Patches O Houlihan

We did get the question about a striker at the end. But realistically would we rather a) Get a lovely fan friendly answer to the question that compromises our ability in the last weeks of the transfer window OR b) Receive a standard PR perfect response that maximises management's ability to complete the deals we all want to see.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/live:bbc_radio_solent

17:59 and no sign of the live feed on the app. Does anyone have it?

According to Bild, Eintracht Frankfurt are the latest side to express their interest in Southampton defender Armel Bella-Kotchap. Hopefully a bit of competition for ABK will see his sale price rise

Try thinking about it this way: We may have bought a Virgil Van Dyke at the price that Celtic would have paid, rather than the price we would have had to buy them from Celtic for. [or we may not have done - nothing is certain in life besides the unfairness of the PL]

Maybe after a season with Baz in the sticks for RM, and now with 2 seasons of data to analyse, the club have quietly recognised that they were wrong to put him in the firing line so early. Maybe they sign a keeper on a 5 year contract, we keep him for 3. McCarthy is back up this season, and Baz back up for the 2 after. Then that keeper is sold and Baz becomes our no1 again? I've nothing to back that up, but it's what I'd consider, assuming we were confident we could get Baz onboard with it

I agree with you. But sadly we don't get to play 10x BBDs. We still only get 11 players on the pitch, and the skill and ability of every player counts. Marginal gains against diminishing return on investment. (I seem to remember a classroom Economics lesson about why Nurses earn less than Footballers 🙂)

Maybe the DJ will play Freed From Desire in the pre-game too 😁 Feels like it is played at every sporting event this summer - not sure how I feel about that

See Sulemana - currently injured for a month or so after playing in pre-season; and as a consequence very unlikely to be sold.

But I think you can agree that those 3 windows have definitely been an improvement on the clusterf**K that was their earlier ones - and that was my argument.

Watching BBD's YouTube videos I saw a couple of goals in that style, so wondered whether he could emulate Ings for us using that technique. Blackburn fans describe him as being quite streaky, and a confidence player. We could really do with him retaining the hot form he had with the Blades and starting well for us.

Charlie Taylor was at Burnley and played alongside THB BBD played with Arma at Blackburn - there's another link somewhere too. Can't think of it right now. [RM last night > "Flynn played for England with him as a kid"] Sugawara was quite likely recommended by Yoshida when he was training with us. There is a credible argument that the quality recent signings have come from personal contacts rather than a 'black box'. Fine by me as long as it doesn't all fall apart if Russ gets headhunted as so many of our good managerial team seem to.

School holidays are obviously leaving you with too much time on youre your hands 😉

https://archive.is/IReWF

Last summer (2023) he was signed. Man City - 1 appearance Northern Ireland - Broke into the team aged 18 1/2, has made 17 appearances. Besides defensive midfield he can also do a job at centre back and right back. He is not 21 until November. Yes it would be great if he was a rock star. But so far he's about par with JWP at that age isn't he?

Plus I thought he did pretty well last night. There were times when he was receiving the ball from the defence with an opponent tight to him, and he was able to turn them and play a forward ball. This is a key skill, that will have been taught at Man City. Even JWP used to struggle with it. He's not the finished article, but he seems to be a good egg, and seems to be improving. Realistically we don't have the funds to stump up for a spare 6 in case Flynn eats Chicken gizzards again. Fingers crossed Shea pushes on.

Perplexity AI - I took a leaf out of your book! 😁

Yes. They've done OK too even if they have hair designed in Denmark 😉

Charlie Taylor 😁

1) June-August 2024: Going OK 2) Jan 2024: Loaned Brooks (Good) & Rothwell (OK ish), Loaned out Charley to Juve (could have worked). Mason Holgate returned to Everton (Ideal) 3) During the Summer 2023 transfer window, Southampton FC made several signings, sales, and loans: Signings Shea Charles - Signed from Manchester City U21 for £10.78 million. (OK) Ross Stewart - Signed from Sunderland AFC for £8.184 million. (Unlucky with 2nd injury, would have been twice the price without injury and unaffordable) Ryan Manning - Joined on a free transfer from Swansea City. (Good for free, if only to teach our players how to play Russball) Joe Lumley - Joined on a free transfer from Middlesbrough FC. (meh) Taylor Harwood-Bellis - Arrived on loan from Manchester City. (Astounding and completely unexpected bearing in mind how much of a hole we were in) Mason Holgate - Joined on loan from Everton FC. (Woeful) Flynn Downes - Joined on loan from West Ham United. ("A cheat code for the Championship" RM) Ryan Fraser - Joined on loan from Newcastle United. (Excellent) Samuel Amo-Ameyaw - Promoted from Southampton FC U18. (Good) Departures James Ward-Prowse - Transferred to West Ham United for £30 million. (Maybe we could have got £35m but who would the buyer have been?) Roméo Lavia - Transferred to Chelsea FC for £54.648 million. (This was our return after Man City's cut. sale was ~£70m) Tino Livramento - Transferred to Newcastle United for £32.736 million. (Pretty good considering injury history, contract length and purchase price) Mislav Orsic - Transferred to Trabzonspor. (Deadwood moved out) Mohamed Elyounoussi - Transferred to FC Copenhagen. (Deadwood moved out) Ibrahima Diallo - Transferred to Al-Duhail SC. (Deadwood moved out) Theo Walcott - Released. Willy Caballero - Retired. Nathan Tella - Transferred to Bayer Leverkusen. (£25m. Ideally we wouldn't;t have sold him, but at least they got a good price: Better than Burnley would have paid) Mohammed Salisu - Transferred to Monaco. (Didn't want to be here. Judging by Adam Blackmore's comments may well have been a troublemaker) Moussa Djenepo - Transferred to Standard Liege. (Deadwood moved out) Southampton's net transfer balance for the 2023/24 season was £137.94 million, with a total of £18.964 million spent on player purchases and £156.904 million received from player sales Those are the windows I was suggesting have seen an improvement

We got promoted via the play offs. , If Bazunu a had got injured mid season, or had been dropped; as he should have been. We would have been top two. Wilcox joined in January 2023; , a disaster window as I recall. , The players Saints sold for a profit were mainly already here long before he rocked up. Was it him keeping Bazunu a in goal? Because any sensible manager would have dropped his sorry arse. , Basically, if it was on target it was in. , Can you imagine how many he would have let in - say playing for Rotherham? , 150 + !! , Sorry for me no loss. This isn't me taking the piss (well not much) But read back those two passages. Which is easier to read? Which better communicates your argument? I recognise that we all post quickly and perfect grammar isn't always there. But full stops and capitals don't seem too much to ask. [Genuinely meant in the best spirit]

I agree there have definitely been some serious f**k ups; particularly Jan 2023. But as time has progressed the transfers have improved. Judge them on the last 2 or 3 windows and things look better - they appear to be learning. It would be lovely if they were faultless out of the gate, but it would have been a big ask.

For every Bazunu there's a Lavia We kept KWP and Bednarek in the Championship. Have loaned and then signed Flynn and THB. Edwards at £3m looks like a huge bargain. Sugawara is a player that looks like he will fit right in. Stuart Taylor is doing OK so far, and arrived early like the others, and didn't cost the earth either. Honestly some of our fans want the moon on a stick. IN CASE YOU HADN'T REALISED REAL LIFE ISN'T FAIR, AND DOING OUTSTANDINGLY WELL AT IT IS MUCH HARDER THAN FOOTBALL MANAGER. If you haven't absolutely smashed your career personally perhaps be a little more charitable to those who have made it to compete in the upper echelons, against similar high achievers.

As I understand it Wilcox was partly hired to completely reorganise our football structures. Presumably still carrying elements of Ralph's 'Playbook' structure, which would have been teaching our kids to press high up and win the ball in 'the red zone'. But also find our two centre backs completely over run when our press is broken... Having had 10 years at Man City running their academy he will have seen what a world leading structure for teaching possession based football looks like. By all accounts he worked hard to set up those structures, and you would imagine that the lion's share of that work would have been done by the time he was headhunted. It sucks that we keep having great staff poached. But it would seem that we did get benefit from his time here, and perhaps that was where his expertise lay. Now that he is gone we can divide the other roles around to capable people, and leave in place that Man City style academy training structure, along with a best practice guide that you imagine would have been part of it. We may get a new DoF in time, but I don't see the urgency unless we find ourselves winless by December. Of course all of this is conjecture on my part based on what I have read. Only those in the building and working in those departments will know the real story.

Watching a bit of Olympics coverage this morning: Apparently heptathlete Katerina Johnson Thompson did her achilles tendon in 2019 and recovered to become World Champion in 2023. Difficult to imagine a many bigger tests for the body than performing in a Heptathlon over two days in 7 different events. So recovery to the highest level can be done, and we saw Ross on the pitch for us at the end of the Championship season. Clearly he's not going to be ready for the start of the season, but I don't think we should be writing off his chances of ever playing for us again either.