VectisSaint

Not only is he a Reading player, but he was not amongst the 13 players that they have released which included several first teamers. So they clearly think he has a future with them in the PL, or they have already had an acceptable offer from elsewhere (Wednesday).

I must have missed us losing to Rochdale in the Championship. Will miss us winning more often than not. Get used to the fact that we will probably not win much more than 12-15 league games next season.

Take off the rose tinted specs. Sorry that you can't deal with facts. This is not negativity, just a simple observation as the result of this thread. Saints always had young home grown players throughout our history. At the moment we have no-one other than Lallana who is now 23. Quite clear that no-one is on the verge of breaking through in the PL.

No I,m not.Mentioned Oxo several times and also Theo and Bale. Point. Is we have a missing few years with no breakthroughs. If people can,t see that then c,est la vie. Martin is not an academy product by the way and is also 22 or 23.

Its shocking as a long term Saints supporter. We have always had young players coming through, one or two at least, right back to the days of Mick Channon in 1966/67 and so on. That is what is shocking. Shocking that because of all of the problems we have had we have a significant hole in our assembly line of young talent. But theres not a lot can be done, just a sad reflecttion on our recent history. I don't see anyone breaking through next season either.

Really, I'm very surprised at the stat if true. Looks a hugely overrated player, good skill but goes down blind alleys and has no end product, was dire last night and also against us at St Andrews in the snow. Ince and Phillips showed him up last night. I think Ince would be a superb signing, reminds me of Ronaldo the way he runs and will develop into a great player (just a pity he is his father's son). Will be interesting if Blackpool don't go up to see if they take up the option for a 3rd year in order to bump up his price.

Balotelli was under 21 last year, Walker at Spurs, Ramsey at Arsenal (last year), OK I'm comparing to last year, but that is reasonable as this will be our first year under the rules. The stark fact is that due to our problems over the last 5-6 years our much hyped Academy has provided no input into the current first team other than Adam Lallana who is now 23, other than Oxo last season. Thats a huge gap, very few clubs have no first team players in this age range. We are seriously considered by many to be a young team, but actually we aren't. It is something the management will surely look to put right by bringing in a couple of young emerging players capable of finding their way into the first team next season. Will be happy to see Ward-Prowse or someone else making it, but find it difficult to imagine given their lack of impact in the past season.

Have you considered that maybe it was never actually planned, but that the players were goading NC into taking them to Vegas again.

Find it hard to believe that **** was invited after the way he behaved towards us when we were docked 10 points, seems an odd choice of guest. Although I suppose in a perverse sort of way without him we would not have ended up with Markus/Nicola in charge.

3rd choice keeper likely to be under 21, hence has no impact on squad size, and also means it won't be Bart.

Suspect Bart will not be with us next season, and hopefully Fourpast will be gone as well. So need to sign 2 new keepers, one youngster as No 3, and one established experienced keeper initially as backup to KD. While KD's ability at crosses and corners has improved markedly, he still gives me the shivers at times I'm afraid, but for sure he will be No.1 to start with at least next season.

Looking at the current squad and omitting all of the u21s, and some of the obvious leavers (Jaidi, Forte, Homes, Dickson, Falque, etc) we only have a squad of 23 anyway (we have no problem naming 8 home grown players, in fact there are not many players that don't qualify, Hooiveld, Fonte, de Ridder, Lee at a guess). I suspect we will lose a couple of others (Barnard?) so will have several spaces for new players. If one or two new players that we sign are also under 21 we would not have any issue with this rule. I seem to recall llast year that several teams did not even name 25 players on 1 September. The thing that is worrying at the moment is that we have no established 1st team squad players under 21. That is shocking really. OK, one or two youngsters were on the verge last year but only Ward-Prowse looked like breaking through. Definitely think we need to bring in one or two young players who already have some experience. Would really like to get Tom Ince, assuming Blackpool don't go up.

If you read the article above you will find the answer, item 1.

Any chance we could prise Tom Ince away if Blackpool don't go up? He is beginning to look very classy given how few games he has played.

OK, my post was rubbish

So what is his job?

Someone needs to do some editing in the first 3 paras, rather repetitive about 27 years etc.

So often these "articles" turn out to be a few sentences that a 10 year old could put together in 5 minutes. Standard of "journalism" on the BBC and elsewhere is so poor these days with people trying desparately to fillsports web pages and blogs. Given the author couldn't even be bothered to find out how to spell Markus it just shows how pathetic it is.

Dune says no.

The bit I have a problem with though is how it would work with midweek matches. I think this is the sort of stuff they are trying to thrash out. I think this was on the Beeb a couple of weeks ago.

Not sure its a rumour, I seem to recall Cortese said some time ago that we had a major sponsor lined up when we got to the PL, but maybe it happened a little sooner than he expected. I suspect that someone with some time on their hands could dig up a thread that contains this.

So called football journo/expert in looking a tit shocker. I guess they will all be putting the boot in for Roy Hodgson now that their chum Arry as been overlooked.

Not until it is restructured in 2013/4 season. There are plans to reorganise it on u21 basis (with latitude to play over age players) and to play games after the main game at the weekend. The current Prem Reserve league is not even supported by all of the PL teams (including Spuds and Barcodes).

And this needed a new thread because? http://www.saintsweb.co.uk/showthread.php?37679-I-hate-being-2nd

Possibly not (although debatable) but far better than Bart or Tommy Fourpast.