenal and Man Utd are probably the best examples of prem clubs bringing through players from their academy in the last 5 - 10 years. They have shown it's possible, you've then got to blend them into the squad along with transfers and have a manager that is committed to the whole system. I think we've got the manager to do it, and I think that the new acadamy will attract the players so we should achieve the objective given time. The thing that each of those clubs have in common is their long established status in the Prem which makes them more secure in terms of not panic buying players. It might therefore take us a few years to get established (possibly with some relegation and promotion) before we can also have the same number of players coming through.

Matt Jarvis is originally from the Guildford area and I heard yesterday that he has bought or built a house in the Cobham area, just off the A3. Apparently he is definitely moving but his agent is playing it very coy about who he is going to.

Yes, that's exactly what is going to happen. BC has said that he will step in if no one else buys the club. His motivation for that is to ensure that the remaining parachute payments are paid out to whatever is left of the club. He should know that there is no chance of getting back to the Prem now without major investment so he'll go into asset stripping mode, getting as many of the big earners off the books as he can without a care for the impact on the playing side of things. Once he's got the PPs he'll sell the club to anyone who will take it off him.

Based on seeing what Norwich and Swansea did this season and having seen how NA prepares the team through pre season I'd say no to your question. I think we should be able to be better than 7 or 8 other teams in the Prem next season.