santolijador

I see Chelsea have basically signed Adams - is there a scenario where they decide to focus on other positions (unlikely, I know, given their scattergun approach), and Liverpool end up with Caicedo, leaving Lavia in limbo?

So, with JWP gone, Lavia nearly gone, do we pull a signing out of the bag this week? If not, when?

Actually quite excited to see what RM says after this

Spanish comms on DAZN keep calling him 'Martin Russell'

manning looks the business

Who do we reckon? Dragowski? Button?

Fairly certain that isn't the OM official account, just a 'saintsextra' style updates account. I wonder where that 5m € came from..if no obligations or anything, then I guess we hope he has an imperious season in France and can get rid next summer for a decent fee.

Based on 1 whole pre-season performance, I know who I want to start the season as our No1 GK... Gav looked fairly assured and pulled out a great save. Distributed well as well. Second half was better, I quite like this 2-3-2-3 set up in possession - will hopefully get the best out of Tino and Manning and potentially Meghoma depending on his development. Does anyone know why Ballard wasn't involved today? Is he injured?

I think they general idea (I may be mistaken here) is to encourage the opposition to lose their shape by pushing up. This, in theory, allows the team in possession to play around the defensive press and catch them out of position and hopefully creating more space in the final and middle thirds. City and Brighton obviously do this very well, it is of course dependent on the ability of the players in the system. This may all be wrong as well, just my understanding/making sense of it. Not saying I'm for or against the style, though after last season I am open to pretty much anything, especially if it does look pretty, has us dominating games and actually yields results. That is all yet to be seen though.

Reminder to all those preaching doom and gloom after roughly 45 minutes of this game: - Benfica are consistent Portuguese Champions + UCL quarter finalists, they are miles better than a standard Championship team - It is the first pre-season game of 5, 2 weeks after appointing a new manager - I suspect that very few of the players on the pitch for this first 45 will be starting against Wednesday - We are playing like 4 or 5 kids, some 16 years old Sure, it's not been that good, but these games are literally just to get fitness up and for RM to figure stuff out I'm 99% certain he's seen that first half, picked up on mistakes errors and individual things and will go away and learn from that. It's literally the first time he's seen them in a 'competitive' setting. Personally, I think its already clear that the 'style of play' has been altered and there have been some nice passing exchanges amongst some not so nice defending etc. Please, a bit of perspective when watching this...

His kids went to my school and they were similar. The youngest ended in in prison for assault or drugs or something.

Looks like he might have a shot a going back to Barça this summer, what a career trajectory and clearly a very important player on the pitch and in the dressing room when he was here

Feasibly I reckon he could play a few games for us in the Championship before a club like West Ham, Fulham or even one of the bigger teams who miss out on the midfielder glut this summer (Liverpool come to mind with their sketchy recruitment in the last couple of windows) and begin to panic toward the end of August. This might also drive the fee up. If he can guide us through a couple of those early fixtures, I'd be pleased. I'd also like to think if we do get off to a good start, RM uses him well, he might think that winning a few games this year on the way to a promotion might actually be fun and worth a year of the reported 40% salary drop etc. I guess one of the big things is whether he personally thinks that he can get into Euros reckoning by playing prem. Was Grealish ever in the England set up when Villa were in the Champ or nah?

wouldn't worry too much, 14 games in charge of Parma with a 29% win rate (also has a PL2 but I'd wager thats not a difficult task with City youth system) - hopefully he's a bust and takes Leicester to deeper depths

Worrying. For context, had a look at all the quotes from DSports (can't find the original audio, so if anyone can point me in that direction, I would be grateful), and it looks like the prem is his priority - whether that be after a year of tearing up the Championship, or heading to Brighton or similar this year... To be fair to him, he says that he 'is still playing for Southampton' and 'isn't up to date' with rumours of move and so on - he says he 'simply plays and gives his all' I also can't confirm as to the framing of the question to him, but it looks like they sepcifically asked him about playing in the premier league, which might explain this response. From another interview, he is returning from Argentina to Southampton today, so maybe things will become clearer soon in this regard. Here is the twitter thread for fellow spanish speakers:

https://www.southamptonfc.com/en/404 'mush'

Sulemana also played in Ligue 1 for the best part of a couple of years.

The best thing to come out of that article is confirmation of the fact that we are interviewing a few candidates, and seemingly trying to get things sorted asap. I know that you might expect this as a minimum, but after the year of strange decisions made by our club, I am grateful for the confirmation...

Salisu instead of bazunu surely

I wonder if we will dive into South American recruiting - it seems clubs in England are beginning to tap this resource, in the PL with Brighton and other clubs, but also in the Championship - Norwich being an example of a couple of players coming over from Brazil and Chile and making an impact (Sara and Nuñez). Celtic seem to get bang for buck recruiting in Asia as well which is an interesting reference.

Just give it to our boy Selles, cba with all the faff for another manager and Ruben would clearly be a decent Championship manager if all else fails. (Not ruling anything out tho) The guy loves and is loved by the players, clearly has a big respect for the club, and comes from a v tactical Spanish background. Can't go worse than NJ and RS oozes class compared (not just to NJ, but put him next to a Javi Gracia or an Alfred Schrueder, I'm taking Rubén) Not necessarily a rational or thought-through opinión, but an opinion nonetheless