Ivan Katalinic's 'tache

To play Schalke & Jiangsu Suning in pre-season.

True. Although maybe this was already planned as he wasn't expecting a return to management at such a late stage in the season because no-one would be so daft as to leave it that late to make a change...

If I had £50m plus leftover from a deal, I'd be saying we had to sell before we can buy, too, to try to limit fees for potential deals being inflated as they probably were in January in the immediate aftermath of VVD's departure...

Oh good...

Brighton have signed Leon Balogun on a free from Mainz. They did some reasonsble business last summer which kept them up & they're starting early again.

Saints website seems to be down right now. Maybe something afoot? Or maybe it's a review of last season??

Ralph would be taking himself to new levels of c0kkishness if this were to be true, after his comments on Wednesday!!

Good. I agree, he's earned the chance. Let's see how he gets on with some input into incomings & a full pre-season.

Timmy Mallett was at SMS yesterday so we can rest assured nothing has been left to chance for this one... t

Let's never need to do that again. Well done Sparky & co. for bringing us back from the brink. Barring a monumental f*ck up, we should be Premier League again next season & hopefully Hughes will be given a chance to rebuild us properly in the summer now.

Is this true? Carrillo is out with depression?! Or is he "Boufal-style" out?

Can't help but see any other result, unfortunately. Aubameyang against Stephens and Hoedt could be one of the biggest mismatches this season.

I'd rather have Rickie scoring no goals on the pitch than Carrillo and Long doing it. Having said that, at least we might actually score a penalty if was playing.

Virgil, Mane & Lemina. Toby for Lemina if I can include loans.

Might be good for a few goals now, then...

Unconvinced he'd be the best choice if long term considerations were the only factor but, given we're in a desperate fight to stay up, hopefully he can inject enough spark & fight into the team to do so. Then it's up to him to prove the doubters wrong about him successfully leading a longer term project.

Ah yes, I'd forgotten Mark was his middle name. Cunning from Reed! When the fanbase asks for Les to be removed, he can fire Hughes instead...

Jeremy Wilson has Hughes as frontrunner. Surely this is as good a source as we can get at the moment? https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2018/03/13/mark-hughes-favourite-southampton-job-aftermauricio-pellegrino/amp/?__twitter_impression=true

Everyone lies on their CV?

Now there's an incentive for him to redouble his efforts to keep us up - the boot whatever happens!

Opinion or some sense of being ITK?

This. Almost a sense of you, the fans questioned our judgement by forcing us to remove Puel, and the board aren't going to have our judgement questioned again, whatever the consequences.

The first tranche leaving us to go there bugged me but not now. They keep going there and still they've won nowt. If they were trophy chasers they'd try to go to sides who do win things...

Here's our side from that day. And we thought our defence now was bad...

Norwich away in Dec 2005. Sat at the front of the away end in the snow & froze (til we noticed the rest of our away support had migrated to the back of the stand where it was marginally warmer). It was freezing cold, the football was cr*p and we lost 3-1. Only plus point was having a beer & a chat with Jimmy Case after the match - he'd commentated on the game and was staying in the same hotel as us.