trousers

This

Fratton Park

https://www.dailyecho.co.uk/sport/17484785.southampton-manager-ralph-hasenhuttl-on-yan-valery-and-loaning-out-cedric-soares/

I'm not seeing where he's explicitly saying that the aim is to bring the wages down to match league position? My interpretation of what he said is that they anticipated finishing higher with the players we had/have. As such, I reckon he believes that we can close the gap between wages and league position by finishing higher up the league next season, rather than reducing the wage bill, per se. Yes, there's a debate to be had as to whether our poor position the last two seasons is a blip due to poor management rather than poor players, but from what I've seen from Hassenhuttl so far, I'm pretty confident we'd finish in a more comfortable position next season with a similar wage bill (should we stay in the league of course!)

If having a ponder on an internet football forum = "obsessed", then guilty as charged m'lud. Humble apologies for my idle curiosity

I don't see any conspiracy theories. As a paying 'customer', I'm just genuinely interested in what the nature of his injury/condition is. And, yes, of course the club have no obligation to reveal any details. Equally, they're under no obligation to be 'secretive' about it either. Conspiracy theories tend to be born out of organisations giving the impression that they are concealing information. Ralph gives out fairly detailed status information on most players, so just seems a little odd that they seem more guarded about Lemina's situation. Just an observation and nothing I'll be losing sleep over. Are you not even slightly curious about it?

That was my assumption at the time too, but I always understood hernia ops didn't keep footballers out of action for weeks on end. Indeed, a quick search threw up this article, where Drogba talks about playing again only a week after a hernia op: https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/premier-league/drogba-fit-and-firing-after-hernia-surgery-2048001.html

And yet another pre-match press conference passes by without any of the journos seeking any specific information about Lemina's condition. Sigh.

Hasenhuttl (during today's pre-match press conference): "We will be playing a friendly against a championship team during the 3 week PL break after the Spurs game" Hmmm... wonder who that'll be?

Have Alps and Adrian Durham ever been seen in the same room together?

Does anyone know what is/was specifically wrong with him? All I've heard is that he has/had an "abdominal problem" but a multitude of conditions could fall under that general/vague description.

Wonder if they'll play it at St.Mary's?

Actually, I'm now having second thoughts. Can see why the penalty was given on reflection

Yep, defo no penalty IMO. But how cool was Rashford? We've got some decent English penalty takers at long last.

So, by my reckoning, we're slightly better than PSG...

...

Decent bait. Gotta be worth at least half a dozen bites I reckon.

That'll teach the buffoons in the Southampton FC boardroom to listen to the Saintsweb Forum intelligentsia.... https://www.saintsweb.co.uk/showthread.php?59622-We-need-to-do-something-radically-different-A-few-ideas&p=2613066#post2613066

Saints 1 Spurs 3

...

The stats could prove me wrong but, historically, we seem to play better the shorter the gap between our games...?

Still don't understand why Ralph preferred Valery over Cedric...

Yep, you were right to laugh. Not even close...