Luke SkyWalker-Peters

Bazunu was awful last season, McCarthy was worse. Bazunu is young and inexperienced. I'd like to see him given a go in the first month before the window closes at the least, because he might improve considerably with new coaches and an easier league. I firmly believe that his ball-playing will help us play the way RM wants. However, due to how bad McCarthy is, we must get a keeper that we would feel confident starting. Someone to compete with Bazunu for the shirt. We can't have another Cabarello or Harry Lewis cheerleader 3rd keeper, as sitting on the bench and never seeing the pitch should be McCarthy's job this season.

No doubt Bazunu was really poor last season, and he has had a couple of errors in these first three pre-season games, but to act like a 21 year old keeper will never improve (when keepers famously start performing their best in their late 20s and onwards) is laughable. Stat time. Bazunu had the worst post-shot expected goals (PSXG) in the top 5 European leagues last season. Essentially, was conceding goals that weren't placed in difficult areas of the net more than anyone else in a top league. Guess who was the best keeper in this stat (which best quantifies a keeper's ability to save shots) in the Championship last season? Angus Gunn. Gunn has become a good shot-stopper since leaving us, and Bazunu will become a good shot-stopper too. Will he be good enough this season? I don't know, but I think he deserves more of a chance than three pre-season games to try and iron out his inconsistencies. Swansea gave up a lot of goals from sloppy passing around the back. I think we have seen that eliminated for us so far with Gav in goal. I believe that Martin and his staff will have to calculate whether the goals we score from his build-up play and the goals we don't concede from doing it poorly, outweigh the poor saves that will inevitably happen with a young keeper. Their lack of movement for a keeper so far makes me think that, initially at least, they feel like Bazunu is a net positive to the team. We have 5 games before the window closes. If Bazunu is performing badly in that time, then I'm sure we will bring someone in, but for now he needs the support of the fans. His confidence must be very low and negativity from the fans in the stadium won't help.

Not true, he was first on those stories, by a good bit of time. He isn't a chancer, he has clearly got a source in the club. It's not as if Southampton have a massive following on Twitter, yet he Tweets about Everton (the team he supports) and Southampton. He's been very reliable, don't need people who haven't been paying attention to knock down people with proven sources.

Can't see us having Ings and his £125,000 a week contract in the Championship. Especially when he has had such a poor injury record after leaving us.

As someone who was advocating for Bazunu to be dropped before Ralph was sacked last season, I think the conversation around him has become a bit ridiculous this season. He will start, and I believe he should start. Firstly, the goal on the weekend. His positioning was good, but he anticipated a cross from a position players almost never shoot from. Such a tight angle that I thought the lad had tried to cross it but shanked it. Looks poor, but a good lesson in preseason - don't overcompensate when anticipating. People are forgetting that he was probably the best performing player on the pitch against Benfica just a few days earlier. Faultless with the ball at his feet, under a lot of pressure, and made a fantastic save on what would be expected to be a certain goal. But, the real question: Why should he start if he is inexperienced and will on occasion concede a poor goal? The answer is simple: His outstanding ability with the ball at his feet. It will be integral for Martin's system to have a GK of Bazunu's quality with the ball. Even if Bazunu's shot stopping isn't good, we will limit the amount of chances the other team gets with his quality on the ball and will score more goals with him too. He will be asked to bring the ball out and join the backline in build-up creating an 11vs10 advantage. With other keepers, the opposition will regularly get goals from pressing. With other keepers, we wouldn't be able to have the man advantage to create goals. I also think that he will have a good year shot-stopping. We have seen him do it, he has the ability. His issues last season appeared to be more mental than anything to me. Not surprising given the jump in league, being in a relegation scrap, the change of manager (twice) and the carrousel of starting defenders/midfielders in front of him. Instability created inconsistent performances. I concede that the PL was too much for him, too early. But he is clearly a talented goalkeeper and has made some fantastic saves. He just needs experience to gain consistency. I firmly believe that he will be critical to the way we play and a huge part of our promotion push. Without him, we are going to massively struggle to play Martin's system. Regardless of what people think, he will be starting this season and the fanbase needs to support the young lad. Wasn't his fault he was thrown in to the PL too early last season, but he was excellent at Portsmouth, has been excellent for Ireland and is certainly Championship quality.

Pulisic has been poor, but worse, often unavailable. An injury plagued, poor performing player earning £150,000 a week, on the last year of his contract is going to require a smaller transfer fee than a player who earns £100,000 a week, is a club captain, is never injured or needing rest, has consistently played at a good level and has multiple years left on their contract - even with the age difference. The last year of contract is obviously the biggest factor and its tiring seeing people quoting the Maddison or Pulisic transfers, who had one year left on their contract, to what we want for JWP.

There is a difference between allowing a player to go if the right offer comes in (JWP) and actively being desperate to sell them (Pulisic).

My guess is Dom Ballard. England shirts (in other pics) and their numbers look right for his appearances. Painting on the wall of him walking to Wembley is likely just inspiration. New place after the new contract or perhaps a loan move? He hasn't been seen for a little while...

From the clips I've seen, he seems to be exactly what we need. 6'3" DM that has the athletic ability to stop a counterattack and is good on the ball. We have been too lightweight for too long. I feel we could have been found out a bit in the Champ with some direct balls and set-pieces, but having him sitting in front of the defence should alleviate that somewhat. I'm all for playing a version of Guardiola ball where we get these incredibly talented kids for cheap. Looking at our signings last summer, it seems like it was the eventual plan all along... which makes the mid-season Nathan Jones appointment all the more bizarre.

Meghoma is one of the two players (along with Amo-Ameyaw) that we pinched from Spurs academy at 16 last summer. Forced them to change their pay structure this year to avoid the same again. I believe Levy got us done for tapping them up and a slap on the wrist. Not that he'd ever do such a thing... I watched some of the England U17 games at the Euros and can honestly say that he was one of the best players on the pitch most games, which says a lot. He has only just turned 17, so might not feature much this season, but he seems to have all the technical, mental and physical tools. He started most games, but came on late against Switzerland for their World Cup Qualifier match having already been knocked out of the tournament. He had a huge influence, and from being 1-2 down, he helped them get a 4-2 win. Here is his super sub performance in that game: Amo-Ameyaw did get his debut against Liverpool. Meghoma and Dibling were not available for that match as they were at the Euros with England U17. He certainly looks lively and played very well for the B team last season. Dibling hasn't kicked on as I suspect Southampton have hoped, but there are games where he looks dominant (Aston Villa in the FA Youth Cup last season as an example). I don't think his "preseason" with Chelsea did him any good. He is a big lad for a winger, must be at least 6ft, so it isn't a surprise that he has struggled while he is 16/17 as he will still be growing and filling out the frame.

Helps draw out the opposition press to allow easier passing through it. Brighton's great season and England's U21 Euro winning tournament was built around Levi Colwill doing this.

19/20 FA Rules From section 6.6 (pg21): "If the original Loan agreement contains a pre-agreed recall clause, a Player may be recalled by the loaning Club submitting written confirmation to the borrowing Club, the Competition and The FA. Where no pre-agreed recall clause exists, the cancellation must be agreed between the loaning Club, the borrowing Club and the Player." We don't know if there was a recall clause. If there was then neither Burnley nor Tella could stop us recalling him. If there wasn't, and we did try and recall him, then either Burnely or Tella could have blocked it. I assume, given the quotes from Kompany in late December, such as: "I think you enter these deals with an understanding of what has been agreed, we know what has been agreed and a deal is a deal." That we did have a recall clause and he was hoping that we wouldn't use it - "a deal is a deal", to me implies they agreed to loan him for the season and that's what they wanted. If we didn't have a recall clause, then Burnley would have certainly blocked any attempted recall as he has been vital for their promotion push and it certainly wasn't wrapped up back in January. I doubt it ever got to the stage where anyone asked Tella's opinion. Either, with a recall clause or not, we chose not to bring him back, or Burnley blocked it.

Not sure which CBs will be available. I'd like the same shape, we need a win not a draw and we created chances with the 4222: Bazunu KWP ? Salisu Perraud JWP Lavia Stu Alcaraz Walcott Adams With Sulemana and Mara coming off the bench, where they had an impact last match against tired legs.

There was always a randomness with teams Ralph would get wins from, and we are playing a similar style. I could absolutely see this team win away at Arsenal, then lose at home to Bournemouth the next week. 8 points in 6 games under Ruben against 2 teams in the CL mix, 2 midtable and 2 in the relegation scrap. If we keep up this form (1.3 points a game) we will be finishing on 35. Ideally we want to be getting wins against fellow strugglers, but at our current pace we will be right there. For anyone interested, fivethirtyeight.com have us finishing last on 33 points, Bournemouth and Forest both going back to the Championship on 35 and Everton just escaping on 36. They give us a 33% chance at survival.

I literally put the goals per 90 and used the 2 seasons before they played in the PL... because this is likely Tella's season before the PL. They were both the same age or younger than Tella at the time. I don't think there could be a better reference point.

I cannot see any player that signed in January leaving, whether we want them to or not. The good players (like Alcaraz) just signed a contract when we were bottom of the league - they knew what they were getting into. The ones we want to get rid of (like Orsic) have just signed contracts on increased wages that nobody outside the PL would match... and they have so far proven to not be good enough at that level. The could be loaned out though in another Hoedt, Carrillo, Lemina etc situation. I agree with some posters above that SR has cash to spend and that we are way under our FFP limit for years, so there is little incentive for SR to sell players at below market value when they have made it clear they want Saints to be a safe mid-table PL team. Having said all that, my worthless speculation on who will leave: Out of contract: Elyounoussi, Caballero, Walcott 1 year left on contract, will go to a lower-midtable PL level: Che and Salisu. Possibly JWP if he wants to be a starter every week. Players that will go to a higher level: KWP, Lavia, ABK and JWP as mentioned above. Players on loan that could leave: Stephens, Smallbone and Tella. Wallcott and Caballero could stay in player/coach roles. Although not prolific, Adams is a good player that a team will want. S.Armstrong will be 31 next season, has had injury issues and cannot play 90 minutes anymore - no-one will want him. Bednarek just sat on the bench at Villa, so I would be surprised if another PL team wants him, but I do think he would be a good squad player for most sides. I don't think Perraud has looked good enough in the PL to be getting attention to be honest, has a nice cross but I think he has struggled. The players we have loaned out will be interesting. Tella has been excellent in the Championship and scored a lot of goals. Logically the club should try and keep him if we are playing in the Championship. Smallbone and Stephens will both only have 1 year left on their deals. Smallbone would make sense to keep in a midfield that lacks creativity and Stephens' good ability on the ball would be more useful in a league where we would have a lot of it. Obviously this isn't mentioning the players that the club might want to leave. They have been vocal about the squad being too large and we have some good players coming through the academy. Lyanco, Djenepo, Diallo all will only have 1 or 2 years left on their deals. I think all 3 of them could leave for another league in search of regular game time as it looks unlikely that they will get it with us in the Championship. I think our biggest issue won't be getting a good squad (we are battling hard in the Prem with a novice manager - we have a very good squad for Champ level), but will be getting rid of the deadwood.

But what you aren't comprehending is that Adams and Armstrong looked just as good, at the same age, when the difference between the PL and Champ wasn't as vast. Armstrong was basically the same player. 23 years old, one of the fastest players in the Champ, made great runs and created loads of goal scoring opportunities for himself. My point is that in the PL the spaces that Tella is able to exploit won't be there as often. It is just fundamentally much harder to score in the PL with much better organised and athletic defences. Just as Armstrong has struggled in the PL, I don't think it is guaranteed that Tella will do well due to his goals at Burnley.

Well, lets compare Che and A.Armstrong's last seasons in the Championship to Tella's current one. Tella, age 23 at the start of the 22/23 season, is playing for the best team in the league. He has 17 goals and 3 assists - 0.70 goals and 0.12 assists per 90. He is overperforming his XG of 0.41 per 90, which you could either read that he has been lucky in some of his goals, or that he is a good finisher. Che, age 22 at the start of the 18/19 season, was in a poor Birmingham City team that finished 17th in the table. He got 22 goals and 4 assists - 0.53 goals and 0.10 assists per 90. He also overperformed his XG of 0.39 per 90 and underperformed his XA of 0.15 per 90, which suggests he was playing alongside poor finishers. Armstrong, age 23 at the start of the 20/21 season, was in a poor Blackburn Rovers team that finished 15th in the table. He got 28 goals and 5 assists - 0.73 goals and 0.13 assists per 90. He essentially met his XG of 0.76 and XA of 0.12 per 90. So, Tella is having similar seasons to Che and Armstrong before they finished in the Championship, at the same age, but in a much better team. What this shows is that the difference in level between the Championship and Premier League is huge. Adams and Armstrong have both improved since they made the step up, but both still struggle to score goals in the Premier League. Adams, especially, is a much better player now but still isn't prolific like he was in the Champ. I'm not trying to put down Tella, who I think is a good player and that we should keep him in the summer, but just as A.Armstrong scored lots of goals in the Champ and very few in the PL its not a massive surprise that although Tella scored only 1 goal in the PL that he is scoring lots in the Champ. My point is, that I could understand why a manager might think that some of our attacking players will be just as good, if not better. The fact is that our coaches haven't all been rubbish for the last few years, or the players don't care etc. It's just now very hard to score goals in the PL and very few players successfully make that jump - whether from the Champ or a different league. Also, Tella will be 24 in the summer and at about his peak. I could see a coach choosing to back Sulamana and Edozie instead, who are both 4 and 5 years younger. I'm just saying there are legitimate reasons that a manager might prefer some of our current players.

I'm sure most of our players won't want to play in the Championship, but they have signed their contracts so its tough luck. It's not like its a big 6 club that's going to want to sign him. Tella won't have had anything to do with whether he came back in January. Burnley could have said no, as is their right when paying to loan a player, but it was all hands to the pump in January, so I can't see Saints not bringing him back because he didn't want to. Same reason we got Bednarek and not Stephens - Villa didn't want Bednarek whereas Bournemouth wanted Stephens. Yes, exactly, Burnley aren't going to pay the kind of money that will make it worthwhile for us to sell him. I just cannot see SR doing it when there will be a handful of players that we will have to sell before their contracts run out - like Salisu and Adams - and others that will be sold to "big 6" teams - like KWP, Lavia, ABK and possibly JWP. Financially there will be no need for SR to sell Tella, especially as we are going to get 3 years of parachute payments. We are way under our FFP limits for spending for the next few years, so it all boils down to how much money SR are willing to spend short term to get us back up. Given everything they have said about the multi-club model relying on us being in the premier league to then sell our players to elite clubs, I think that they would rather keep a slightly disgruntled Tella for a year in the championship and get promoted than sell him. People here haven't clocked onto how much the PL finances have changed football over the last 5 years. If Norwich, Fulham and Watford can hold onto proven PL goal scorers like Pukki, Mitrovich and Sarr when they go into the Championship, then I'm certain that we can hold onto Tella after one good season in the Championship. The only reason I can see Tella not being here next year is if SR and the Saints scouts don't think he will be getting a starting role. If they think 2 of the Armstrong twins, Djenepo, Edozie, Sulemana and Orsic are better than Tella, then he won't be here next year.

Seems like you've just made up Brighton, Fulham and Brentford being deemed winnable. Losing to those teams wasn't why Jones had to go, although the ease by which Brighton and Brentford carved through us certainly didn't help. If he had beaten the worst away team in the league, while they were playing away, and a relegation candidate with 10 men (also at home) then perhaps people would look at Jones as a poor manager instead of the completely inept clusterfuck that his time will be remembered for. To answer your question, only Bournemouth, Palace, West Ham and Forest are games that we should be disappointed if we lose. Luckily Selles has proven capable of grinding out results against better teams. What you are omitting is that Villa and Wolves at home were very winnable games for Jones and he massively fucked them both.

While a few teams around us got some points, there are a number just ahead that are continuing to sink down the table. Palace and below are all in the relegation fight with a 6 points difference. Leicester are in a freefall, as are Forest. Palace haven't won a game in 2023. Bournemouth look really poor and their win today seems more of an anomoly. These next 3 games are our toughest stretch for the rest of the season, so I'm not going to put too much value into it. Historically 10 wins is usually enough, but we haven't had many draws, so lets say 5 more wins should do it - which gets us to the magic 36 points. If we could get a win or 2 draws in these next 3 games then I'll be pretty confident of our chances of getting that. We have tough games, but are finding a bit of form and Selles seems to have settled on a shape and a group of players he likes. I don't think we are the certain drop that I did at the end of the Jones tenure.

I don't know why people seem to think the club will sell Tella. Him massively improving in the Championship is exactly why we sent him on loan. If we go down then having a cheap player with two years left on his contract and is a proven goal scorer at that level is a no-brainer. He has two years left on his contract and with Walcott and Elyounoussi's contracts expiring, plus the potential selling of underperforming players like Djenepo and Orsic, I cannot understand people's thinking here. Times have changed and we don't need the money from selling players like Tella for £10m - look how Fulham held onto Mitrovic, Watford held onto Sarr, Norwich onto Pukki etc. We have more money than all of those clubs. The only players the club will probably sell are ones who's contract only has a year left and are Prem standard (Salisu, Stu Armstrong, Che) or those that will get offers from big 6(7?) teams (JWP, KWP, ABK, Lavia). Unless teams fuck up their finances (which we haven't, we have been incredibly frugal for years) then there isn't the need to sell like 10 years ago. The PL money is so big, as are the parachute payments, that the club could hold onto every player, sign a few more, and still be OK under FFP. How many players are sold depends on how much of a financial hit SR want to take next year in the hopes of us bouncing straight back up and how much of a factor moral of the dressing room will be (e.g. Lavia wouldn't enjoy being in the Champ when he has played like one of the best CMs in the PL this season). Again, this is due to us basically spending nothing under Gao. Secondly, I have no idea why people think he would have saved our season. Our team is filled with attacking players that dominated the Championship and they can't score goals in the Premier League. I don't think Tella after a few months in the Championship would be any different. For his development, it was absolutely the right decision to keep him at Burnley getting regular minutes. Orsic being a bad buy doesn't mean bringing back Tella would have been a good idea. Would he be playing ahead of Sulemana? I doubt it.

On potato quality, I just think that is due to them zooming in on the player when editing, they are usually filming a wide shot, plus the compression when uploading to Youtube. On Alejandro, I've done a bit of digging and it seems that at some point in the last few years his family has moved to the UK from Venezuala. Often players that were in academies will have to start from the bottom again to get noticed - for instance, Fabio Carvalho, who was at the Benfica academy, after moving from Portugal played for Balham for a while before getting noticed by Fulham. So, he might have been in a decent academy, its hard to tell. Perhaps lost in the shuffle, perhaps more focused on athletics or perhaps just a late bloomer. Interestingly, he isn't the only striker around that age that we have signed from Sunday league. We have also signed Jack Topley from Hedge End United Youth U14's in Southampton. It looks like we signed him in November 2021 - but hard to guess his age as it is likely he was playing in a higher age group if we were interested. Based on the highlight clips, Jack also looks tall for his age (although currently very lanky), but also seemingly has exceptional pace. This was his last game for them: https://fulltime.thefa.com/displayFixture.html?id=21874215 So, what is interesting to me is that we have a pattern of acquiring Sunday League players at around 13/14 who are physically superior to their peers. I'm assuming with the hopes that they will keep that physical advantage whilst developing the technical and mental side of their game with us. In my opinion it seems like a great idea. A true no.9 is such a rare commodity and while we look to currently be one of the best in the country at developing attacking players from the academy, with Ballard, Doyle, Morgan (even though he's left), Dibling, Robinson and now Gomes all playing games for England from each of the age groups from U18s to the U15s. But, with the exception of Gomes, they all lack elite size or pace and we have seen, quite frankly, with Lukaku that being a freakish athlete can make up for significant technical deficiencies. It looks like our solution to eternally searching for a striker is to mould them ourselves. Again, I think its great, every manager wants a big, powerful no.9 (even Pep), but there are seemingly none in existence at the required level. I would hope that we also apply this to CB. If we are sticking with our high line, high press style - then we need fast CBs. Obviously that is why we signed Salisu, Lyanco and ABK (as they all have pace for a CB), but to play the same style in the academy we need the same type of players.

Obviously highlights of a 14 year old are useless in predicting ability in the men's game, but if anyone is interested in what the hype is about right now:

When we sacked Ralph, we weren't in that bad of a position and a half decent manager would have kept us up, but it is looking more like we are going to be in the Chamionship next season. With that in mind, I'd like us to try and build upon Ralph's work in the Champ with a similar manager. I honestly think the club should seriously consider Danny Rohl. Obviously a risk getting someone who hasn't managed before, but there are plenty of recent success stories - Arteta being the biggest one. He knows the club, knows Ralph's style of play and helped keep us up before. But, importantly, he had massive success at Bayern Munich helping Flick win the CL, so is used to working with a style of play that can dominate a league (which would be necessary in the Championship). Like Kompany at Burnley, he would have the players to dominate in the Championship playing a style he knows well. He will then use his experience from coaching with us and Leipzig to get us to play aggressive football with our young players, which gets us results punching above our weight.