chiknsmack

Mara to Valenciennes for £950m, Sanda to Saints for £950m. Sign them both to 1000-year contracts (the first few years being paid like a normal contract, the remaining 995+ years being paid £1 a week, with a player option to opt out once the wages drop to £1 a week) so the transfer fees are amortised over the course of a millennium (£950k a year; peanuts really). Saints can then afford to spend more than £1b over the next three years without FFP/PSR danger. Use that £1b of wiggle room to buy our way into the Champions League spots.

Two seasons ago he scored a goal every 200 minutes in the PL. Last season he was one goal shy of doing the same again. Che Adams has never done it in four seasons. No-one in the squad has ever come close. 10 goals in 2000 minutes for £10m. When our current lineup of strikers is Stewart, Mara, and Onuachu. I can see the appeal.

Burnley had 64% possession in the Championship and won the league, then had 47.4% posession in the Prem and got relegated. Saints had 65.5% possession in the Championship and finished 4th, and will be able to do the same in the Prem? (Man City had 65.2% possession last season, for context.) Or maybe we won't play Russball and having some (counter)attacking-minded ball-carriers rather than tippy-tappy passers will prove useful. We needed different tools for the Championship (where we were a big fish in a small pond) than we'll need in the Prem (guppy in the sea). It's not as simple as "He didn't tear up the Championship for us so he can't handle the Prem".

Will we be able to play Russball in the Prem? (Burnley couldn't, and their manager is so much better than Martin that he's now off to Bayern.) If we can't, will Martin be pragmatic enough to change the gameplan to a counterattacking one with less possession than the opposition? (He showed some pragmatism and willingness to change late on this season.) If he will, can we do much better than an attacking quartet of Alcaraz, Sulemana, Arma, and (insert striker here)? Those first two did nothing in the Championship because they're better at dribbling against disorganised defences than passing against organised ones. If the plan is to stick with Russball we can cut bait on them, but if it's not then they have their place. I believe that in the right setup (which isn't Russball) they both have the capacity to be very, VERY good players. They arguably have the highest upside of any players in the squad.

https://cdn.footballkitarchive.com/2024/02/22/1pQ4upc1Plm1ZqN.jpg https://cdn.footballkitarchive.com/2023/07/29/6ehvVnNuTsm5nik.jpg (Can't get them to post as images; is that a subs-only thing?)

The thing is if you're inflexible like Kompany you get the boot from Burnley and your fall from grace takes you all the way down to... Bayern Munich. Doesn't seem so much like guff in that case.

Oof. They did him dirty there.

It was eminently clear before that that he wasn't bought to be the club's only DM. He impressed enough in preseason to get the starting role over Romeu, in the same way that Livramento impressed enough in his first preseason to get the starting role over KWP. But just like Livramento he wasn't bought to be an immediate starter, and just like Livramento he broke down because teenagers can't play every game in the PL and instead should be backup to, or backed up by, established players. It is because of the good start Lavia made that letting Romeu leave was even considered. It was not part of the plan when Lavia signed.

A teenager was not signed for us to play every minute in the PL as our only option in the most important position on the park. Honestly I don't understand what planet some of you live on. Lavia was signed to start the season as Romeu's backup/apprentice before taking over around mid-season as the main man once he had gotten up to speed with men's football. Perhaps Romeu could then be let leave in January, but more likely he sees out the last six months of his contract as Lavia's backup before leaving.

The club set itself on fire to keep Romeu warm. We had a couple of season of "If Romeu doesn't play we suck". We finally sign a teenage apprentice to back him up in that hopes that we won't have to suffer through a period of "We suck" for once, and what does the club do? Let Romeu leave. The club did right by him, I can't begrudge him the move, and even in a footballing sense it wasn't the dumbest move the club has made in the past few years. But while some of those dumb moves (eg. not signing a striker) made a big difference in the club's fortunes, they were out of the club's control ("We tried to sign Gakpo/Ramos/whoever but it didn't work). Romeu staying or going was entriely in the club's control, and arguably made the biggest difference to the club's fortunes of any move. And they pulled the wrong rein. I firmly believe that if Romeu sees out his contract we don't get relegated. The club had the option to not let him leave. It is a perfectly cromulent stick with which to beat them.

Bazunu?

If we go up, Martin probably gets a chance to show what he can do. If we don't go up, Moyes will think he's too good for us. So it's probably moot. I'd be much more excited post-promotion about giving Martin the boot for Moyes than I was about giving Adkins the boot for Poch. You'd expect us to be the inferior team in most games, so a counter-attacking setup like West Ham under Moyes would likely be more successful than trying to play Russball. And it'd actually suit players like Alcaraz and Sulemana who want to attack and score rather than just keep possession (I'd rather a manager build a gameplan to suit them rather than one that suits Bednarek and Smallbone). But you'd have to think Moyes would find a job before the January window if he wants one.

I don't suppose they watched Leicester/WBA in the sheds before the match yesterday? Seeing Hamza Choudhury clear the ball off the line three or four times could've gotten into his head.

Give De Gea £1m for ten games with a £15m bonus if we get promoted. "But he's no good with his feet and so wouldn't fit Martin's system". Ok, give Mourinho (or any of the other myriad unemployed managers) £2m for ten games and a £30m bonus if we get promoted. Bazunu and his skillset are at their best when we dominate possession. We're more likely to dominate possession against inferior opposition. The important games in our future (the playoffs, and hopefully the battle to avoid relegation from the PL next year and the runs at Europe in the years after that) won't be against inferior opposition very often. Therefore, he's not the keeper we need. He might end up being very, very good at some point in the future. It's unlikely to be (and shouldn't be) here.

ABKCDAJFUWHII.

Even the smallest Premier League club is an eight- or nine-figure company. I don't believe they can't afford lawyers. If all three of those clubs were punished severely and in a timely manner (got relegated to the National League to start this season) we'd still be in the Premier League. ---------------- The proper solution to the whole mess is a salary cap. Either the PL+FA bring in a hard salary cap for the top four leagues and treat any breaches harshly, with clubs allowed to have players under contract but not in their PL squad; if a club wants to sign Ronaldo or Messi for megabucks to only use them in Europe and the cups, that's fine. A 45-year-old Ronaldo leading Man U against Eastleigh in the fourth round of the FA Cup would bring some hype to the competition. They could even have completely different league and non-league squads; that'd shut up some of the whinging about fixture congestion while still keeping English clubs competitive in Europe (the main argument against a PL salary cap being that PL clubs would be outspent by other big European clubs). Or a soft salary cap and luxury tax like the NBA; for example clubs can spend £45m per year on player wages, and then for every £1 they spend over that they also pay £1 into a pool which is distributed at the end of the year between PL teams that didn't exceed the cap (50%), Championship teams (20%), League 1 & League 2 teams (10% each), and an FA Grassroots Fund for non-league and women's football (10%).

Or it shows that if you're at the top of your league you probably have more possession than the opposition by virtue of being the better team. Does rain cause wet roads or do wet roads cause rain?

I noticed him on the weekend appearing to be "sauntering around" but actually covering ground surprisingly quickly, particularly out of possession. It may be that he looks like he's not working hard even when he is.

He can't do much for us on the pitch when he doesn't suit the manager's gameplan. He'd be brilliant under Hasenhüttl or similar in an up-tempo attacking/counter-pressing team where he gets to run around and attack and make things happen. Not so much under Martin in a controlling, possession-based team where he's supposed to protect the ball and pass it around a lot. He's one of our best players and will only get better, but he's a square peg in RM's round hole system. Given the choice of selling a young player for big bucks and boosting our reputation to help us recruit more elite young talents, or sacking Martin and changing the gameplan to suit Alcaraz while betting on him sticking around like Le Tiss to warrant such a change, we know what the correct choice is. And like you say, there's always a chance we go up and keep him. Maybe he'll even fit in better in the PL, where we won't be finding it as easy to dominate games and someone to run around and attack and make things happen is exactly what we need.

After reading this article about the restructure of the club's academy setup linked in another thread, I came across this recent interview (with an edited transcript) of Selles. It starts out talking about his current gig at Reading but goes into his time at Saints and his past before that.

The obvious thing to make of it is that he should be starting every game, preferably up front and central so he can shoot a lot.

There's only one Kyle Walker One Kyle Walker Not that shitty arsehole from City Kyle Walker-Peters is the man.

Crazy. He's, like, really old and could never be better than Mason Holgate as a 4th choice CB in the Championship/part-time U23 CB. Happy for him though.

My "problem" (I'm fine with Stephens as club captain and third choice CB since he's fine in those roles at this level) is that he was taking more risks in possession than the other players in the defence/defensive midfield. Not just the obvious (square balls to no-one across the area), but when he was pressed he waited that half-beat longer than everyone else to move the ball on. If anyone else was pressed and had the chance to pass before the opponent got within two yards of them, they would. JS was waiting until the opponent was within touching distance to do so. Whether he's braver or slower (physically and mentally) than everyone else, I don't know. But that looked to me to be the main cause of his problems.

Southampton: 19, 18, 20, 17, 17, 15, 17, 18, 19, 17, 18. Subs: 18, ? (U18), 17, 20, 17, 19, 18.