Chez

I doubt they are covering all of them. Who has the money to afford premiership players? Would it have been wise to to turn down any offer on the chance that someone might come out of the woodwork at the last minute. Quite a gable that. I'd of taken the bird in the hand on this one personally.

criminal that this has not been addressed yet. Without Cedric's pace there was a good chance that Everton would have scored on one such break on Saturday. We have conceded several times in this way. Doesn't anyone analyse how we concede goals and look to rectify that?

three is always going to be better than two. The question is, when Bertrand is fit and we get this new right back, thus strengthening the defence, will our centre backs be good enough to play as a two? Having a five man defence hides frailties. All that extra space to handle is not good for `slow defenders' like Vestergaard. Bednarek is not quick either I might add. I wonder if we will stick with three CBs until the end of the season no matter what?

this is exactly what will happen with all our failed signings. I'd be surprised if we saw a transfer fee for any of them. It will simply be a case of trying to get as much of their wages paid as possible and then writing off their transfer fee/value over the lifetime of their contracts. Financially very painful indeed.

Seems very settled in the South. I don't suppose Reading have the finances to bring him there. I don't suppose anyone without a parachute payment could afford even half his wages.

Bolasie cancelled his loan either because Everton wanted him back and it was up to him to cancel the loan to make that happen. Or, he knows that another premiership club are interested in taking him off Everton's hands in this window. I suspect that would be Palace, but Bolasie to Saints has a nice ring to it. One of my favourite players prior to the crucial ligament injury. The question is, has he got that electric pace and power back?

boy did his pace get us out of jail when we yet again were caught on the break from our own corner. FFS we must sort that out. Not the worst player to bring off the bench. Worked hard, got up and down and did well defensively.

not exactly in Maguires league for physicality and ability in the air, but on the ball Stephens is extremely composed. He's more John Stones-like.

sometimes teams throw caution to the wind, bring on a extra forward/a big man and we struggle to cope. When they throw men forward we often fail to kill teams off when we hit them on the break.

Improving with every game, but the five man defence hides frailties. Hard to know if he, Bednerek, Targett and Vestergaard are good enough to hold there own against better quality in a four man defence. Really hope Valery has what it takes.

Can someone tell me how Long missed that chance in the first half? Absolutely ****ing woeful. How was that even possible.

Buying the club was a smart move and good advice from Nik Nak, no doubt about that, but that's a bold statement. If the money was there I guess players like Shaw and Lallana may have stayed rather than go to Man U and Liverpool and we would have challenged for CL, but there is no guarantee of that. we will never know

16th, I thought it was always 17th? Try to be consistent Dalek

what about net transfer spend + wages?

I certainly didn't. but maybe that's because according to the Southampton FC posted accounts they made a loss every year after administration in 2009 up until 2014 (accounts to June 2014), when we made a £7.1m profit. Cortese left in January 2014 of course, half way through that financial year.

he looked very solid, and kept Murphy quiet after he had run Valery ragged, but I'm not sure he offers enough in attack, especially if he is asked to play as a wing back. Personally I like Stephens in the middle bringing the ball out. Vestergard and Bednarek don't have the ability to do that.

You are correct. Who wouldn't have done the same in his shoes? Just for context though, he played 3 champions league games in total and sat on the bench in the FA Cup final. He played 2 whole minutes of the Community Shield. He might have got more caps for France if he had stayed at Saints and continued to perform at the very high level he was for us, but then again maybe his form might have dipped here too. Who knows. It would be interesting to know how much he has enjoyed the period since he left.

did he take into account The Clot played him out on the wing?

that's a hell of a probate period. What happened, did Cortese contest the will he was meant to executor of?

I too missed it having spent years glued to the site. Annoying. Funnily enough I missed the spoons revelations too. Typical.

Nik Nak departed three and a half years after her father's somewhat unexpected death. If there was an expectation that he would inherit some of the club (as you suggest) and that was denied/ignored by Kat, then I think that `overlooking' would have caused a much earlier departure to be honest. Doesn't mean he wasn't fuming at how control of the club was wrestled away from him though. There was lots to dislike about the way he went about things, but that ruthless and single minded focus on building Saints up is something we have missed.

Agreed. If you are breaking your own transfer record for a striker and he's coming from another, perhaps lower league, you'd want them to at least have hinted at being a prolific goalscorer...or maybe even just a threat would be nice!

Interesting comparing the two in terms of career goals/games records: Sala 85 goals from 215 games. Carrillo 63 goals from 245 games. To be fair to Carrillo, he started in the Argentine top flight, whilst Sala scored a shed load of goals whilst starting in the French league 3 and 2. If you just compare their strike rates at their most recent clubs (Nantes and Monaco): Sala 42 goals from 117 games, Carrillo 21 goals from 95 games. there is obviously more to being a striker than simply scoring goals of course, but both are 6'2 and would be expected to lead the line. I think Sala is 28 whilst Carrillo was 26 when he signed for us. Like you said, if he joins Cardiff hopefully he is more Carrillo than Crespo.

yeah, no skate has ever mentioned the 4-1 win in 2010 when they were two divisions above us. Personally, I hope we get them in a later round and we get to witness either a 4-1 destruction of them or a late Steve Moran-esque winner. The scenes in 2011 when Ricky scored at **** Park will be hard to beat, but a last minute winner would probably do it.

at games there has never been anything but total backing from Saints fans.