VectisSaint

That will be the England players who have already played a lot less than their WC rivals. This is likely to benefit players from other countries who play in the PL more than English ones.

You forgot Carillo, also the Torpedo guy, he was great, then there was Guly's mate(sorry their names elude me) The ones that came to us via Europe have been better generally.

Well actually they don't do they. The top 6 tend to play more games. But yes it could benefit clubs outside the top 6 as long as they don't arrange to play lucrative friendlies as most suspect they will.

No idea if your stat is correct, doesn't seem to be recorded anywhere, but its a poor argument to say that it is all down to our CBs lack of height, given that some of those headed goals conceded came from attacking wingers beating Cedric or Bertie. Even if the stat is correct do you really think that halving the number (from 13 to 6/7) would really make much difference? That number would probably be better than any team in the PL so unlikely that any team could achieve it. Bear in mind also that last season we had a big strong CB for at least some of the season (VvD, even if he was a liability with the way he was playing), it didn't stop the headers conceded. Bobsleigh was absolutely correct to say that our defence is not the issue, as I had posted earlier in the thread. Our defence is OK, not the greatest but by no means the worst, and on very few occasions has the defence really cost us. Much more of a problem is at the other end, not just scoring insufficient but the midfield giving the ball away and ex[posing our defence. The number of times we conceded from our own attacking corners was criminal last season, and that's not the fault of the CBs, who are generally in the opposition box scoring or trying to score goals to make up for the lack of ability of our attacking players. Fortunately Stephens, and to a lesser extent Wesley were able to knock a few in last season. The days of big strong tall CBs in the PL are passing and the sooner people recognise this the better. Very few of the top teams play with big strikers now, it is much more important to be able to stop the agile, small strikers now (Aguero, Vardy, etc). Our current CBs are very well suited to the PL of the here and now, tall enough but much more adept on the ball. Don't get me wrong, I still thank we need at least one more CB, probably two, not least because I expect us to utilise 3 CBs for at least some games next season, you can't hope to play that system when you want with only 4 recognised CBs, one of the positions most prone to injuries and suspensions. But. Stephens, Maya, Bednarek and Wesley (if he can cut out the horrible errors he makes due to his lack of concentration) are all more than capable in the PL. It would take a player of great talent to oust any of those, such players exist but they don't play long term for the likes of Southampton. We have been spoilt a bit in the last few seasons with VvD, Toby, etc., the chances of finding players of that quality to replace our current CBs is slim to non-existent.

Hardly a legend as a player, for Saints or otherwise, and his managerial success came elsewhere. Fell out with Bill Dodgin (Saints manager) because he wanted to replace him with Bill Ellerington, didn't exactly leave on the best of terms. No doubt Ramsey is a legend, but not a Saints one. The only true legends that are not on the Banner, really are Ron Davies, who arguably should have been on the banner ahead of at least 5 of the others, and Ted Bates, Mr Southampton, who probably wouldn't be classed as a legend on his playing ability/skills alone, but adding his long time management and later boardroom services to the club is probably the greates Saints legend of all time. Other than SRL no-one has come close since MLT (there have been some excellent players, but no-one who could ever be considered a legend). Bally would be the only other one that I can think would merit a place on the Saintsweb Banner Hall of Fame (assuming it is based on players, otherwise Lawrie Mac would be worthy).

Nope, 9 of which we won 2 by 3-2. As I said it is a myth that we conceded shed loads of goals. Bit like the myth that Stephens can't head the ball/is weak in the air.

Teaming up with Richard Chaplow. Probably praying they don't sign Danny Fox.

Find it amusing how this myth has arisen that we conceded a lot of goals last season. 56 in total is not a lot of goals. We only conceded more than 3 goals on 2 occassions, (Spuds and Leicester). We conceded 3 goals in a game 5 times, 3 of which were after Hughes came in. That means in 31 games we conceded 2 or less. Conceding shed loads of goals was not our problem last season. The main problem was not scoring enough/any.

Dixi ulous idea to give FF 10 games, we've seen far more than enough to know his abilities, we need to offload as soon as possible, along with his GK "coach" mate.

van Dijk, and Reed's move to make VvD captain for the long term. That worked out well, didn't it? ****ed off Fonte and VvD left anyway. Master stroke by Tweedle dum.

What like ZZ? Really don't get this idea that some have these days that managers are no good unless they have won something. It is often the ones who haven't won something who are demonstrably the better managers, those who show a marked improvement in the teams they have taken on.

If he was a Carlos Kick a all that we just paid £18m from some French or Italian side people on here would be drooling over him.

McCarthy wanted by Spuds according to Miiror https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/transfer-news/tottenham-keeping-tabs-southampton-goalkeeper-12618078

Nowhere did I declare him $****. I have to assume its something in your mind that makes you think that. If you think he is good then that's fine, your opinion is valid. Just want those that are responsible for the terrible last 2 seasons to be held responsible and for the club to replace dead wood with better people to improve the club. There are too many in positions that are protected by the club being too nice, some ruthlessness is needed. There are some obvious candidates who have not performed, and Watson seems to be one of them.

Suggests to me that Bertie is staying. Sounds like it will be a loan anyway, more than capable of holding down the position in the PL, but with Bertie and Targett needs to be playing, a year on loan at Brizzle will be good for him.

Yes you can. Watson worked wonders with Gazza as well didn't he. McCarthy was a good keeper before he joined and as you suggest a few games and his confidence has gone up. He really hasn't done anything remarkable, just done what any good keepers do, one's that haven't been brainwashed by a poor coach. McCarthy is also a much more natural keeper while FF has to be coached, and it's that coaching that is the problem. Just because people have a different view to yours doesn't mean they have an agenda, just that they think logically about the issue and don't care about jobs for the boys. Watson is a problem, and we don't need him, so should get shot.

He hasn't. He was a decent keeper when he signed and still is. Can't see any significant improvement that you could put down to coaching.

Disagree, of the two Watson is the problem. To be fair to Davis he is/was not employed as a GK coach, he just happens to have been a GK himself. Our GK coach Watson has proved himself to be useless in that role, viz the development of FF from a decent keeper. Whether we need a dedicated GK coach as we have Eddie (and Stuart Taylor who is "clearly" not employed as a player and SKD) is open to question, but if we do need one then we should employ one who can actually positively develop our keepers.

It's OK, shrews are not rodents. More closely related to moles and hedgehogs.

They could have Forster for nothing, hell we could even throw in a GK coach if it would help.

This young player issue with Hughes is another red herring. Stoke have about the worst PL academy, hardly surprising he didn't bring young players through there. Given he played Sims, JWP, Stephens, Hoedt and Bednarek during his 8 games here, there is no reason to think he won't play youngsters if they are good enough. Bottom line is though our academy is very poor (better than Stoke), only the u18s are showing promise for the future now that Danny Butterfield is helping them improve.

I was wondering if this was part of the delay, agreeing compo for Watson. One of the first things Hughes needs to do get rid of the dead wood. Not so worried about SKD. We really don't need 3 GK coaches though.

Perhaps if we had had a manager in place we wouldn't have signed him, that would have been a positive.

Cherry and white halves or quarters with blue knickers and blue stockings perhaps. Not sure what the Ladies team might wear though.

I miss the good old days when someone would hang around outised Staplewood, or even hide in the bushes, to catch a glimpse of whoever was of interest at the time and report back here. Is there no-one on here that could camp out at the main gate for us?