Verbal Kint

Sherwood is definitely a ****, but he is at least a step in the right direction. More emphasis on youth and more actual coaching of players, rather than Bond putting out the cones while 'arry has a cup of tea in the office. A small step, but a step nonetheless

My guess is he's here to play in the 10 position, and it's much needed considering the total lack of goal threat we've had from that position all season

You think Liverpool would loan a player out to a club higher than them in the league?

Unfortunately this I agree with. A decent lad and definitely some talent, but you can't justify him being our top earner to sit on the bench every week making cameo appearances and not actually influencing the game that much

I said league goals, and the Tadic and Wanyama ones were empty nets, mane a one on one. I'm talking about picking the ball up 25 yards out, and rather than trying to pass through a brick wall just having a crack instead. Like the goals Clyne and Pelle scored in the cup games. Why are ward Prowse and davis in particular so afraid to shoot from distance?

We've scored only one league goal this season from memory (morgan v Newcastle) from long range shots that haven't been passing the ball into an empty net. Eriksen alone has scored 6 for Spurs, nearly all of them key goals that have won them the game. Teams are very organised and are going to make it hard to pass through them and will leave little space in behind. In games like yesterday we really need midfielders (Davis and Ward Prowse the main culprits) who are prepared to have a go from the edge of the box. That's the only reason we lost the game: Shelvey had a go, we refused to. And it isn't just about being unlucky

Another game we've lost, just like at Spurs, because we don't have one player who has the balls to shoot from outside the box, and they did

Isn't that the point? We try and get better value players from Europe in the transfer market and complement it with bring through our own young British players from the academy. British players, generally speaking, are very expensive

Probably half of that

I think he's a great talent actually, nothing to do with him being a saints fan. He's a Rodriguez replacement and on a free this summer would be a great signing

They've had their chances, they've both sold players for massive money but have spectacularly failed in their recruitment

I see him as similar to Shaw in that defensively he's very good (particularly one on one) but his attacking game isn't as good as it could be. Only 7 assists in 79 premier league games, and considering how advanced our full backs have played over the last couple of years, would back that up. He doesn't take people on as much as he should and his crossing isn't great. Still a very, very good player but i think we can replace him if the money is right (20-25 million). If he won't sign a new deal then we have to sell him anyway

Very little i would think. His goals will be far more valuable to them than any realistic fee clubs would pay

Agree with that apart from soccer saturday. When it gets to the 12th game of the season and Paul Merson says he hasn't watched Southampton play yet i wonder what the **** he does for the other 6 days of the week. The vast majority of people doing that job would at least make sure they watched a recording of every premier league game. They do, after all, only cover that one league

Goal difference tells you everything. They've been the luckiest team in the league so far, and luck nearly always runs out eventually

Not surprising. Of the 10 outfield players that started against us, 5 were playing out of position in order to accommodate his beloved wing backs system. Incredible really

He'll go anyway and maybe we can start putting this myth to bed that footballers are desperate for champions league football above all else for the chance to test themselves against the mighty BATE Borisov or APOEL Nicosia, and in fact what they really care about is earning a **** load of cash

I'd be amazed if anyone was prepared to pay anything close to that right now. Which is probably why he's still here

Well in the Summer they thought we'd go down, and we were only up there in October because we had had easy fixtures "they won't be up there at Christmas". Then after we lost those 3 games in a week "they'll be mid-table by the New Year. Now we're still there it will turn to "they won't cope with the pressure, they'll drop away by March". Until we've actually achieved it nobody in the game will think it possible

It's certainly beneficial to the smaller clubs. Some might argue United and Liverpool should get a bigger share as they're the clubs bringing in the casual viewers. But for the sake of argument, yes it is fairer

Depends on your definition of 'fair'. It's certainly more evenly distributed

Irrelevant i would think. He'll still want to go for the ££££

In general I completely agree with you, i just think in this case it will be near on impossible for us to replace him, and i also think he will HUGELY improve Spurs, Arsenal or United. Why sell to them when we could possibly sell him abroad?

If we're going to have to sell then sell to a foreign club so he can't strengthen our competitors. Ideally we sell to PSG and try and get Cabaye as part of the deal, but that is probably completely unrealistic considering the money he will be on. Fee needs to be very close to 30 million

One and the same