Matthew Le God

He said he found something strange, I said he had already said something that explains it... so he had answered his own pondering. The first bit in bold explains/answers the second bit in bold.

30th July 2014 - Celtic lose away 4-1 to Legia Warsaw 6th August 2014 - Celtic lose 2-0 at home to Legia Warsaw and looks like they are out of the Champions League 8th August 2014 - Fraser Forster joins Saints Celtic are reinstated to the Champions League due to Legia Warsaw fielding an ineligible player.

Difference is last summer the rest of our squad had just finished 8th, Villa's have just finished 17th only 3 points off relegation. Our squad had far more quality to it even without Lambert, Lallana, Lovren, Shaw and Chambers than the current Villa squad.

You've answered it yourself. He was the number 5 last season and like a lot of players has just kept his shirt.

Our defensive midfield in that game was Gape and Davis, vs Feyenoord tonight it'll probably be Wanyama and Clasie.

Koeman - "Florin Gardoș has a very bad knee injury and had an operation on 21st July"

Koeman - "Florin Gardoș has a very bad knee injury and had an operation on 21st July"

My post was meant to be in reply to Saint Charlie, not VectisSaint.

Do you not think our starting XI in the first competitive game needs to get used to playing together beforehand? Stekelenburg, Cedric, Targett, Clasie will all likely be playing vs Vitesse and weren't regulars for us last season.

As the tickets automatically go on your season ticket card, how can they justify charging me £3 of admin fees for 3 tickets?

Yes, its on Fox like the FC Groningen game was so there'll be streams.

Saints did similar last season with some of the youngsters, then when they featured in the League Cup squads early in the season they gave them a number.

Koeman will be having an al fresco press conference today...

He has more sense than you two then?

I don't think he is a wind-up merchant, I think he genuinely believes what he says. He also may have put me on ignore, as he doesn't respond to any of my rebuttals anymore.

His point was, you jumped to some odd conclusions based on a list of squad numbers... How did you determine there is "no space for a new CB"? Why were you surprised at the "gap at 17"? Last season we had a first choice centre back wearing number 17!

Unless you say who the tweets are by (so it can be gauged if they are a credible source) then you may as well say you heard it from a bloke in a pub. Just saying "tweets" is extremely vague.

I think that is very unlikely as we have 4 senior keepers (3 of which are fit) and any additional keeper is unlikely to get much game time. Given they've already made a big bid for a centre back this summer, its very likely they'll be making another bid for a different player.

Why and how would the Europa matches mean they aren't looking for new players? Just because its not in the press, it doesn't mean they aren't pursuing targets.

Yes.

To make it even clearer for Alpine...

How have you jumped to that conclusion? Pathetic. How have you jumped to that conclusion? Why are you surprised at that?

How have you managed to jump to the conclusion there is no space for further signing from that list of squad numbers? Any new senior signings can have... 13, 14 or 17

1 Kelvin Davis 2 Cédric Soares 3 Maya Yoshida 4 Jordy Clasie 5 Florin Gardos 6 José Fonte 7 Shane Long 8 Steven Davis 9 Jay Rodriguez 10 Sadio Mané 11 Dušan Tadić 12 Victor Wanyama 15 Cuco Martina 16 James Ward-Prowse 18 Harrison Reed 19 Graziano Pellè 20 Juanmi 21 Ryan Bertrand 22 Maarten Stekelenburg 23 Gastón Ramírez 24 Jack Stephens 25 Paulo Gazzaniga 27 Lloyd Isgrove 32 Jason McCarthy 33 Matt Targett 36 Jordan Turnbull 38 Sam McQueen 40 Sam Gallagher 44 Fraser Forster

I doubt that is true. I think we'll be signing a new 1st choice centre back regardless of how well they think Stephens is progressing. Stephens first needs to overtake Gardos and then Yoshida. If no new centre back is signed, who are you suggesting will be first choice alongside Fonte? Yoshida? Because although he is fine as cover, he is a drop in quality from Alderweireld.