CB Fry

I did think that about Newcastle too, though. Depends how much Lerner is prepared to fund. If they are going back up I can't see Garde doing it, they might as well go for a meat and potatoes manager - Pearson/Steve Bruce/etc to clog and clunk them back up to the top flight like Chris Hughton did and big Sam did with WHU. As it stands they look just as likely to end up in L1 in three years as being back in the Prem.

Sorry, they were still talking about Villa at 8:40 at which point I'd finished up in the kitchen and bailed out. True story. At least we're not them by the way - their chief exec has been in radio interviews giving it the full Rupert saying how successful the commercial side of the business is doing and how shirt sales are up. Shambles.

You said imagine what could have achieved with some stability and I did.

Or, we got relegated under Adkins and he fails to take us up in the two following seasons we give him to get back up. Still, five years of stability.

Over the last five or six seasons I think we have proved comprehensively that stability is massively over-rated.

We are a topic of conversation on the Five Live Monday Night Club, so probably will get fifteen minutes of discussion between now and 9pm.

The only comparable manager is George Burley in terms of significant sums (for the level we were/are at) and freedom to build his own team.

LOL. Alpine Fox currently having at meltdown over on LeicesterWeb.

A player from Twente. That's what we need.

He's not Walking Away from Saints:

Except the article doesn't say it, you need to work it out from the salary quoted. Ridiculous click bait headline anyway.

Why are you asking that question like it is some killer question I'm avoiding? Who knows? Leicester are second with a team containing a grand total of zero players costing ten million. Koeman has a squad chock full of ten million quid players which Stoke don't have, or Leicester, or Watford, even our old chums Everton don't have many, stonking fee for Lukaku notwithstanding. He's had the tools to get us into the Europa proper and a respectable mid table finish. If we'd have signed two more £10m players this summer the only guarantee is that the same dins on this forum would be demanding we spend even more this window to "push on". Have a biscuit for your question though. I'm on the rack and no mistake.

Sunderland and Newcastle have a huge positive net spend over the last five seasons. Five seasons. Count them.

Strange how selling all our best players has suddenly morphed from being a terribly bad thing to a "once in a generation" situation we are supposed to have taken advantage of. Bizarre. I'd say Newcastle finishing fifth under Pardew with an exceptional crop of well scouted players and a positive expansive style is pretty comparable, or Boro under McClaren, or Fulham with Mo pumping in money all over the shop, or Villa under Martin O Neil finishing 6th three seasons in a row, or plenty of other clubs who have a moment in the sun. Guess what, all of them had "a platform" to build on/push on/kick on/etc etc etc and none of them did. We're really, really not unique. Not sure why you think that I think we have "done well" this season, obviously we haven't, and I haven't said that we have. Middle ranked club doesn't stay at seventh forever shock horror I can't believe it.

Clasie was clearly Koeman's key target this summer and we signed him. We probably need to negotiate less effectively and just sign every we want for £10m to stop people moaning on here.

Isn't it funny how any real world comparative clubs you quickly disregard - no, so we're nothing like Leicester, or Sunderland or Newcastle or Stoke or, it seems, any other club on earth. Welcome to Sherlock's world, where Southampton Football Club are the most unique-est sporting institution there has ever been. Bizarre.

Arf. Keep trying. Just another variation on your openly weeping about net-spend routine. I then mention clubs with gigantic net spends - like Sunderland and Newcastle and you start spluttering about how no no no you don't mean them, you mean other clubs. Guess what, Southampton will have lots of seasons where we knock about mid table and then with a fair wind we will hit the heights of seventh. I couldn't give two sh its whether you and your non-dullards "accept" this or not, because that is what is going to happen. Waaa waaaah waaaah it's so unfair that howwible German woman took our windfall away, our windfall our windfall waaaah.

Not really.

Except the club won't increase in value, the cost of the club will remain about the same if we finish, say, sixth or fifteenth, fundementally the club is the same. Any potential purchaser is not going to be heavily influenced by a league position in any given season, as long as we are in the top flight. But a great plan - a new billionaire comes in spends all the money you want him to and only stops when you're happy, then of course we have non stop success forever until the next gazilllionaire turns up and buys it off them. Great thinking Roger, great thinking. Schoolgirl football economics.

It's not that big a bump. We're thirteenth in the Premier League, not bottom of it.

We only "stopped doing it this summer" for the right back position, when we should have signed somebody of Bertrand class at a Betrand sized fee. Other than that we haven't stopped doing it, have we?

How's your list coming on?

The temptation to have a second bite of the summer 2014 cherry is so irresistible or some isn't it? We finished seventh with a record points haul last season which should draw a line under it. Done. Move on. But you can really see how much some on here hated that outcome.

Comedy, comedy gold. Someone remind Begovic how much he wants to stay at Stoke because he seems to have accidentally signed for Chelsea in the summer. And N'Zonzi of course who so dearly and desperately wanted to stay at his beloved Stoke he decided to express that by being sold to Sevilla. Apparently he signed his contract in Spain wearing full Stoke City replica kit drinking from a Wedgwood mug and spent his first pay packet getting a tattoo of Gordon Banks on his back.

Except in 2005 we were second from bottom. But, yeah, identical. Have a Wispa.