verlaine1979

Maybe the club will surprise me, but I really can't see us joining in the madness and more than doubling our record signing this summer.

Perhaps, but Brighton has the seafront acting as an alternate focus for the town, whereas with Southampton its basically Above Bar or nothing. I actually think that in places the city centre parks act against Southampton - green space bordered by thriving shops and residential areas are undeniably nice, but when they're surrounded by train stations, main roads and a shopping area decimated by the gravity of West Quay, they actually feel a bit alienated and disconnected.

A city centre/high street that isn't an absolute dump?

Sounds like someone has responded to the (more realistic) Bellerin link and thought 'are there any other short, Southern-European right backs playing in the premier league?'

Funnily enough, while the post-2000 revolution in German football has produced a generation of players with great technique, I don't think they have the same mental strength as the Deutschland of old.

Apparently he's actually quite an aggressive presence on the touchline (my driver in Cannes last week was a former Ligue 1 player, and said Puel was a 'take no sh*t' manager). In the interview he just comes across as a laid back guy whose lack of conversational urgency is heightened further by having to think in his second language.

Hopefully he can impart the same lesson to a rejuvenated JRod. He's never been entirely convincing as a one on one finisher.

Ah right, didn't realise footballers don't pay tax on the first £80k a week.

I sense you're probably joking, but just in case you aren't Coutinho had more goals, more assists and more chances per minute created than SD. I know everyone loves Davis, but the idea that his graft in attacking midfield (where both play) would be enough to keep Coutinho out of the team is absolutely insane.

Mental.

Davis played 600 minutes more during the course of the season than Coutinho, and Coutinho still scored more and had more assists. This one's a pretty simple choice, if you wouldn't swap Coutinho for Davis in our first 11, there's not a lot of hope for you.

I'd imagine playing with Coutinho behind him rather than Davis will probably result in substantial increase in chances at the very least.

Maybe we could have held out until the end of the window for another £5m, but the club have probably learned from Spurs and Villa that having a huge hole in your squad and a huge wad of cash is no good if you only have the last day or two of the window to spend it. If he was always going to go, and if he wasn't going to go to a bigger club than Liverpool (and he hasn't yet proven himself enough to make the step up to a regular place at a top 4 club yet anyway), probably makes sense to get 90% of what you were asking for, and give yourself the whole summer to reinvest it. I can see him moving on for £50m or £60m to somewhere like Bayern in two years if he does well (they have wingers to replace soon), so I do hope we have a nice sell-on percentage agreed too.

The fact that his greatest achievement in management was 16 years ago is a bit of a worry, but I suppose he's no more or less likely to fail than Koeman was when we appointed him. Doesn't have the benefit of RK's reputation as a player, but perhaps has a slightly better managerial record overall. RK wasn't an appointment to make other clubs envious two years ago, and neither is Claude Puel now, but that's just where we are as a club.

Is Ronald the first moderately successful European journeyman manager to do well in the Premier League? Garde, Magath and a few others have been spectacular failures in the recent past, while I suppose you could say Flores did a decent job last season after moving around Spain a bit. I must admit, Puel does have a bit of a whiff about him, but it's probably just because he sounds like someone Fulham would have hired ten years ago.

I'd love to know how you think a handful of Saints fans opining on whether Rudi Garcia has a viable Plan B is going to help the board to strike centi-million dollar sponsorship deals...

At 31 years old, and with a grand total of 14 goals in his 248 Premier League appearances to date (about 1 every 18 games), I think it's unlikely he's going to suddenly find a rich vein of attacking form.

Exactly. Always said he was a decent option for his industry, but with his goals and assists record, I doubt we were fending off a host of rivals for his signature.

Perhaps it has to do with the impending availability of the Sevilla job. The only advantage the Saints job has over that one is money - in terms of club prestige & quality of life, you'd go with Seville every time. Maybe the named managers are waiting to see who gets that one first.

Shame about Garcia, but on reflection, not surprising that he'd turn his nose up at the prospect of swapping the Eternal City for Ocean Village.

Checked in with a friend in Paris whose football hipster credentials are impeccable. Rates both Garcia and Puel, but prefers the latter, saying he has a knack for improving players.

Ryan Giggs always comes across in interviews as mouth-breathingly stupid, which might have been acceptable in a manager fifty years ago but isn't any more. I'd be incredibly surprised if he ever amounts to anything as a manager now that the intellectual demands of management have risen beyond inspiring a bunch of twenty-somethings to address you as 'gaffer'.

We've finished in the top 6 once since returning to the Premier League, and most of our progress has been made in spite of the received wisdom that in England we play a special version of football inexplicable to outsiders. To be honest, none of the options mooted so far look unassailably great, but if it's a choice between sticking with the philosophy the club have pursued up until now, or reverting to the Premier League mean by hiring an 'established' dinosaur like Moyes, Bruce or any of the others that might be available, then I hope they continue to break with the norm.

Err, wasn't last summer immediately after Barcelona won the treble in Enrique's first season? And considering Saints was the first time the two Koemans had worked together in management, it would seem a bit odd to let late-developing sentiment keep RK from the job is allegedly desires so much. All in all, sounds like absolute toss.

I'm pretty sure Tuchel said he wasn't interested 2 years ago when he was out of a job after leaving Mainz. I doubt his year at Dortmund has made him any more interested in mid-table Premier League jobs.