St Louis

I think you needn't worry about that 😂

When you just stop and think about that stat alone, thats an absolute disgrace. A team that has just come down from 11 seasons in the Premier League... to concede 10 goals to 1 scored... in just 3 games... with 2 of those matches at home... with 1 against a team that was 2 divisions below us a couple of months ago. Something needs to change drastically and fast, or we will be cast adrift from even the playoffs, we dont look anywhere near good enough. Even our 4 previous unbeaten games we weren't convincing.

I’m wondering the same… from Gran Canaria 🇮🇨

Is that not Arteta in his Everton days?

Whilst I'd love him to stay, I do think we often view these decisions with our rose tinted specs on. As well as the guarantee of Premier League and European Football, I would imagine he could add £50k - £75k a week extra onto his wages and a signing on fee of between £3m - £5m. He would also have a much bigger chance of making the Euro's if he has a strong season in Prem/Europe, where as he knows he has zero chance if he stays. There is also a much bigger chance that West Ham will be in the Premier League next season than Southampton. And he's also a Skate deep down.

It is... https://twitter.com/Dominos_UK/status/1687062309900779520?s=20

He’s 100/1 on Sky Bet

He has been in Germany for most of the summer, as per his Instagram Stories. Slightly odd as we havent heard anything officially why, and he isnt hiding it.

Yeah, probably 😂 I'd still 'argue' that Baz is better with his feet, but McCarthy is better with his hands (just). Not a high bar for either of them to beat though. Definitely a big problem for the season ahead.

But McCarthy knows how to save a shot. Not ideal really is it.

Because it isnt a Football Manager video game. Any of these players could be with us this season, deals collapse, etc at last minute and we would want them fit. And if we are negotiating to sell the stars, then the buying clubs also wouldn't want a player with no fitness or game time (and an injury risk). We also have a game on Saturday and start the season next Friday, we need to use the squad and not burn players out, they all need minutes, but not too many.

Left Back (or LWB) usually, but cheers 😉 He definitely looks useful and all comments from other Championship fans (and Swansea) in particular sound very positive.

Is the game on Facebook too? As don’t think you can Chromecast to TV from the Saints site.

I grew up in Andover in North Hampshire through the 80's/90's and the vast majority of kids at school supported Saints. You'd still get the odd muppet who supported Liverpool, Man Utd, etc, but most of us were Saints. My Dad is an Andover man too and was on Saints books as a kid, and he has supported them all his life (he is in his 70's now), and he took my brother and I to games from mid-80's onwards (it was only a 30-40 min drive to The Dell) and I've been hooked ever since. I couldn't feel more passionate about the club if I tried after 40 years of support, but I do agree that its slightly odd that I dont know the city that well, dont really have an affinity with the city (other than Saints), but adore the football club (although they've tested me these last few years 😆) There are a lot of people in Andover like this. I now live in Bournemouth and have The Cherries just a 5 min drive away, but we still attend Saints matches, as do my kids now and hopefully they will stick with Saints (and not their local team, Bournemouth) as they grow up too. When I moved to Bournemouth around 2005, you would see more Saints shirts than Bournemouth, but that has now changes as people here have decided to support Bournemouth now (I wonder why!?) I think Saints are quite a rare 'city' club, in that there aren't many clubs nearby competing for the support, so we have a decent fanbase in Andover, Salisbury, Basingstoke, Winchester, New Forest, IOW, etc and I love that about the club.

We did exactly that with LD Sports (or whatever they were called) 3 years ago, when we switched to Sportsbet. We sold the first batch with the LD logos, and then restocked with new logos. https://www.theguardian.com/football/2020/aug/25/southampton-say-no-alternative-but-to-ditch-shirt-sponsor-ld-sports

Ive also just noticed that Sportsbet.IO logo has been removed from the footer of the main website. It definitely was there. I know it wont be Draper Tools, but does that point at a potential change of main sponsor too?

This is an interesting visual of all of our shirts (Home, Away & Third) since 1976 - https://footballshirthistory.weebly.com/s---t/category/southampton

We definitely wore it away to Palace in September 1992, when Iain Dowie scored a brace (after being on one of his barren spells) and he ripped the shirt around the neck in celebration, in true WWF/Hulk stylee in front of the Saints fans! I had a poster of it on my wall as a kid 😆 https://www.11v11.com/matches/crystal-palace-v-southampton-26-september-1992-20888/ Video (not very HD!) -

That's last seasons kits... 👍

Official Saints 22/23 Kit Release Dates Home - 29th June '22 Away - 4th July '22 Third - 4th Aug '22 (Lyanco's Unofficial Launch - 2nd Aug '22)

I think both of them would make decent Championship players, way more their level. I may be alone, but I dont think we need to sell the entire squad and bring in 15 new players, I hope we do keep some nucleus of the squad and add to it. I think our 'better' players (JWP, KWP, Lavia, etc) will move on, but some of the more 'mediocre' players (Diallo, Djenepo, Adams, Armstrong, etc) could make decent Championship players. Just ask a Burnley fan (I have), they hated their entire squad this time last year, and love most of them again now...

Your talents are wasted on here, as you'd make a great sleuth You have no idea what headspace people are in, so spare a thought. They are Saints fans at least, so I personally wouldnt get much joy in making them feel like sh*t. Our football club does that to us already! But whatever floats your boat 👍

There are loads of muppets all over Twitter, especially when it comes to football opinions (not just Saints fans) and yes they spout a load of sh*t, but this thread feels like its bordering on bullying to me. These guys probably read this site. Sorry if it makes me a party pooper, just wanted to mention it before it potentially went too far.

It is a completely different landscape now though. If you read Le Tiss's book, he says the best wage he earned here was something like £5,700 a week, and that Chelsea and Spurs were offering something like £6,300 a week (I cant recall the exact figures, but it was along those lines) and he says that he enjoyed it at Saints so much that an extra £600 a week wasnt enough to tempt him. But he does say that in the modern era if he had been on £50,000 a week at Saints and one of the big guns had come along and offered £150,000 a week, it would have made it impossible to stay. The chasm is bigger than its ever been between the 'big' clubs and us. Personally I think JWP will leave, he will at least want a shot at making the Euro's squad next summer, and he knows he needs to be playing regularly in the Prem to even have a small chance. But us paying him well already (£100k a week) might give us a very slim chance of keeping him, as I cant see him being paid huge amounts more elsewhere.

The only one I've watched a few times this season is Dan N'Lundulu, while he was at Cheltenham. And trust me, he was nowhere near their level (lower end League One) let alone what we need, sadly. A few friends are ST holders at Whaddon Road, and they were pleased to see the back of him. He's scored 7 goals in 67 games whilst out on loan in League One over the last 2 seasons. That's 1 in every 9.6 games in League One (Shane Long was 1 in 7 for us in the Premier League, for reference) Given he will turn 25 next season too, im not sure there is a huge amount of 'potential' in him that we havent seen yet.