Matthew Le God

The End.

It is the main story on the Southampton FC website and has been for quite a few hours now... http://www.saintsfc.co.uk/page/NewsDetail/0,,10280~2433092,00.html

As I said before... If Waghorn does sign, he won't be here as a "bench warmer" or "squad player". You don't spend £1.5m+ on a player as a Championship club only for him not to be in the first XI soon after signing. He wants to leave Leicester in order to get game time and would join Saints as Lambert's strike partner. Connolly and Barnard would be the ones providing cover (and very good cover at that!)

If Waghorn does sign, he won't be here as a "bench warmer". You don't spend £1.5m+ on a player as a Championship club only for him not to be in the first XI soon after signing. He wants to leave Leicester in order to get game time.

- You should take the game on its own merits. - You say "away to one of the division favourites", but Saints are actually shorter odds to win the Championship than Leicester with every major bookmaker.

No, but he did play in the Premier League for Tottenham Hotspur (albeit very briefly).

No they don't. That is complete nonsense.

Who on Twitter said this? Twitter can be useful or completely useless as a source depending on who it is Tweeting the info. If it is just a random bloke, then it means very little.

Looks like your "mate" has been reading http://www.football-rumours.co.uk As at 1:09pm today (5 hours before you started this thread) someone posted this...

You think buying a centre back from Millwall means that Bialkowski "isn't good enough back up" and Davis "may lose his place"? You are confusing him with the Blackburn Rovers goalkeeper!

You are still being extremely vague. How does he claim to know?

Heard it where?

They have been doing scans, blood tests etc etc for years, certainly not only introduced in the "last few years". For example there is a documentary about Peter Reid and Sunderland from the 1996/97 season, where they show potential new players undergoing a range of scans and numerous other screenings at a hospital. Probably was going on long before that as well.

Hard to understand why they keep referring to what previous clubs that came second in League One did once they were in the Championship. How is that relevant? You should take each team on its own merits, not look at completely different teams, with different budgets, resources, management and players.

You talk of "ignorance" and "reading up", yet you can't spell "Waghorn", "Rodriguez" or "Gorkšs" correctly, despite claiming to be aware of them. Funny that...

What makes you so sure Cortese "pulls the plug" if the press get wind of a transfer? It makes little sense to act like that, as it doesn't really matter and I have yet to see any evidence that is how Cortese acts.

End of thread really...

Rodriguez isn't eligible anymore, he is 22 years old.

Lallana is 23 years old. He is no longer eligible for the under 21's! He was eligible for the UEFA under 21 Euro tournament in the summer because he was under 21 when the qualifying started. In any case, Lallana and Chamberlain both received international recognition at under 21 level whilst in League One with Southampton.

Jay Rodriguez is no longer eligible for the under 21's.

What makes you think Cortese has ever cancelled a deal because the press reported it before it was officially concluded? It makes no difference to the deal and is certainly not a reason to pull out.

Signing Fox, Cork and De Ridder puts Saints quite high on the Championship spenders list for 2011/12. Plus, the squad didn't need that much added to it anyway as a lot of spending had already taken place. If Lallana, Connolly, Guly, Schneiderlin, Lambert and Fonte had signed for Saints this summer along with Fox, Cork and De Ridder, following through your own logic you'd be delighted? Just so happens the squad was already largely in place and didn't need much more than a tweak to be competitive at the top end of the Championship, as highlighted with four league wins out of four in the embryonic league campaign so far.

"Doing the rounds" where?

The data is meant to be for a game starting in early July 2011, based on what they did in 2010/11 and not what they do in August, September or October of the 2011/12 season. I'm sure Lallana and Fonte will be 130 CA players, but they have to prove it first. At the moment they will just have ratings reflecting they were exceptional players in League One (in any case that still makes them good Championship players, just not exceptional ones).

Lallana and Fonte will need to have a good season in the Championship (or by the end of January before the data update) before they get near 130 CA. Cork was already at that level in FM11.