Saint_clark

Nope, I went back through the whole squad including Fonte and it's almost spot on. Give or take a couple hundred thousand perhaps for the fact that transfer fees are always rounded when reported.

Those figures above work out almost spot on. Easy to forget we spent £43,000,000 summer just gone...

If anyone is likely to throw ridiculous amounts at us, it's United. Surely "cost of squad assembly" means the current squad? I'll run the figures and get back on this.

Probably a condition of all our loan agreements and explains the "hypocrisy" of loaning players out after Les Reed stated publicly that we didn't like to use that system - we get the best of both worlds, first team experience for our youngsters whilst being coached to our standards in our philosophy.

Calmed down? What were people doing, singing football chants? The horror! I wonder if pilots did the same when the cast of the Lion King started singing, or any such similar stories you hear about.

Arnhem a dead rubber? It remains the best away trip I've ever done, the square before hand and in the ground was utterly fantastic.

Can see us taking him on loan till the end of the season - after realising that Rodriguez just simply cannot be counted on anymore - but no way will we sign him permanently and to be honest, I can't imagine him being happy playing for us.

I get resting them to begin with. But when you NEED a win to qualify from the group, he should have been going all out for it.

You're trolling, but I actually agree.

I think it's difficult for CMs to really look exceptional in this system as they're both asked to simply move the ball on to the front three. We've seen Hojberg shoot from distance with some accuracy...i'd like to see more of him bursting into the box/shooting from just outside.

Possibly transfer fees coming in are on instalments and so we're lending against that. Don't see anything in that article that says we've used them "significantly" though.

Sunderland and Watford were before we really clicked, Hull was a terrible, terrible choice by either the manager or the players to try and coast the game at 1-0. My point is our position is skewed because of a large percentage of games against top teams who are much, much better than last season. Once we have played more of the lower/struggling teams - looking at Swansea, Everton, West Brom, Boro, Palace - we could very well be up near the top 6 again.

Good point made on a thread somewhere else - first 12 games we have played United, City, Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool, and Leicester. Out of the next 12 games we only have Spurs and Leicester again from the "top" teams, so lets see how we have performed over that stretch as well.

We're playing the same way we have all season. I know what incident you're on about and Boufal was being held back for a long time whilst trying to get into the box. Very frustrating.

For me rather than rotating as he has been, Puel should have a prem team and a cup team. Clasie and JWP for the cups, Hojberg and Davis for the Prem. get some continuity and partnerships forming.

Few good saves, but as i've said we need a keeper who is better than "well, he makes good saves now and then". Few balls close to goal that he again didn't come for. Own the box ffs.

If the stats are saying zero shots on target the stats are wrong btw, Bertrand had a shot early on. Still bad i know.

Rubbish, he was very good today, especially defensively. We just didn't have the ball up front enough.

Not sure where you got £100 from, I have a season ticket. It won't be 0-0 anyway. But i'd still be happy with that. A clean sheet and a point.

Put £50 on Liverpool as an insurance bet. Hoping to be down in a couple of hours! Come On Saints!

Football is smalltime to business people like the Liebherrs. The average prem teams turnover is less than that of the average tesco store.

Why won't he sign a new one in the summer? That's when the vast majority of our contract extensions are announced.

No, it all came from Graham Poll.

Koeman is now the 5th highest paid manager in the world I believe? I doubt we're paying lemonade money to the champagne of Van Dijk, who signed a new 6 year deal.

Even if we were looking to sign someone better, there will be plenty of people willing to pay a lot of money for a player of his quality. Whichever way you look at it, getting him on a new contract can only be beneficial.