CamSaint

It was. I watched it on the Saints Official Site.

I thought that I had read somewhere that although he is a very good player, he has major 'attitude' problems?

Yep. Having no pace/acceleration worries me a bit. That is why Prem sides are not signing him. He's not some amazing talent. He's a Rasiak type. On the other hand, he seems to have scored a shed load of goals in Martin's system - something we sorely lack!

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Wasn't there a rumour recently that we were interested in Aarons from Norwich? Maybe he is on the list of 'targets who are prepared to wait' as the replacement for KWP & Tino.

I'd be surprised if nothing happens with regards to goalkeepers even if McCarthy stays. Last season McCarthy picked up an injury towards the end of December and didn't feature again in a match day squad until March 1st when he played in the Grimsby cup defeat. During that time we had 14 league and cup matches (12 under Jones and 2 under Selles. Willy played in the FA Cup game against Blackpool but was on the bench for the other 13. Now that Willy has gone, we have no 3rd choice keeper which was glaringly apparent on Saturday when we had no sub keeper on the bench (presumably McCarthy was injured) as the U-21s were also playing. The obvious solution would have been to keep Lis, but as he has gone out on loan I would have thought we would need to bring another keeper in. Maybe we're waiting to see if McCarthy goes before taking a decision on the level of a new addition. With regards to Bazunu, since Martin has brought his own goalkeeping coach with him, he ought to be able to look at Bazunu with fresh eyes (not having been responsible for coaching him last season) & could recommend a change if he thought fit. I guess the biggest stumbling block may be if Wilcox has a high opinion of Bazunu from his time at City. Either way, I'd be surprised if there wasn't some movement with regards to keepers before the window closes.

He's back on the OS Team line-up.

The transfer window also opens on June 14th

However Navas palmed the ball across his 6 yard box for the first United goal and did exactly the same thing in the second half, but somehow that time the ball dribbled between the 3 onrushing United forwards. He certainly also made some good saves, but had that been Bazunu we would be ignoring the good saves and still be blaming him for the first goal and the subsequent loss.

Interesting conundrum. Arsenal play City in midweek after they play us. Assuming they're cruising, say 3-0 against us, will they take off key players to rest them for the City match (like City did yesterday against Leicester in advance of the return leg against Bayern)? Or will Arsenal go all out for a cricket score against us because goal difference could be crucial if they subsequently lose to City? Arsenal's GD is currently -7 compared to City's. It could get really ugly if they decide to try to make that up against us 😱!

Played the full 90 minutes in both according to the OS.

Bednarek played the full 90 minutes for Poland last night. They lost 3-1 (conceding 2 goals in the first 5 minutes🤦‍♂️).

https://www.dailyecho.co.uk/sport/23386734.southampton-fc-manager-ruben-selles-explains-recent-absences-duo/ - explains about Edozie

Only if West Ham lose tomorrow as well, and we will have also played a game more than the teams below us by Wednesday night.

If Bournemouth manage to stay up, they may try to sign him permanently.

Look at some of the results that have occurred over the last few weeks: Bournemouth drew with Newcastle, Saints beat Chelsea, Everton beat Arsenal, West Ham drew with Chelsea, Leicester beat Spurs, Forest drew with Man City, Wolves beat Liverpool and Spurs. Not sure many people would have predicted those results (especially the fans of the respective clubs!). So while, like most people, I look at Saints fixture list with some trepidation, it is clearly possible for clubs at the bottom end of the table to pick up points from the 'bigger' clubs. So why couldn't Saints do so? (Cue a torrent of abuse about how s**t we are🤣).

Dave Horseman from the B Team was helping Selles out with First Team training last week, but listening to his interview after the B Team win against West Brom last night, he sounds as if he's returned to them this week, as they prepare for their big match with Leeds at home on Friday. If so, I wonder who is helping Selles out this week? Obviously Martin, Sparkes & Gross are still there, but I would imagine Selles would need more help than that?

Even better than the 'first chapter'!

Are they required by the League to host a presser? If so, I suppose they might send Selles to do it.

Didn't Lage generally play 5 at the back when he was at Wolves? If so, would he try to do the same at Saints & fail miserably, or would he actually know what he was doing & get it working? Obviously completely hypothetical as there isn't currently a managerial vacancy🤦‍♂️.

I thought Saints' ambitions were quite low, then just saw the following headline on the BBC transfer feed: ''Dowie to Liverpool likely'. Sadly it turns out that it is about a loan transfer from Reading to Liverpool in the WSL🤣🤣

Well there wouldn't be any option to buy as his contract over there would have finished so there is no one to buy from. I guess it depends whether anyone in a much better league position comes in with a longer term deal that he thinks is worth taking or whether one of our rivals offers him a better 6 month deal. I can't see him wanting to be tied to any relegation struggler after the end of the season, even if they manage to stay up.

One of the things that fascinates me about all this is the assumption that spending lots of money = strengthening and therefore = survival. Our striking deficiency has been done to death on here and I'm as frustrated as any Saints fan about our lack of firepower. However, even assuming we are relegated, two other teams will also have to go - but who? Looking at the table, Bournemouth, Wolves, West Ham, Leeds and Forest have all spent or are spending big, so they have all strengthened so they must all be safe mustn't they? Then Everton are appointing Dyche, so he'll get them out of trouble, won't he? So the only ones left in the bottom half are Villa, Palace & Leicester. But Vill are a 'big club' and have Emery as their manager so they won't go down, will they? So it looks like Palace and Leicester to join us. I don't think Palace have spent much (if anything) so far and Leicester haven't spent much either. So, Palace, Leicester & Us to go down - anyone disagree? Or will one of the other clubs have invested so much to strengthen in this window find out that their investment wasn't good enough?

He is certainly having to work with young players here. 7 of the first team squad of 27 are 20 or under and another 10 are between 21 and 25. And he has also had some of our own youngsters, including JJM, on the bench at times although none of them have yet got onto the pitch.

Depends what you define as a 'small tight squad'. We have 27 in the first team squad atm. This includes Willy, who it would appear would only play in an absolute emergency and Tino, who is probably unlikely to play any significant role this season. That takes us down to 25. Then I guess you you have to allow for injuries. Currently McCarthy, ABK, Stu & Larios at different stages of returns to fitness. That takes it down to 21, maybe 22 if McCarthy is fit to return this week. Then you have Lavia, whose game time is being managed quite carefully and Orsic & Alcares who appear to have been working up to full fitness. Then take a look at the quality of some of the remaining players who are fully fit in principle.......🤦‍♂️. A 'small tight squad' might be OK if it was a 'small tight high quality squad'!