verlaine1979

He was planning to bring in a few signings last January too. Not sure it means much in terms of whether Gao ultimately spends or not

It isn't money laundering. It's finding a loophole to move money out of China at a time when the government wanted cash outflow to cease. He said it himself in that interview earlier this year - Jack Ma or someone like that was extolling the virtues of establishing capital outside of China, so he wanted to do the same. He's borrowed £200m in short term loans to buy a cash-flow rich asset in the hope that it will eventually self-finance the incurred debts. Once the loans are repaid, even if he sells the club at a small loss it will have been worth it to move a sizable chunk of cash out of China.

You don't think three years makes any difference? The sport has changed - average players aren't at their peak from 28-30 anymore, with the physical demands meaning that decline now starts from about 26. Even allowing for the fact that center backs peak a little later, Yoshida, Bertrand and Cedric are all on the wrong side of their peak years now, having been close to their prime in in 2016/2017.

What's the point of this comparison? An additional three years hasn't done any favors to most of those players, with Bertrand, Yoshida, Romeu and even Hoj seeming a good yard slower than in 2016 (plus Cedric clearly wants out, so his effort has declined regardless of his physical condition). For reasons both to do with transfers and the general composition of our first XI, we are a slower, weaker team than we were under Puel. And as someone else said, standards in the league are increasing all the time.

Except he's a lightweight beanpole and is **** in the air. Vest rarely does more than loop the ball up in the air when he does succeed in getting his head on it.

So slow, so weak, so scared of the ball. So painful to watch.

Maybe, but you'd have to assume she did her due diligence over his finances (she was being advised by UBS or similar) so would know that a) the value of Lander was in the process of collapsing even as the negotiations were ongoing, and b) that Gao was having to finance the purchase with high-interest loans. Not sure how she could look at either of those situations and conclude that Gao was in a position to take the club forward in any meaningful sense.

As someone said above, their goal started with McCarthy botching a kick out. We were set up for it to go long, but he only managed to slice it around half way. Put us on the back foot immediately, and we weren't set to defend the simple through ball.

McCarthy's kicking is dreadful. The turnover leading the goal began with him slicing one less than half-way.

Credit where it's due - fantastic leap from Long

Brilliant free kick

Hope I eat my words before the end of the game, but Redmond really is gash - no pace and no ability to take it past his defender.

F-ing hell, how far down the pecking order has our marquee summer signing fallen that Long and Obafemi, neither of whom can reliably finish to save their lives, are comfortably ahead of him?

This is likely to be it - the motion smoothing setting on many TVs is input-specific.

Exactly - crowing about him now is just tempting fate with his fitness for the rest of the season. The fact that our likeliest saviour has dicey record with long-term injury isn't really something to celebrate.

You're probably right, but that doesn't stop it being absolutely mental to have 'undroppables' in a team that has had such a rubbish season. Twelve league games, 1 goal 0 assists and his best performance was a cameo as a sub in the cup against Pompey.

The irony of Steven Davis' biggest fanboy criticising JWP for being cautious in the pass and ineffective in the tackle. They're essentially the same player, only one scores the odd free kick. Give JWP Tadic, Pelle and Mane playing around him, and suddenly he'd be the metronomic glue sticking our team together.

This is all very underpants gnomes: Phase 1. Collect football clubs Phase 2. ??? Phase 3. VAST INFRASTRUCTURE PROJECT PROFIT!!!

I'm sure you realise this, but both Fonte and Lambert transfers were either record fees for League one, or very close to it.

Not a chance. You think she fought that hard to liquidate the largest part of her inheritance, only to lock up the vast majority of her capital in the same place a couple of years later? She supported Gao's legal appeal against the league's initial finding that he wasn't a fit and proper owner, despite her due diligence (undertaken by UBS) surely revealing that the person she was selling to was having to borrow the money to buy the club. Those are not the actions of someone who thought she was securing the club's legacy - they're the actions of someone who really wanted to get her hands on the best part of £300m. And I don't blame her really - if I inherited a baseball club that I didn't care about and that didn't make me any money, I'd be desperate to get rid of it too. But please enough with the amateur hour PR briefings - not a single one of them passes the most basic sniff test. Gao is potless, KL just wants to enforce the purchase of her remaining 20%, and we are in the sh*t with very few options.

Didn't some Pompey fans, I mean Paul Allen once say: "Southampton is a sleeping giant, a family-supported club with traditional values, and we see the value in taking the brand global."

Missed out on the top job at the FA, but not high enough profile to jump to a DOF job at a top club. Few years at Saints (assuming we somehow manage to avoid relegation) will pad his CV nicely.

Missed out on the top job at the FA, but not high enough profile to jump to a DOF job at a top club. Few years at Saints (assuming we somehow manage to avoid relegation) will pad his CV nicely.

We're averaging much less than a point per game at the moment. Probably best to leave talk about how we make other teams look bad for later in the season?

Persistent poor finishing is usually one of the most reliable predictors of relegated sides.