Matthew Le God

Do you not think £100k p/w wage offers from clubs like Liverpool and Man Utd were the reason? Similar with Pochettino leaving for a bigger club. Saints aren't losing players and coaching staff to West Brom or Stoke, we are losing them to larger clubs for large amounts of money. If we were losing key people to the likes of Stoke and West Brom that is the time to be worried, however that isn't the case.

Who do you think paid Lambert's wages from 2nd June to 1st July? What do you think the Premier League mean by...?

Katharina Liebherr took ownership of the club in League One, Saints under her ownership have risen to 8th in England having brought in £85m+ worth of players and made a £30m upgrade of the training ground. Is that a sign of a lack of ambition? Saints have lost Lallana, Lambert and Shaw to two of the biggest clubs in World football for very large fees and a manager to a bigger club. Why are you using that as evidence of "lowered expectations"?

You say "lots of goals", can you name a few from last season that match your criteria? Shaw was given license by Pochettino to play like that, if any goals resulted from him being advanced it is more likely to be the fault of the midfielder who should be covering the space Shaw left behind.

So you admit you wouldn't want many of their players in our team, so what makes you then think they'll finish above us then? Define "more settled"? Saints have lost from last season a key player at fullback, midfield and striker - so have Newcastle with Cabaye, Remy and Debuchy no longer at the club. What makes you think they will move ahead of Saints to 8th and we'd drop to 14th?

http://www.premierleague.com/content/premierleague/en-gb/fans/faqs/when-does-transfer-window-open-close.html Lambert signed for Liverpool on 2nd June and Liverpool started paying his wages at that point. He wasn't a Southampton player during the World Cup.

How many (and which) players from each of those clubs would you want in the Southampton starting XI?

The transfer window opened at midnight after the Man Utd game in May. Lambert was a Liverpool player before the World Cup started.

First time in years they've used ticket prices that should get a healthy attendance at a pre-season game.

Adult tickets for the Bayer Leverkusen game are only £10 for season ticket holders and free for under 11's... http://www.saintsfc.co.uk/news/article/tickets-southampton-vs-bayer-04-leverkusen-1766984.aspx

No. They aren't using Sharp as a striker, they are using him in central midfield because he is a contracted senior professional at the club and he makes the numbers up with a number of people who play in central midfield not available at the moment.

I said minus last seasons top 7, so that leaves your list with Palace, Hull, Newcastle, Stoke and West Ham. Lets take Newcastle, from their 2013/14 season they've lost... Remy Cabaye Debuchy Those are some very important players for Newcastle, in the same way Shaw, Lallana and Lambert were important for us. Have the players they've replaced them with really taken them above Saints? I'd say its very debatable if any of the replacements are better than the Newcastle players that have left. How many Palace, Hull, Stoke and West Ham players would get in our starting XI?

Please list teams (minus last season's top 7) that have improved on their squads overall from the 2013/14 season taking them ahead of Saints meaning we'd drop to 15th.

Please list teams (minus last season's top 7) that have improved on their squads overall from the 2013/14 season taking them ahead of Saints.

Saints already have signed replacements for 2 of the 3 players that left.

The link is to the Southampton website where there is a short written profile, not the video.

Click on the link I provided.

http://www.saintsfc.co.uk/team/developmentsquad/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdREYBgawOs

I'd imagine he'd miss his £100,000 p/w contract and Champions League football.

No, we've lost 3 players from a squad that came 8th and already signed big money replacements for 2 of them. The clubs below us last season and the newly promoted ones haven't all overtaken us in squad quality. A few have made some reasonable additions, but lots have also lost or will lose key players.

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Players ahead of Sharp for central midfield in the pecking order... Schneiderlin Wanyama S.Davis Ward-Prowse Cork Ramirez Reed Koeman is using a different XI in each half and has a number of central midfielders not available, Sharp playing there vs two lower league Low Country teams is largely meaningless. He's just making up the numbers until the full squad is available and we aren't making mass changes at half time each game.

I think he is merely being used there because we are using the system Koeman wants us to play and as he is using two XI's in each game he needs Sharp to make up the numbers in central midfield in the absence of Schneiderlin, Ramirez and Wanyama from the tour. I very much doubt Koeman sees Sharp in his plans at all, let alone in central midfield. He is just making up the numbers at the moment and shoehorned into central midfield until the full squad is together.

The system Koeman wants us to play appears to be something like this... 2nd half [color=#292F33][font=Helvetica Neue]Boruc Chambers Fonte Yoshida Turnbull Flannigan Reed Sharp McQueen Mayuka Gallagher[/font][/color] Sharp used in central midfield due to the absence of Schnedierlin, Ramirez and Wanyama from the squad.