Dan Johnson

I’d say the Portuguese league is probably not far off championship level, Sporting paid £20m for Gyökeres and he scored 68 goals in 66 games without playing a premiership game. Granted he’s a striker, but they’ve seen transfer success from this league

Gave myself a few days to reflect before assessing the game. Its a bad result, but I think the result was worse than the performance. 3-4 Mistakes have cost us, Stephens for their first goal, Manning\Stephens for their 2nd goal, Stephens should come across much much earlier but seems to give him the space he runs into, Stephens and Harwood-Bellis both fluff guilt edge opportunities to score. We were well in control until their first goal, and second half we dominated but failed to push home the advantage. I think the heat plays into our lack of intensity at times, it felt very similar to some of the games during the world cup in that respect. I'm not panicking, it's a frustrating result, but we win that game 8 out of 10 times normally. There's positives, we have Azaz and Jander to come back in, with a few players needing to get another 10% or so of fitness, 3 home games in a row now, a chance to build momentum.

Bench is ridiculous for a championship game. COYR!

yeah it's a weird sentiment, if anything the last 3 transfer windows have been extremely productive in my eyes and I'm confident we can identify good players, at the same time I really dont want to lose THB, I'd rather we lost any other player than him, I think he's the most important player in the squad.

You’re thinking of Divin Mu-Bum-a?

It’s a mental fee for a player, who when everyone is fit, isn’t in our first choice 11. undoubted potential but at £30m, it’s great business.

Lavia played 90 mins in a friendly yesterday and was being raved about on social media, expect to see him play a big part under Alonso.

Routine professional performance that felt very much like a preseason game played in 25c+ heat. we didn’t create as much as I’d like but I think the heat plays its part, maybe a few players hold their runs or don’t make a run they would do when it’s 10-15c and they’re not tempering their performance to the conditions. controlled the tempo and possession for extremely long periods, of the 20-25% possession they must have had in the second half only a fraction of that was in our half. We had extra gears, you could tell, there’s half a yard or a yard still to come in some players fitness levels. Bragg a massive positive, class, energy, really excited about him. Larin will get 20 goals this season, the majority of them being in the right place at the right time. all in all a professional win and performance with not a great deal to be excited or disappointed about

Can’t speak for in the bar but during the fans forum he said a striker is being actively worked on

Fair point 🙂

The original comment was "if we're looking at players from premier league clubs then we should only be targeting the players they want to keep. If they're not 1st team players then it's probably not worth bothering with." Lavia, Charles and THB had only played 1 game for Man City between them when we signed them, Middlesbrough have signed Vitek, 0 appearances for Utd, Lankshear, 3 Appearances for Tottenham, Sarmiento, 15 Appearances for Brighton over 3 seasons. I'd not count any of them as First Team players at that point in their careers. Signing promising up and coming players, is very different to signing 1st team players that clubs want to keep, was my point 🙂 I agree with your examples BTW, and I think there's plenty of other examples of players signed before making a premier league appearance that have gone on to be exceptional, Cole Palmer, Morgan Rodgers, 2 very high profile examples

How many premier league players, who their clubs want to keep and are active first team players, are going to want to take a pay cut and play at a lower level?

Plagued by injuries over the last 2 seasons, he’s got a knee injury at the moment and is out until at least October, Ross Stewart Mk2

I wouldn't class it as a stitch up, we've not been negatively impacted by him not signing at all.

I think quality wise he’s more than ready, personally he’s the one player I’m dreading losing, his leadership, his defending, his attitude, even his vision when it comes to passing, will be impossible to replace at this level. I can remember a handful of defence cutting passes he made last season that opened teams up and resulted in goals. He’s our most important player in my eyes. however, I do wonder if a bid will materialise that matches the market value we’d let him go for. Personally id value him at £30m+. He’d be moving to a lower premier league team, I’d suspected Brighton might be his best option but they’re going another route. maybe Bournemouth as they’ve lost a CB, Leeds also? Not sure they’d pay the kind of money we’d want and whether they’d feel a championship defender currently unproven in the prem would be worth that risk.

Was reported as 15% sell on clause at the time of his transfer to West Ham. Unsure if that was profit or total, but that could be nearly £13m or £7m depending on the clause, still very good for us.

Tore us a new one when we were 2-0 up in the premier league and lost 3-2 to them. He's only 22 and got 9 goals and 8 Assists last season, in a poor Leicester side. Very good signing for them, probably a Bowen replacement though so take some hope from that.

Really hope he continues his form into next season. Of the course of his Career he's averaged 1 goal every 3 games, so 15-20 next season is well within his wheel house.

He has, although I was really excited based on his first appearance in a friendly last summer, scored a great goal and thought we’d made a great signing. Been completely abject since, let’s hope it’s a confidence issue and not an ability issue and we see him come good next season.

Ultimately I’m disappointed he’s not been extended, the last 4 months of his contract we saw the player we all hoped we’d got 3 years ago, but there in lies the problem, for 28 months of those 3 years we’d all assumed this moment, being released on a free at the end of his contract, would have been inevitable. As a club we’ve rightly weighed up the pros and the cons, offered a contract that’s reflective of that analysis and he’s rejected it. The last thing we need is him on big wages in the treatment room for another 3 years.

honestly, who gives a fuck now what everyone else thinks. everyone will hate us, everyone will try and put us down but I can already feel the siege mentality growing... On this forum, with fans i speak to, in dragons statements, in the clubs statements, with the signing of Peretz, in Peretz first interview... We have the chance to allow the biggest negative this club has experienced into a driving force behind success. The run we went on last season was real, the connection that team had with the fans was real, if we can harness that at the beginning of next season, under a siege mentality, with the squad we had last season, we will win the league

This is an absolutely massive statement from the club. Best keeper since Niemi, such a statement of intent and a real stake in the ground when it comes to next seasons expectations. Buzzing

Absolutely this, love his commentary, think his views are balanced and well thought through. Don’t always agree with him but I very much enjoy his input whether I agree or not. I hope he continues to cover Saints long into the future. going home with Adam and Jo, highlights with their commentary, and the Football Martin Channel for that matter, are now very much part of my post game enjoyment

Next season, we will take a huge amount of stick from opposition fans EG when we go 1-0, maybe from a controversial penalty, we're likely to get chants of "Same old Southampton, Always cheating" It would be great if we could have some responses... Some from me ----------------------------------- "You're just fucking shit, you're just fucking shiiiiit" "We're not cheating, you're just fucking shit!" ----------------------------------- "We've got Eckert, Tonda Eckert, I just don't think you understand" "He's got a camera phone, and a 4k drone" "we've got Tonda Eckert" ----------------------------------- "We hide behind trees, we hide behind treeeees" "We are Southampton, we hide behind trees" ----------------------------------- "All week, we've been watching you train all week, watching you train all weeeeeeek" ----------------------------------- "We know what you'll do" "We know what you'll do" "We've been watching you in training" "We know what you'll do" -----------------------------------

I voted yes on the basis of his position being untenable and thought he’d have lost the backing of the players. however yesterdays sun article would suggest he may not have been as heavily at fault as first suggested and seemingly the majority of players still back him. if that’s the case I’d change my vote to a No and would prefer he stays. allot to come out in the wash still and until we’ve definitely determined root causes, I’ll reserve judgment