Matthew Le God

Yep, just proposals for the new structure atm. But it is a proposal that suits the Premier League teams, so they will be pushed through very soon. All that may happen is that the Football League clubs may get some of the tweaks to the revised compensation scheme they want as a compromise. The fundamentals will stay the same.

Probably because they have a tattoo.

The club still had a badge even when there wasn't one on the shirt.

So it has, but that doesn't mean you are right to say "shirts come and go the badge is what sticks to a club". 37 seasons out of 125 seasons is not that much to say it sticks and should do indefinitely. Surely if clubs should stick with badges, Saints would still use the one from 1885, and not 1974 like you want?

Saints badge (with slight tweaks to it)... ...has only been in use for 37 years, or roughly 30% of the clubs history. For 70% of Southampton's history has seen the club use a different badge (one of which you dismissed). So your theory that "shirts come and go the badge is what sticks to a club" is nonsense if you use Saints as evidence.

Then why are some of the biggest clubs in the world interested in him, despite Alex never playing a competitive league game higher than the 3rd tier? You don't need to see a winger up against a Premier League left back to determine if he has pace, ball control, a good first touch, passing ability etc etc or not. Put Walcott in Saints League One side and you could see he was a good player even though he is up against Dagenham & Redbridge's left back for exactly the same reason you could determine Chamberlain is a good player up against the same full back. Many footballing skills (but not all) don't require an opponent of any kind let alone a Premier League one, in order to determine if a player is exceptional at them or not.

Are Saints competing for fans with numerous other clubs in the area like Fulham are?

Why do they have 55,000 of them then and not less?

That is a first!

Wigan have a tiny fanbase, it is a rugby town and they are surrounded by lots of other larger clubs in close proximity, even if they sold adult season tickets for £150 they would struggle to sell out.

Have you watched these? He was a box to box central midfielder for Burnley in his 18 months there, both in the Premier League and top half of the Championship. Every touch of the ball he has in two games, one in the Premier League 2009/10 and one in the Championship 2010/11... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdMhFjcjGO8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNvOJ3Kqd6c&feature=related

It gains even more value if the owners see out the fruits of the training grounds and academy's labours, rather than selling it early and not seeing through Markus' legacy.

The training facility is costing more than the collective player transfers during the time Markus was at the club and has a specification that wouldn't look out of place at a top 6 Premier League club. Not the actions of owners doing things as Mr X says... They could have kept the initial plans of simply being a good Premier League standard training ground, but instead have gone for a state of the art one that cost 3x times more and will get category one academy status.

So why did the club announce plans for a training ground upgrade before Markus died, then after he died they announced that the were going to build a training facility 3 times more expensive than they originally intended? Kinda blows away your theory...

Which there is, you get the equivalent of 6 games out of 23 for free! Buy 17 and get 6 free is a pretty good discount for any customer.

You can't really compare him to Mellis. Cork has far more experience and at a higher level. Plus Mellis isn't in the current under 21 squad.

Good to hear, but how do you know this?

Chaplow played in 7 Premier League games in 2005, so it isn't a huge amount of experience at that level, nor is it recent. Cork played 11 Premier League games in 2010. So Cork has slightly more Premier League experience and it is 5 years more recent. Plus he is 5 years younger and a current England under 21 international.

Thats the thing with itk information, it isn't itk information if it is already in the public domain. I started the thread to inform people of what I had heard from a source and thought it would interest Saints fans. It will reach the public domain in the coming months once the new academy system has been fully sorted out.

He isn't a right back. Saints haven't made a bid for him to play right back. They have Richardson, Butterfield and Stephens for that. Cork has been playing central midfield for most of his career and is highly regarded at Championship level. He'd be Schneiderlin's central midfield partner.

What this thread needs is some always reliable in judging players quality, youtube videos... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdMhFjcjGO8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNvOJ3Kqd6c&feature=related

He is a lot better than Chaplow or Hammond and a midfield of Lallana, Schneiderlin, Cork, Chamberlain should be pretty good at Championship level. All four are recent under 21 internationals for England and France aswell.

He didn't play there though, he was right back today. For Burnley he has been playing central midfield, which is where I'd imagine Saints will use him.

Well, I've had it confirmed, seems like Tac-tics has aswell. Depends if you trust us or not. It also correlates to the quote in The Independent. Four months ago... http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/news-and-comment/can-barcelona-model-solve-englands-talent-drought-2215097.html Now they have met those aims.