Professor

Will corsacarsaint apologise for starting another divisive thread aimed at creating argument amongst Saints' fans. Give it a rest.

There is an error in the Fox report that it doesn't mention Rickie Lambert as a key player. A striker in the England squad for the World Cup and still in the latest England squad must qualify Rickie as a key player, but also, it was the sale of Lambert against stated club policy whilst there was no manager in place that kicked off the trouble. Would the team be stronger with Shaw instead of Bertrand and with Lovren instead of Gardos? Arguably it would. The club have made the best of a bad job with replacements they have found and they certainly did the right thing in calling off the sale of Schneiderlin in face of the adverse publicity. Tadic is looking good in place of Lallana and Pelle may be a step up on the aging Lambert added to which there may be less reliance on teenagers as squad palyers. But we can't know if this team will be equal to the one that was largely dismantled until more results start coming in. There won't be a single Saints' fan who doesn't want the team to succeed which is why a lot of the arguing on this forum is sad because there is little disagreement about the players or the manager but there are disputes over the actions of the board who may have reached the current situation more by accident than design.

Can't see Yoshida holding his place, even though he was part of a winning side at Wet Spam, for two reasons - (1) his flapping boot did give away the goal, (2) he was in as cover for a first choice CB, who is now available. If Gardos is fit and is the LCB, then because Koeman has had a couple of weeks to assess him, I'd expect him to play ahead of Alderweireld who is primarily a RCB when not playing RB. I agree with Alpine, that we should win this one, hopefully by a clear margin.

Koeman's track record, even after just 3 games is evolution rather than revolution. My guess for the side against Newcastle is same starting XI as against West ham with just one change, which I think might be Gardos instead of Yoshida, who might drop out altogether. Aldeweireld and Mané on the bench with Wanyama and Cork plus Davis or Boruk. That leave two other places which I'll allow Koeman to fill.....

There will probably be a Judgement Day after virtually every game but by 1st October the team will have had 3 more Prem games:- Newcastle (H) Swansea (A) QPR (H) 9 points, perfection leaves no room for debate; 7 points, maybe a fair expectation and a good outcome; 6 points, still reasonable 5 points, a mild disappointment as it would mean more home points dropped 4 points, not really good enough 3 points, definitely not good enough, even if it's 3 draws 2 points, 1 point, 0 points - failing. The number of points achieved is more relevant than league position as position also depends on the results of other teams. Last season, after 6 games we had 11 points and at 1/10/2013 were 6th in the table so to stay on par with last season we should be hoping for 7 points from the next three games.

It's easy to become blasé about large sums of money when we regard a million or two for a footballer as peanuts, but the truth is that even £1m for the average fan would be a life-changing sum of money. For someone in a well-paid job it could take 20 years to earn a £1m and for many people, much longer. But for the owner of Southampton FC, the net effect of the transfers in and out this summer is a profit of more than £20m. That may not be asset stripping but it has been achieved by liquidising assets. Although fans were told back in May that there were funds available to buy players, presumably from the £70m or so earned from the prize and TV money last season, realistically, it may have been necessary for some sales to fund quality purchases. Even so, wouldn't most people prefer that Shaw, Lallana and Lovren were still Saints' players? Given their long contracts, freely signed, and the demonstration over Morgan that contracts can be enforced, a different approach might have produced a different outcome. What is not clear is how badly the Board wanted to keep those players when the transfer options became clear or whether the money became a bigger motivator. In the end, we have seen a lot of that money spent on replacements to the squad to the extent that few people would think our Premier League status will be under threat. But it wasn't all spent, and neither does it seem that the transfer fund was used that people were told was available. On paper, this squad looks like it should achieve a similar outcome to last year and perhaps Koeman will get more out of the team than Pochettino did, but we haven't seen the genuine strengthening of our 8th place side, which is what many people were looking for at the end of the season. The OP asked which of three options was the target none of which are likely to be accurate. What we seem to have is a multi-million return of cash from player sales, eye-watering money in the real world, but the club does have a squad that should maintain mid-table. Whether that was a deliberate decision back in May/June or is just the outcome of events that took over, it's hard to say, but someone does have a healthy bank balance and the prospect of pocketing even more Sky TV money this season.

Absolutely right about the Mail, and equally true of the other media who now have us down as a club that dissolved it's team and anything to the contrary is of no interest to them. The so-called BBC Transfer Deadline show was simply a programme about Man Utd. They don't seem to understand that football fans who follow Man U are far outnumbered by those who dislike the club, and as for Saints, we didn't feature unless it was to say that another player had left. Whether panic by the Board can be described as keeping their heads, I'm not so sure but I have every confidence that in Koeman we have a manager who is head and shoulders above any we've seen here for a long time, including the Argie.

Shane Long has a lot to prove given the size of the fee, although that's not his fault. Not sure he will offer much that Gallagher can't provide and in due course I'd expect JRod to be preferred ahead of both of them. Shane was hardly at Hull long enough to find his way to the dressing room and it's a surprise that he's doubled in value since he went to WBA in 2011. With Mané to compete with as well the question is how many opportunities he will get but he is now a Saint, so I wish him well.

Silly question and if anyone really wanted to know they'd have to ask the club but I can offer some anecdotal evidence. A colleague of mine phoned to ask for his money back and found he had to ring several times before getting through. When he did get through he received an apology from someone who told him the phone lines had been jammed with callers. Anyone who thinks this forum was the only place where fans were expressing their concerns should get out more. We should be pleased that things have changed but there's no denying that we went through a very sticky patch.

In case you missed it, there was a mass protest by Southampton fans over the dismantling of the squad. The protest took the form of phone calls to St Mary's by people asking for their ST money back, postings on social media and articles in the media and the press, many of them by journalists who happened to be Saints' fans. Every mass protest is made up of individuals and if St George was one of those individuals, he played his part because the outcome was certainly a change of policy by the Chairman and the Board with the Schneiderlin decision the most public face of that change. Even so, St George and his companions was just a small factor, the biggest being the appointment of Koeman for which the Board can rightly take the credit.

The board have belatedly compensated as best they can for the asset sales. The extent to which that was motivated by fear of what they had done, negative reactions in the press and amongst the fan base, or the judgement of the new manager, or whether it was always the plan, we may never know. The outcome is a first XI that looks on paper very close to last year's in quality, in fact the bulk of last year's team is still in place, but it does look like we have greater strength in depth. We haven't really signed any world class players as the top 7 clubs may have done, but few would have expected us to. Whether this will be enough to hold on to a place in the second quartile of the table can only be speculated on because the other unknown is how well our competitors will compete, the likes of Hull, Swansea, Newcastle and Stoke for example. NIckG has already made his own assessment of how brilliant he is as a forecaster, and he's decided he's brilliant. Lets hope he's right.

That is perhaps the best comment so far. In xxxxxx we trust is looking more appropriate now than when it was used in the days of George Burley.

It's a bit premature to be crowing 'I told you so' until we see which players perform to the expected standards. Anyone who thought it was obvious that selling four, almost five, of our best players was a good strategy wouldn't be too good a choice to act as an advisor to Koeman. Many fans would still prefer to have Lovren at CB rather than the £20m net profit that the club now have in the bank. In terms of first choice players we may be close to like-for-like replacements but that doesn't necessarily mean we have gone up a level. We will only be able to judge that as the results come in. Where the squad does look better is that it is stronger in depth which should be a significant factor as the season goes on. If we stay in the top 10 playing attractive football, that will be good enough for many people but if we can finish above Tottenham.......

Self-dug hole successfully climbed out of. 7 of last season's outfield players now replaced by 7 others and a profit of over £20m. Impossible to make an assessment of performance until we see the new players performing but there is still enough of last year's squad in place to be optimistic. A few things that made some people proud to support Southampton have gone - the number of young academy players in the side and that players who played in L1 and the Champ were still in the team. The greatest success of the window may prove to be the retaining of Schneiderlin and the greatest success of the summer, the replacement of Pochettino with Koeman.

What sort of sad individual goes through pages of posts on an internet forum in order to say "Look at me! Look at me!" "Na, Na, nah nah, na". Only a very immature one, I'd suggest. Get a life....

Wonder how the OS heard the news. Maybe they read it in The Echo.

Wait until you hear Koeman speak his name and you'll have the definitive Dutch pronunciation.

Under Koeman, it seems no one is guaranteed a starting place, eg Wanyama at West Ham and the departure of Taider who is reported as wanting an assurance of selection. Despite playing RB for Belgium, since Aldeweireld is primarily a CB he will be one of 4 competing for 2 places. Gut feeling is that Fonte may be the one who loses out if the two new boys are as good as their reputations but we can only wait and see. Shame about Jos, who comes over as a very likeable squad member but is the weakest link and has probably played more Premier games than he ever expected to.

If this happens, will Jos be leaving?

Neville's comment and the report in The Star both show a considerable degree of ignorance by people who try to give the impression that they know more about football than the rest of us and pocket generous amounts of cash as their reward. Whilst we lost at least four players we would have preferred to keep, the bulk of the team remains, bolstered by 3 or 4 internationals brought in as replacements. We have also replaced an aging Polish GK with England's current No.2 keeper. Koeman's team last week included 7 outfield players who were with the club last season, 6 of them being in our first choice XI. There were only 3 new signings in the outfield, plus the GK. Some simple research would have undermined the comments by Neville and The Star but Hey!, why allow the truth to spoil a pre-determined story?

Absolutely, and possession will provide more opportunities for free kicks and corners to be conceded by the opponents, but scoring from open play is key to winning more games and making close games safe.

Agree entirely. Not only is he showing excellent football and tactical ability but I like his positive approach to team selection and set-up. It may get tougher for him if results don't go well because, unfairly in my opinion, managers tend to judged on the league position of their team when that is actually affected by many other factors including the financial resources of the club. Art the moment Koeman has a first choice XI, plus a few strong contenders, that is probably on a par with last year's first choice XI but if hit by injuries and suspensions there will be vulnerability in the depth of the squad, a problem that the wealthy clubs do not suffer. At West Ham, the quality of the team's possession football was equal to anything seen last year but there was still the niggle that scoring from possession is not easy - two of the goals at Upton park were from set pieces not from open play. But Koeman will know about that better than any fan and I have more confidence in him to find a solution than I had in Pochettino who faced with the same problem didn't seem to be able to do much about it.

You are entitled to your opinion that fan's protests did not cause the board to announce that Schneiderlin would not be sold but there is evidence to the contrary in press reports at the time about the St Mary's phones being jammed by fans wanting their season ticket money back. There was also considerable negative feedback in the media from the player sales, some of it from general football pundits but some from journalists who also happened to be Saint's fans. At the same time there was almost universal welcoming of the appointment of Koeman. Comparing RK to Van Gaal, just because they are both Dutch seems a rather pointless exercise. In the longer term, managers are judged on results but it is widely accepted that 7 clubs in the Premier League have substantially greater financial resources that the rest so those seven tend to be compared as a separate group, which does not include our club. David Moyes achieved a higher Prem finish than Pochettino but was regarded as bottom of the league of 7 and although his club finished 8 points above ours, he was regarded as a failure and Pochettino was not. With only three premier games having been played there are no reliable performance statistics on which to base judgements but on what we see of them in the media, and what we saw of Pochettino last year, I would be comfortable with any of them as Saint's manager but Koeman comes across as likeable, honest and most importantly, competent, so personally, I'm very content.

If you seriously believe that I suspect your relationships off the forum are as bad as they are on here.

If you find it hard to understand, don't read it.