Matthew Le God

When the day comes, I think Frank de Boer may be an option if he is still at Ajax. - Ajax and Barcelona connections and philosophy like Koeman gives a degree of continuity of ideas - De Boer has been stating openly and repeatedly for a while he wants to come to the Premier League, Saints have a higher wage budget and more scope in the transfer market than Ajax. Like Saints did vs Feyenoord for Koeman. Even more so when the new TV deal starts next summer. - He is a relatively high profile name in European football which would help attract players - Experienced in European competitions and a track record of winning domestic competitions - Saints have good relations with Ajax at academy level and also we've played two friendlies vs Ajax in the last two international breaks

Its largely the fault of Sky and their "question/topic of the day" which they ask each of their reporters to ask at all the press conferences that week. They can then use clips of multiple managers talking about the same topic on SSN.

I think thats unlikely, as he signed for QPR when they were in the Championship, he has only signed one contract with them (in 2013). The media claim QPR wanted to get him tied down to a £50k or £60k p/w contract, but they haven't been able to. He is on £28,000 p/w or less according to all of these articles... http://www.getwestlondon.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/qprs-charlie-austin-set-demand-9981457 http://www.standard.co.uk/sport/football/charlie-austin-set-to-earn-over-50000-a-week-as-qpr-bid-to-secure-strikers-long-term-future-with-new-9852902.html http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2883438/Charlie-Austin-talks-new-QPR-deal-striker-set-double-wages-60-000-week.html http://www.express.co.uk/sport/football/576776/Southampton-10m-bid-Liverpool-Chelsea-Man-United-Charlie-Austin

You have very low standards of evidence you require before jumping to conclusions. Are you religious at all?

I don't know why people ask this, go on the Saints ticket website and look for yourself. It has a colour coded map of availability and you can also click on individual blocks to see how many are left... http://tickets.saintsfc.co.uk/PagesPublic/ProductBrowse/VisualSeatSelection.aspx?stadium=SM&product=CH15LI&campaign=&type=H&productsubtype=&productIsHomeAsAway=N

On what is that based? Our squad under Koeman is stronger than it was under Pochettino, he is still giving gametime to Ward-Prowse and Targett and gave 5 debuts to academy players last season. If Pochettino had Ryan Bertrand and not Danny Fox as an alternative option, then Shaw wouldn't have been able to breakthrough as quickly as he did. Chambers was 2nd choice to Clyne under Pochettino, he was getting games when Clyne was injured and coming back from injury. Gallagher got a lot of 1st team involvement largely due to the squad lacking the depth of senior numbers we now have.

The vast majority of our current first team squad are current internationals or relatively recent internationals, or in the England youth teams. The quality bar for an academy player to move up to the Southampton first team is now very high. The quality level needed for a youth player to reach the standard of the first team this season is tougher than any other time in the club's 130 year history. The number of internationals and depth of squad we had in 1983/84 or 2002/03 is small in comparison to 2015/16, the squad now is at a higher level than in both of those eras.

Been that way since August. I'm no longer paying the tax that doesn't exist on other club forums.

Attempt to answer my three questions that you have so far ignored...

I'm actually intrigued as to alpine_saint's rational for posting this thread. Not only because its extremely vague as to what exactly he is saying, but also what kind of response did he expect he'd get and why?

Yep, had Saints been given a penalty for the clear foul on Pelle and Saints got a draw then I doubt alpine_saint would have posted this thread. Its remarkable how easy every single one of his negative rants is to pick apart for the nonsense it is.

As ever, utterly bizarre! But its what we've come to expect from an alpine_saint post or thread. 1) Why would the club sell him in January? The summer perhaps, but they have little reason to do so in January. 2) Why when he is sold do you not have confidence they can replace him? They have shown time after time the recruitment set-up at the club has a process that works more often than it doesn't. 3) Define "f**ked"? Because take Mane out of our squad and they don't replace him... we'd still have a very good Premier League squad. In any case if he is sold, they'll spend good money to replace him as they have shown in the last two seasons.

Long isn't apparently back, he is definitely back. He was training with Saints in the build-up to the Sunderland game, played for Ireland this week and was in training with Saints this week. We have Juanmi as well. Many appear to have harshly written him off already. Seager was recently on the bench vs Sunderland and Aston Villa.

I doubt the Koeman is kept regularly informed of the youth recruitment strategy for 16 years olds coming into the club.

If those "upto 100,000" kids go to a Saints branded "soccer school", I think there is an increased likelihood they will follow the fortunes of the first team. Ample opportunity to flog Saints shirts, training gear etc and merchandise to 100,000 soccer moms.

In terms of player retention, it doesn't matter if Saints are 17th or 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th for wage bill. The ability of the clubs to other large wages will see our best players see a move as good for them financially. The public and media keep bringing up the idea of "selling club", but the number of "non-selling clubs" in world football is tiny! Every club in the Premier League is likely to lose their star player if Barcelona or Real Madrid really wanted them. Under Liebherr ownership Southampton haven't sold our best players to anyone other than Arsenal, Man Utd, Liverpool. If we start losing our best players to Newcastle, Aston Villa, West Ham etc then that would be a concern as it would indicate the quality of our best players has dropped significantly. I doubt Saints will be losing their best players to any English club other than Man City, Man Utd, Chelsea, Arsenal or Liverpool anytime soon.

Southampton have only been back in the Premier League for 3 years, there are restrictions on how much you can add to the wage bill year on year but Southampton are quickly catching and overtaking many clubs... [saints are one of the few clubs to have already released 2014/15 account details]

The full game is now live and the free demo is on Steam.

How many of their players would you want in our starting XI of... Stekenlenburg (Forster when fit); Cedric, Fonte, van Dijk, Bertrand; Clasie, Wanyama, S.Davis; Mane, Tadic, Pelle? Its one or two at most (if we are being generous). We also have far better depth to our squad than they do.

Because he said that he had been looking for the information, not people's opinions on the information and couldn't find any.... He doesn't ask people to give their perception of how many there are, he asks if anyone actually knows the correct answer... He also said "if not" then he would appreciate guesses, so clearly perception is not the main focus as he is using it as a back-up...

Why do you want guesses? What use is that for a uni project? Email the club and ask them directly.

Since Saints returned to the Premier League; at St Mary's vs Arsenal... 2012/13 Southampton 1 Arsenal 1 - DRAW 2013/14 Southampton 2 Arsenal 2 - DRAW 2014/15 Southampton 2 Arsenal 0 - WIN

Ronald explains Yoshida plays as it allows for flexibility of formation in the first half depending on how Sunderland line-up...

No he wasn't, that came from "journalists" who didn't listen to what Koeman actually said. Koeman said Long trained this week but isn't quite fit enough yet to be in the match day squad, but thinks both he could be for the Stoke game.

Wanyama is suspended after being sent off vs Bournemouth, so it is a case of who replaces him out of Ward-Prowse and Romeu.