James

He wouldn't necessarily have been my choice, and I do have a degree of trepidation given he is clearly a Pellegrino signing, but there's absolutely no doubt he is the sort of player we need. We haven't had a big man up top since Pelle and having that profile of player does create chances for other players with flick ons, hold ups and chest downs etc. Welcome Guido, let's see what you can do.

Something Southampton F.C haven't quite learnt yet when it comes to flogging our players.

Agreed, as well as we played against Spurs I'm not confident we will beat Brighton. We've played well against Arsenal and Man U and then followed it up with dire performances. Fingers crossed that changes, it had better otherwise we are done.

Surely a loss v Brighton would trigger a managerial change for us? Surely...?

Shows what a managerial change can do for you. As well as we played on Sunday we've still only won 1 game in 15 in the league. Failure to get four points from Brighton and WBA will be an utter disaster. If we lose against Brighton we are in serious serious trouble.

Kevin Friend really is a poor referee.

Playing on the left is why.

Jack Stephens has a way to go before becoming a PL centre back sadly.

Shocking defending that.

Can’t fault that team. However, it’s Pell’s in game management that leaves the most to be desired. Let’s see.

Not sure I've made a "Puel argument" but completely ridiculous to suggest that leading a team into the top half is "equally as bad" as leading them into the relegation zone.

Will be amazed if Forster comes back in. For me: McCarthy Cedric Stephens Hoedt Bertrand Hojberg Lemina Romeu Tadic Boufal (or Sims if fit enough) Gabbi (will be Long we all know it),

Please do explain how getting Watford into 10th place can be deemed an "equally bad job" to Pellegrino guiding us to 18th...

Promes?

Would much rather Silmani than Carrillo.

Apologies, was being flippant. No argument from me that Puel is a better manager than Pellegrino and, with the benefit of hindsight, he did a much better job than I appreciated at the time. I don't necessarily agree it was an error to fire him but it was certainly an error to fire him and appoint a vastly inferior manager in Pellegrino. We shouldn't have sacked him until we knew we had someone better lined up but we messed up, couldn't get Tuchel across the line and were left scrabbling around for anyone who was available.

Unfortunately, enthusiasm from the crowd won't bestow improved managerial abilities on Mauricio Pellegrino and whilst we have him at the helm we will go down no matter what the fans do or say. Our support has been pretty bloody fantastic recently (5,000 at Fulham in the cup, full away end at Watford) when you consider how bad its been. Didn't Steven Davis taking a dig at us for being "unhelpful". Tell you what's "unhelpful", players and managers making basic mistakes which cost us goals and results.

Reed didn't appoint Poch - Cortese did. If you read Pochettino's book he barely mentions Les Reed (apart from him being in a meeting with Cortese) so you can't credit Reed with "appointing" Poch - he didn't.

Yes, everyone bar Duckhunter did apparently.

Fonesca would be my guess.

Not sure about that. If the bits and bobs from the itks are correct we considered him only to put all our eggs in the Tuchel basket and, by the time we'd been turned down by Tuchel, Watford went for Silva. I'm convinced Silva would have been higher on our list than Pellegrino. If we sack Pell I'd expect Silva to be very near the top of who we want next.

Your hatred of Silva is becoming slightly irrational. He's clearly a vastly superior manager to Pellegrino and that's all I care about. Claude Puel is now the manager of Leicester City and so is irrelevant to how any prospective Saints managers compare.

Les - go and get him now. The fact Pellegrino is still here looks even more ridiculous now.

It’s clearly good enough to be outside of the drop zone. Do you genuinely believe we have a squad worthy of relegation?

Doesn’t really have much to do with reputation if the selling club won’t accept a bid. By all accounts he is keen to join but we’ve messed up by announcing that we’ve got £75m and are now being held to ransom.