Alanh

https://twitter.com/SouthamptonFC/status/1544743009413218306?s=20

Got to agree with this. I think a 4-3-3 is one of the formations we have used least often this season and it seems to be one which we have good suitability for given the current squad. I think the idea of OR, JWP and ID as a 3 is fairly strong when we need to be defensive, and we can swap ID for Stu when we need to be a bit more attacking. IMO the front three should always contain Che to hold the ball up but can then feature a variety of other attackers depending on the opponent. We can still get width from the full backs with one of the midfield three covering them if they get caught upfield.

I can't see how the order of that table has been compiled. None of the value columns seem to be ranked in numerical order. Essentially it tells us what we know already. that transfer fees have to fund new purchases whicle commercial revenues fund wages and other outgoings. Either we find a benevolent owner prepared to pump cash in with next to no hope of getting it back, or our commercial revenue needs to increase dramatically if the status quo is ever going to change.

Of course it is, but is there any evidence that he has been pressured / encouraged into coming out? I've missed it if that has happened.

Let's say he is with the rest of his team and they are talking about who they are bringing to the end of season awards. Most are bringing wives or girlfriends, but he wants to bring his boyfriend. He's either got to lie about bringing a female friend or he's going to be and honest and truthful individual and say it will be his boyfriend. To do that he needs to come out. Another scenario - he's not come out but is seen in public at a gay club or holding hands with his boyfriend. If he's not come out then rumours start and that puts unnecessary pressure on him and the club to clarify things. By coming out publicly he's able to be honest in both of the situations above (and any others that are similar) and has to hope that the wider public don't see it as a big deal.

The media obviously give it airtime because it's a rare event and a good news story. I don't think any other player is in the same situation in the Prem this season, but if Harry Kane, Marcus Rashford, Bukayo Saka, JWP, etc do the same thing and retire at Noble's age still part of their club's first team squad and club captain, expect the same sort of media interest.

Agreed, it's not a good omen for AA if Long is preferred, but RH's comment about a training session suggests to me that he had to make the decision without having the opportunity to assess it in training, rather than it being something that was worked on and then changed on a 'feeling'.

You must have understood what he meant. Why not reply with something along the lines of "There's no reason to think that our owners will do the same thing as the City Group" rather than being pedantic about what was essentially just a poorly worded sentence.

Agreed it was a perfectly weighted ball but he had to wrap his foot around it and he got the timing / connection wrong. He might have scored it last season for Blackburn but he's low on confidence at the moment so he missed - a reflection of his current ability. I still think it's pointless piling into TWar. He's got an opion which he attempts to back up in a variety of ways - stats / comparable images etc. That's got to be better than someone who resorts to whataboutery or insults. Not specifically referring to you.

In the exact same situation another 10 times I reckon he would have scored 3 or 4 at the most. That's reflection of both the difficulty of the chance and AA's ability. Harry Kane in the same situation gets more than 3 or 4. The photo doesn't tell us enough as you can't tell the relative direction of movement of the player or ball. My recollection is AA was a bit off balance and the ball got stuck under his feet. He had to adjust to get anything on the shot. He could / should have done better but it's never a sitter. IMO piling into TWar for having a different opinion and being prepared to defend it in a variety of ways is pretty pointless on an interent forum.

Massively disappointing and frustrating results in both the Newcastle and Watford games. I thought in both cases we tried to play our normal home style, but with the opposition in both games sitting deep and counter attacking it was always going to be up to us to make the running and find the openings. The Everton and Norwich games were very similar, except neither of them had the quality or level of performance to pull off the deep defence / counter attack plan. Too many Saints players had off days in both matches which resulted in errors leading to goals and in presentable chances not being put away. There's little point in singling players out for bad performances as we know that they are capable of better and we have to remember that most of our squad is young and so is going to be inconsistent. Unfortunately for us we need pretty much our whole team to be operating at 7 out of 10 to be effective. At least City won't sit back and defend deep which should suit us better. Hopefully that's a balanced assessment. It's probably not what I would have written in immediately after each match.

I'm glad someone else raised that as it was the most striking thing about the OP for me.

Just their relative ages and career aspirations. It's all assumption but I'm guessing that Theo accepts that he is on his last top level contract and will either retire or move down the football pyramid after his contract with us expires. Moi and Djenepo are 27 amd 23 respectively so must have the ambition to extend their careers beyong the end of their current Saints contracts. I reckon we can use that to sell them for small fees this summer.

I'm sure with at least two keepers leaving - Forster & Caballero and probably 3 if Lewis goes, then we will need to get in two replacements, one to start and one as a number 3. I would think the number 3 will be a youngster based on the clubs philosophy, unless there is another Caballero out there who is a very cost effective signing. I don't think we will see much if any movement in or out in terms of first team squad defenders. Some fringe yongsters might leave or go on loan. Same for central midfielders, hopefully a contract renewal for Romeu. I'd be amazed if Walcott left this summer. He's doing his job as a squad player, putting pressure on other attacking midfielders to stake a claim in the matchday squad and providing experienced cover when needed. I think it will be the same next season. Wouldn't be surprised to see Moi or Djnepo leave for small fees, and perhaps a youngster come in to replace them Striker is the big unknown. Best case is signing Broja either permanently or for another year's loan. If that's not possible we will need a replacement. I'm sure we are already working on a number of scenarios. I don't think we need to replace Long in the squad.

Sorry to hear about your illness Minsk. I hope that you find some positivity during the rest of your days and that Saints can give you a few bright spots in that time. Thanks for doing this thread, I hope it lives on in your memory.

Agree about our inconsistency - it's always been the way with SFC - but got to disagree about Brentford losing because of their mistakes. They might have been a poor side, but our first, third and fourth goals all resulted from great assists and decent build up play to either win the corner for the first, or regain possession before playing the through ball. I am sure some might argue that on another day Brentford defenders might have been in different places to either beat Bednarek to the header, or play Che offside, but it was our good play that resulted in the goals and the win.

Get well soon Minsk, For those arguing semantics of this initiative, have a look at the official website, not the hedlines or brief writeups on various media websites. https://www.arsenal.com/nomorered It's clear that the initiative is designed to attempt to tackle to root causes of youth violence in the capital. It's not just about raising awareness of knife crime, but is investing in communities, creating safe spaces and oppotunities which might help young people move away from a violent path.

A few times this season RH has changed formations with subs to protect what we have. We have gone to a back 3 a few times this season to protect what we had i.e. the win against Villa. Against Leeds he brought on S Armstrong about 5 mins after we scored and before Leeds made any subs. He might not get them all right but to say he isn't able to do it is wrong.

I'm going to disagree with the bit in bold. Our wide attack has regularly come from our fullbacks rather than the 'middle' 2 so the concept of giving up one side is just not happening. In the last few home games the amount of interchange of position between the 'front 4' has been higher than I can remember in Ralph's time here. I guess that's a lot to do with the change in personnel in those positions this season. Not sure about the blanket statement that 4-2-2-2 doesn't work in the PL. I think our relative 'success' with it has depended on our players being on form, not suspended or injured and playing an opposition susceptible to our pressing game.

Surely this isn't much different to having a regional Saints supporters group i.e. Northern Saints or London Saints where like minded individuals know they can meet up either physically or online and perhaps go to matches together. If there wasn't one of these types of groups before and Saints were one of the few / last clubs to have one then that's a good thing. I can't see that this group is trying to create division, it's just offering a 'place' for like minded fans to gather.

Absolutely this. 5 more points gets us to 19 after 17 games. Not as good as last year, but almost certainly good enough to be comfortably clear of the drop zone.

It's pretty easy to put together a scenario like the one you have created and then look at the other end of the scale - £1.50 charged on buying a season ticket. Neither prove a case in isolation. I would imagine Saints know roughly how many tickets they will sell in a year and how much their booking system will charge them to sell those tickets. They just divide one by the other to get a flat fee per ticket sold. I guess there might also be a tax implication if the tax payamble on the booking system is different to the tax payable on the ticket price. That might be the case if the booking system is run by a company not based in the UK. As I said, if anyone would prefer the club to be less transparent and lump the fee into the advertised ticket price then let them know. I'm sure it would be an easy change for them to make and if it's a popular choice among fans I'm sure they would do it for the good publicity.

To a degree it does as the costs from the handling of the financial transaction will be a percentage of the total spend so will escalate as more tickets are purchased. Also I would expect there to be some increase in costs to the other elements of the process, but I would think they will be less than the cost of handling the financial side of the transaction.

I run an online booking system as part of my business so have a bit of experience in this area. There are costs associated with every transaction. Firstly from the operator of the booking system, secondly from the financial transaction business who handle the actual payment and finally from the ticket distribution system (digital or physical). Their combines costs are what is covered by the booking fee. Saints are being completely transparent in seperating out the ticket and booking fee costs. They could just wrap them all together into one cost which would be the same as the total of the seperated costs. If anyone thinks this would be preferrable they should tell the club directly as it's exactly the sort of thing that they club can do if they get an indication that fans want it.