Chez

It's the Southampton way.

Is his cooking making em sick?

Not saying you are wrong, but you do need to consider the strength of hand they have had to work with. How good are the senior players, is their any flair in the squad, youth coming through, opportunities and money to address issues, injury problems. I am mindful of Poch's record being at Espanyol, finishing 11th, 8th and 14th. I seem to recall he he lost quite a few players prior to his last season and was sacked after a bad start. League position isn't everything. I realise some teams do punch well above their weight, and managers at those clubs should be looked at closely, but there a lot of factors. Working wonders on a shoestring budget is to be applauded, but doesn't mean you can handle a bigger club with different challenges. While we are at it. What was Cleverly's hand like? They sold their best player in Asprilla last summer and Kone was decent too. He got buttons to spend to replace them. Would he be an option for us perhaps?

I thought we were discussing the video analyst Anthony Sheldon.

Yes it is. Was that where Sheldon worked before joining Dorking?

Top noun 1. the highest or uppermost point, part, or surface of something. I'm just pulling your leg MLG. I'm sure he will do a great job and can be our very own Paul DePodesta.

Excellent.

When you want someone to identify football talent, what better place to look for it than the software engineering department of a bank? It's this kind of out of the box thinking that has er, kept the ball out of the box (and the net). Not ours, obviously.

Not looking for an argument, as I largely have agreed with you that existing players in the squad have shown they can do it at the lower division, so the drop down in division can see them be effective again. However, the pessimist in me has been concerned that goal scorers do often just stop scoring. Previous records do not a guarantee future performance. There are lots of factors and reasons for this, not least a change in the team's style of football/approach, a lack of chances and/or loss of confidence. Armstrong's failure to score goals at WBA is a concern. WBA don't create or score a lot of goals, but three in 16 games, one a pen, isn't great. Brereton has four goals in 17 games playing for the third best side in the league.

Sainz has one year left on his contract, so its now or never for Norwich to cash in. £11m figure has been bandied around. We need to add some individual attacking flair, guile and craft to compliment or replace Sulemana and Dibling.

Perhaps pointless to suggest a load of players when we have so many on our books that we will probably have to keep or will take all summer to offload, but what's the harm? I'm going to imagine the current lot have all fucked off. All of them. Every single last one...except Ramsdale. I don't have a clue about keepers, so will let someone else address that position. Anyho, in no particular order Omar Richards (Forrest) Tørborjn Heggem (WBA) Bindon (Forrest) Issa Kabor (Man City) Chakvetadze (Watford) Rak-Sakyi (Palace) Riki Shaw (Bristol Rovers) Andrija Maksimovic (Red Star) Josh Murphy (Skates) Sainz (Norwich) Kasper Dolberg (Anderlecht) Simon Banza (Braga) Could maybe add Vardy and a couple of old school defenders like Ben Mee, but mostly I want to see some talented dribblers like Chakvetadze.

...and by 25 haven't got pretty much the finished article anyway? If you don't come off your line at 25 you never will.

you are right. I will rephrase. I don't want us to make a complete fresh start at keeper. Ramsdale is the best keeper we have had for donkeys...

Not down to him, but in his first three games we conceded 10 goals against Chelsea and Spurs and in between I thought he looked pretty poor against Villa. We were lucky to get away with a 1-0 win. They should have scored many times before doing so. My memory is not great, but I seem to recall he looked nervous, hesitant and a little clumsy. Bit of a baptism of fire. I really hope he finds his feet and thrives.

Was she responsible for signing Gunn from us?

we dont need a complete start at keeper. Ramsdale is the one player I'd like to keep more than anyone else. I think he is top draw and don't dare think of what is behind him. Certainly not keepers I have any faith in at all.

Possibly, but if it goes like it did last time, CBs won't be tested anywhere near the level they are in the PL. Time after time we `got away with it' in the championship and it was obvious to me, that if we did similar things on promotion, PL players would murder us. Wingers don't fail to take advantage of slips ups, strikers don't miss chances etc. The defensive coaching has been woeful over the last five years or so. Year after year we get destroyed (and outnumbered on the break from our own corners. How on earth does that happen? Without better coaching and management I'm not sure the likes of Wood or Edwards will progress into PL players.

Going rate for a regular Prem player I guess, but my view is we should never be giving second (or even third) PL contracts to players like he obviously got. If we have a player that bigger PL clubs (which is pretty much all of them) don't want to sign for a fee or on a free, then we should give up on them and try again by bringing in someone that could be better. We reward mediocrity far too often because we simply don't have confidence in our recruitment.

In championship terms, we are massive payers. Not many teams could afford what we spent on the Brooks, Downes and Fraser loans. We need to make similar signings. Depending on what happens in the summer, the funds may be there again, but it's crucial to have a manager in place that can make Southampton an appealing club to join, with prospect of games, wins, promotion and the hint of making the loan permanent should that happen. Martin, for all his critics, should be credited for doing that last time. I hope the new guy, Rohl or whoever has what it takes to make their `project' (horrific term, I know) appealing.

I think the bank loan interest paid so far is about £35m (not including 2025), which doesn't include the extra amount paid to reduce the underlying debt (which was not long after increased again when taking another extra loan out) 2021 - £7.66m 2022 - £7.71m 2023 - £10.96m 2024 £9.02m

I suspect there are similar posts to this at the time he re-signed.

is our plan simply to keep punching ourselves in the face?

Wood wasn't good in the Championship last season. That is a concern for me. But he's not yet turned 23, so maybe he will find his feet next season. I need to see Edwards in a Saints shirt before I make any decision in his ability. The same applies to Charles. He has got praise from Sheff Wednesday fans, but even they admit the bar has been incredibly low in terms of talent in their squad. We want to win the league next season. To do that we could do with having the best players in the league in a few positions.

Good point. I'd be inclined to keep him (the escape clause and possible interest from elsewhere will dictate that) as he played well last time in the championship. No reason why we can't look to offload him (and others) the summer after, should we identify an upgrade that we can actually sign. That said, if Rohl becomes the new manager, then he may revert to four at the back (he has played 4 at the back 30 times, 5 at the back 19 times this season), which means we have far too many players that can play there: Bednarek, THB, Stevens, Edwards, Wood, ABK, Sanda and Taylor.

Sfc pays him fully each month. The loan agreement is between the clubs. Sheffield pays money to SFC, not him.