VectisSaint

He scored and earned us a point, but Gemmel is right, he was absoluty dire other than that, though still well ahead of JWP. Hojbjerg on the other hand looked absolute class.

Changed the game completely when he came on, looked excellent. JWP was hopeless, his passing was awful, and as usual his tacking was abysmal, gave the ball away so many times. But he is young yet, oh wait he's older than Pierre.

No, they didn't, except Kante, Okazaki and Huth (and a couple of others who actually didn't do much). Yes they also signed Fuchs on a free (loaned the previous season), didn't turn out too badly. Perhaps Kante and Okazaki were not big names at the time but it is a myth that continues to be peddled that Leicester were not very active in the 2015 summer transfer window. They also demonstrated their ambition by appointing Ranieri. This all came on the back of course of a run of results in the second half of the previous season that was as good as anyone, so it was no great surprise to those who had watched that they did well last season, maybe not many predicted they would win the league, but the signs of ambition and progress were clearly there for anyone who wanted to see.

Neither has Walter Mazzarri He hasn't lost a game for nearly 2 years.

Not sure what you consider to be top level in playing terms. 2 League champs, 3 cup winners and Cup Winners Cup runnerup and nearly 500 Ligue 1 appearances for one club is not too shabby. Wenger and Mourinho would have given their right arm to have that type of career.

Quite honestly he is no better or worse than Koeman was when he first arrived, and is infinitely better than Poch. These press conferences are a complete and utter waste of time and have been for a while now, never give anything away, always answer in the most abstract way possible, no sense of humour. Not helped by the complete lack of intelligent questions from the press, "how pleased were you...?", "how happy are you...?", these types of questions are the sorts of things a 5 year old would ask (and as Benji says elsewhere) our own in-house interviewer is probably the biggest culprit (made worse by his horrible drawly voice, trying to sound American). Boring questions and interviewers = boring answers and interviewees. Bring back WGS. The more interesting stuff comes in the embargoed part of the presser anyway.

I would have been very surprised if he could not just hand in his notice, its not like he's a player (or even a manager), work contracts normally have get out clauses both ways, usually a week or a month, sometime 3. From the article it appears he only has to wait until the end of the current transfer window, so in this case 3 weeks (suspect his contract is worded such that notice will always be the end of next transfer window or number of months whichever is longest). No-one will have to buy out his contract. Really wouldn't be shocked to see him back at Saints either.

Can't do month loans any more. Loans only during xfer windows.

According to that article Mitchell oversaw the following players joining Spurs in 2014: Ben Davies; Michel Vorm; Eric Dier; DeAndre Yedlin; Federico Fazio; Benjamin Stambouli; Dele Alli. In fact of that list only Alli joined after Mitchell (because he actually joined in 2015). Then 2 of the later 8 (in 2015 and 2016) he also brought into Saints (Wanyama and Toby). Maybe the man is not so good after all.

Does he? "Southampton have mostly used 4-2-3-1 or 4-3-3 in the past four years, systems that he is likely to favour"

Arsenal are either pursuing Shkodran Mustafi or won't be buying a new CB depending on who you believe. They already have decent players in this position, just a short term injury crisis. Buying Fonte as well and then having Mertesacker, Koscielny and Gabriel coming back is not really good business and would be most un-Wenger like.

Of course he does, he just likes to persevere with his Cult of Cortese obsession, bashing everything the guy ever did, whether or not it is fact or fiction. No one else really gives a **** but Turkish finds the fact that Nick is no longer in charge leaves a huge void in his life which he finds hard to fill. Afraid that Exec Boxes are a hangover from the past. Unlikely that we will ever sell more than a handful whatever is done in terms of marketing, pricing etc. Only a handful of Clubs will continue to sell Exec boxes to a similar commercial level as in the past, Chelsea, Spurs, Arsenal, Man Utd and City and Liverpool, probably, maybe West Ham now. The Club should be looking at other ways to increase the commercial revenue of this space. The seats that are reserved for the Exec Box users should be returned to the general sale/season ticket market for a start. The best use of the boxes is probably as small office space, unless we go down the road that Stadium MK has and make them into hotel rooms.

Apparently both there, entered through the main entrance, so not playing.

Davies scored his 4 against Man Utd in August 1969. Sniffer Clarke joined Leicester from Fulham for 150k in June 1969 (then a year later joined Leeds for £165k). So at the time Big Ron scored his 4 the English Transfer record was £150k for Clarke. Chivers transfer was the biggest at the time (Jan 1968) but is usually not credited in the records because of the Frank Saul transfer, meaning only 80k actually changed hands. Martin Chivers' last game was coincidentally my first, the 3-5 home defeat to Chelsea on 6th Jan 1968, stood in the Milton in the pouring rain. My football heroes as a young lad were formed that day, Big Ron and a young lad called Michael Channon (who seemed to fall over a lot). He sat with the Saints fans at Highbury a couple of seasons later after he broke his leg, still have my autographed copy of the match programme from that day somewhere.

He will be if he joins Blackburn. Needs to go to a good team rather than a struggling one again.

This, contines to baffle how Big Ron can be omitted from the Banner. So sad that we never got to see him back at St Marys.

He will only get half a cake, has to share with Hojbjerg. This may have upset him and so he is off.

I'm with 8 being striker (Channon) and 10 being midfield (McCalliog). 4 is defensive mid, or right half if you want, 5 and 6 centre backs, 2 and 3 right and left back respectively. Showing my age, but thats how I've always considered 8 and 10.

So he will be off before the window closes then.

You didn't seriously expect Fonte or Cedric to play tonight did you? Bertrand is more of a concern, injured presumably, like Targett. Chance for McQueen who has looked capable in pre-season.

Is Bertrand fit? No sign of him in any training videos/pics. Also no sign of Florin still. Guess we will find out tonight.

In the beginning NC was responsible for bringing in over 30mill of commercial income from his business partner and great friend Markus. Of course Turkish would not admit this, since Turkish and Cortese are not the bestest of buddies. Bringing in significant commercial income after that while we were in L1 and CCC would have been difficult and it is clearly much easier now that we are established as a Top 8 club in the PL. I'm sure that Cortese could have done better on this account, and possibly would have if it had been considered strategically important at the time. Our hockey coach and heiress seem to be making a reasonably good fist of generating commercial income despite their lack of business background now based on the platform that Markus and Cortese originally put in place, and so credit is due and long may it continue and hopefully improve. Still good to see that Turkish still believes in his Cult of Cortese, even though really no-one actually gives a damn about the Milan Midget any more.

Sorry, but that is just plain stupid. You are quite right about the 50:50 chance with a coin toss, because that is a random event with previous events having no bearing on the outcome. But the level of risk in adopting the strategy (that some claim we do, personally I think it is not much more than lucking out) is not a random event and is heavily influenced by the changes made in the previous season. The chance that the strategy will eventually fail gets larger each year (if you believe it is a strategy).

If you consider that it pushes Yan Valery down the order then perhaps you're right, but he is only 17 and although he has looked good in pre-season he is probably a year or two away from making any sort of breakthrough. Jason McCarthy has been loaned to Walsall for the season. So signing Jeremy Fisher on a 2 year deal really does nothing of the sort, and provides good backup/alternative for Cedric, and no need to rely on Martina or Yoshida any more, neither of whom are good enough at RB. Good signing in my opinion.

Looks a decent addition as backup RB. Have seen only a few clips but what strikes me most is that he is a bit more aggressive and robust than many of our players. It is something we have lacked a bit, reckon he will pick up a few yellows but sometimes, against some opponents a more aggressive style is needed. Certainly looks a better option than Martina and far better (at RB) than Yoshi.