Matthew Le God

Not long then.

The Mirror story in the opening post of this thread is 8 months old.

5 and especially 6 year contracts are pretty rare. They also require a player agreeing to it and if they think they are capable of getting a big transfer in the future they may not want to potentially restrict themselves 2 or 3 years later. Also from Saints point of view, if a signing doesn't work out and he is on a 6 year contract thats a huge financial commitment and may make him hard to shift out of the club.

From that article... They have also in the past announced a succession plan was already in place, with Blind taking over in 2016. That will probably (hopefully) just be put into place early.

He was in good company towards the top of the scoring charts... Ligue 1 2014/15 Ibrahimovic 19 Cavani 18 Gradel 17

Last season he scored 17 league goals in 31 games of the French top league.

I don't remember David Nugent as a 22 year old scoring 11 Premier League goals in a season.

We had 20 players registered for the last list. There aren't any doubts about it, Long definitely counts as home gown for Saints. We named 20. http://www.premierleague.com/en-gb/news/news/2014-15/sep/premier-league-squad-lists-2014-2015.html

Yep, he did just that.

Jack Stephens is an under 21 player for 2015/16.

The 25 man squad list is solely for over 21 players. If you only have 7 home grown players (8 is min in squad of 25) then you just name a squad of 24 and you'll be fine. Only have 6 home grown, then name a squad of 23 and so on.

I think they'll be a lot more of the under 21 players involved than the line-ups people are guessing in this thread. The players who were away on international duty aren't back until 6th July, the Leipzig game is on 8th July. Training is currently the few non-internationals mixed with the under 21's, that'll be the preparation leading up to the game.

Sky Sports Italy reporter... Manuele Baiocchini ‏@ManuBaio 31m31 minutes ago #Juventus, c'è l'offerta del #Southampton per #Ogbonna

He wanted to be a starter, he is now a starter at Swansea.

Free transfers like that are never cheap. The money saved in paying his club for a transfer goes to the player in multi million pound signing on fees, more inflated wages than normal and a huge agent fee.

Its this article...

Thanks.

Can you copy and paste the bit about Praet please, as I've used up my Telegraph article limit.

Le Parisien today reporting Saints offering... - €2m season long loan fee - €18m option to buy next summer http://www.pressreader.com/france/le-parisien-seine-et-marne-sud/20150627/281913066761543/TextView

The new TV deal starts in the 2016/17 season.

Pundits aren't paid to give unbiased views, the broadcasters are fully aware that ex-players will favour certain clubs and I'd imagine they like the dynamic that gives. It also can't count as tapping up because Carragher is merely an ex-Liverpool player and doesn't officially represent the club. I imagine if you were a Sporting CP fan you'd be annoyed to learn about Jose Fonte tapping up Cedric Soares?

Perhaps we knew we couldn't compete on wages so there was no point bidding.

The new TV deal is already included in FM15 if you use the latest database and starts in the 2016/17 season.

The core group you describe as getting us to the Premier League has decreased significantly in number, but that has been with another large group of better players who got us to 8th and 7th.

How do you know for certain when his injury problem started?