Chez

hasn't he just signed Dier?

what if we go to three at the back? Only kidding.

not seen a great deal of him myself, so what makes you think that?

he can certainly convince them as to what a great stepping stone we are and I'm sure he won't be hard to believe when he says we won't stand in their way of a move if the transfer fee offered is right.

we won't finish 11th if we have "£72m in the bank" IMO. Saints fans are underestimating the effect of the loss of talent and overestimating how easily the new players will fill their shoes.

strikes me that the Taider/Osvaldo deal will go through once the two parties have agreed on who pays who's wages and the two Celtic lads will be relatively hot on his heals if they go out of the CL.

He's gone and therefore I could not care less.That said, if things go really pear shaped for the both of us I wonder if we might take him back in the January window?

hope it is relevant, but Morgan, Wanyama and Cork together didn't work IMO. Morgan seemed redundant and Cork a little lost. As was the case last season, a hard decision must be made by the manager between players, although with a weaker back line, maybe they will need extra cover. If we do that though the attack will suffer. Tough choices.

Celtic won't be selling Forster on the eve of their CL game.

aren't we just waiting for Celtic to go out of the champions league and then we can go back and try to sign Van Dijk?

It's a very good question. With Lallana, Lambert and Jrod all missing it is a completely different attack, so who knows if it has the ability, strength and luck to get all those goals. Will we even play the same formation. Lots of talk of wingers coming in. Who will supply the goals. Losing Shaw's penetrative runs and Lallana and Lambert's assists is going to reduce the supply line too. I'm concerned, but there is nothing you can do other than see how it all pans out.

the game is about opinions, but that is quote a claim to suggest the players that have come in will immediately match those going out. Shaw and Lallana made the PFA team of the year. are you suggesting Tadic and Bertrand will do the same?

I guess the biggest problem, Rodwell injury problems apart, is the massive wages these guys expect to continue to receive. I've always rated Zaha and would take a risk on him if the deal was right. I think with Lallana removed from our attack we need some that can beat a man out of nothing, which Zaha can do. Not sure he is the easiest player to manage and he does seem to be easy to wind up, but in what might be a very tough season ahead we could do with a little entertainment and flamboyance.

regarding getting Saints players autographs it depends on what time you can get to the game. If its particularly early then I'd suggest standing outside Celtic Park, but if you tend to arrive late then Anfield might be a better bet.

did he do that or was it just speculation? I'd of thought we'd take whatever was offered seeing as the wages would haev been byond most championship sides.

agreed. Absolute beast of a defender. A good example of that was when he had a very good Janujaz in his pocket on the last day of the season. On that day Janujaz looked like he'd take a lessor left back to pieces. On most occasions the wingers seemed to be beaten before they began, often passing square rather than to try and fail to take him on. I think the only criticism you could level at the lad was that on the odd occasion he was a tad slow/casual to get back into position, but that was only ever after a longish run down the line. And with the formation and tactics as they were, it was the responsibility of the likes of Morgan, Cork and Wanyama to fill in anyway. Watch us create **** all next season without his barnstorming runs, but still concede goals. As I have said all along, losing Shaw will be massive at both ends of the pitch. Only now it will be less obvious because we have lost talent all over the place. I also bet that he scores half a dozen goals this season. His shooting looks good, all be it without any joy with us, but that was coming and once he gets one I think he'll score goals regularly. sadly.

we do pay for some of our academy entrants. Lallana, Best, Blackstock and most recently Neal Osborn (£40k up front, potential to be £1.3m in total) were all bought in. Maybe not £12m, but how much was Lallana's sell on to Bompey in the end?

At no point did the club want to lose any of the best players (Lambert apart), but they certainly didn't want to match the wages they were being offered by the CL clubs.

sort of player that might look crap at 5 a sides

I have no idea if he's a nice guy or not, but what I see on the pitch is someone that gives absolutely everything and that degree of effort and robustness complimented our skill players brilliantly last season. There will be other more talented players out there, but you need workers too. Any player that is willing to tackle with his head if called for (as he did last season) gets my vote. Now whether his contract demands are realistic are another matter. I suspect he wants a huge pay rise and that will be the stumbling block here. Koeman will want time to see if he is actually worth the 40,50,60 or whatever thousand pound a week he wants.

one thing Lallana certainly didn't have was a loose touch. He had the best first touch whilst on the run that I have ever seen in a Saints shirt. It's only because so many have gone that we aren't all worrying about how badly we miss these individual players. I think some fans have seriously forgotten how good Lallana and Shaw were for us last season. Tadic and Bertrand have a lot to live up to.

I like Mulumbu, MOTM at their place on the opening game of the season, but Yacob wasn't better than Cork last season.

Does Koeman like a fried egg sandwich I wonder?

As I said, IMO it wasn't a vocal minority, it was the majority of fans in the stadium that day that expressed their unhappiness at Hoddle coming back. You can airbrush the incident all you like.

Boy are we are going notice the loss of Shaw. Bertrand is a massive backwards step. Massive. Mind you was at ever going to be otherwise. Let's hope he keeps improving as he didn't impress much last season.