VectisSaint

Kids = u18s, not many 18 year olds will get a child's shirt on. Gambling is banned for ui18s, should be banned on shirts and other advertising too.

Have they ditched Watford? Appreciate Saints had to do something, but really hope its only for a season. Hopefully ban on Betting company advertising will kick in soon. Really not acceptable to have betting companies on shirts that will be bought for kids.

That's not a link to anything claiming to be Spurs, its an article written by A 22 y/o football nerd seeking my way into football writing. I love Irish football and also the Premier League. A huge Arsenal fan! Aside from writing, I like to spend my time fishing and drinking beer." The link to the story itself is (was) a broken link, I wonder why it no longer exists.: https://soccerlink.fr/2020/08/22/championnats/premier-league/le-chantier-estival-de-tottenham-4725.html

Think Smallbone is in Ralph's plans, looked decent post lockdown. Slattery not sure.

Jose was in his bedroom, no books to be seen. The only books I noticed on Levy's bookshelf were The Tanakh and a well thumbed copy of "Harry Redknapp The Biography"

Of course not, Daniel Levy contacted me directly on a zoom call with Mourinho. But I had already read it on Google News feed. Sounded like bollocks to me, how anyone could plan a.mdfield comprising Hojbjerg AND Mckennie is beyond me, but I suppose it suits Jose's boring, defensive MF set ups.

Spurs seem to think he is heading there to play alongside PEH. They seem quite excited by the prospect of Mckennie linking up with Hojbjerg in midfield.

Seems like more than half of PL clubs have a similar problem. Shouldn't be too much of an issue as long as he didn't mix with other players before self isolating.

He was also manager at Ajax, Benfica, PSV, Feyenoord, AZ and others. Assistant at Barca before he joined us. Wealth of managerial experience, not always hugely successful, but to even consider him relatively unproven is a joke, how much more experience do you expect. He was apparently close to getting the job earlier but didn't take it due to his health issues. Still not actually appointed despite the original post. I'm sure it will all end in tears but no one can seriously be surprised at this if they have any sense of history of that club.

Should we start the process of commissioning a statue?

In what way is Ronald unproven? Had quite a good spell at some south coast club in the PL. The reason he is chosen is because he is a Barca legend. Was always going to happen eventually. Much more obvious choice than Poch who always said he could not manage Barca (because of his Espanol connections).

Correct, Barca v Real Madrid is not a derby in any way, shape or form, it is a rivalry. Real v Atletico is a derby, Barca v Espanol. Silly list anyway, no mention of Saints v Cherries, of course because of their rule against a team having more than one entry, otherwise massive derby. Likewise Newport v Cowes, they're having a laugh.

Given they will be behind closed doors, I wouldn't expect any big announcements, just some low key friendlies that we might find out about after the event.

Forgot that Cull had been released, but agree about the OS, its really piss poor, it should be the source of information about the Club. There's actually been almost nothing about the U23 or U18s written or reported since their leagues were suspended. No information about what is happening for the upcoming season, perhaps the web team genuinely don't know. Really totally useless.

I'm struggling as well, but it could be that some players who are over 21 might be designated as B team players rather than having to register them as PL players. It is certainly plausible for positions where development takes longer, goalkeepers being a good example generally. Of course the club can play these players under the existing criteria (though we haven't much in recent seasons) but this could be a way of explicitly saying these players are here to develop and be involved in the B team for now rather than pushing them now into the first team or sending them out on loan. I don't know, just speculating. The strict age group thing really doesn't work well across the board.

Bear in mind the decision to go for a B Team for next season. Exactly what this means is open to question, but it does suggest that some over 21s will be maintained but not included in the First Team squad. I would imagine Latham especially will fit into this category. There is no prospect of him being in the PL squad, but he has been given a contract until next year. Of course he can still play in PL2. Strangely he doesn't even appear on the OS site under any of the teams, had quite forgotten about him until you mentioned him in your post. Cull and Scott still qualify as u21s for next year, think these three will be the B team keepers. If Forster cannot be shifted then I would think that Harry Lewis will get loaned out.

A few times, played in a back 3 for vast majority of the season.

Forster only played 30 games that season, and conceded 20 I think. A shit keeper can be protected by a shit hot defensive unit. Forster wasn't shit, but he was below average, if the defensive unit stops shots from being on target for a keeper that has a poor shots/save ratio, as Forster certainly did a couple of seasons later, then keeping to just over a goal [er game is not that difficult. I think you underestimate how good our defensive unit was that season, if we had had a better keeper we could have done better than we did. Forster was not very good, and after his knee injury he went downhill even further. He had occasional great games, but then so did Kelvin Davis. Forster looks good at Celtic for exactly the same reason, the Bhoys concede very little in the way of chances on target, as you would expect playing the SPL. Forster is not shit, but he is at best bang average and his shortcomings in many areas (crosses, distribution, kicking, ball at feet, defensive organisation, and of course shot stopping) are exposed in the PL, especially when you have a leaky defensive unit, which with the best will in the world we do.

Doesn't sound much different to how things were supposed to be set up under Poch, and the the Southampton way, junior teams all following the same approach. Can't see anything so far that confirms this stuff in the Daily Fail, and also nothing that really makes any sense about what will actually change. Saints will still have a team in PL2, and play the fixtures pertaining to that League (and the problems that provides, with a lack of competitive fixtures throughout the season). What is going to change, nothing will happen unless all the top teams do something similar?

Has MLT "bailed out" of Twitter or has his account been taken down? Twitter like other SM platforms does ban people for some of the stuff that he has been voicing, ask David Icke, Katie Hopkins or even Trump (or at least his political campaign). If you put forward stuff that is both incorrect and dangerous you will be removed. I stopped following MLT months ago (and stopped using Twitter altogether). Too much unsubstantiated conspiracy theory nonsense spouted by right wing reactionaries. Not going to call him a crackpot, but he is "keeping company" with some that I would. Some people do lose their jobs for saying outrageous stuff on a public forum, whether Southampton or Sky see his remarks as such is up to them of course, time will tell, but they might well have found some of what he said embarrassing, who knows.

I didn't see all of the game, but he was actually quite poor last night, compared with other games I have seen. I guess it was partly to do with the early booking, but he was struggling with some sort of injury in the closing stages. Brentford were also a very effective team going forward so he was up against it anyway. Don't take that performance as a true measure of how effective he has been for them.

The last 3 Dutchmen we purchased were actually Hoedt, Martina and van Dijk. I think VvD was definitely Prem class, even if he was a cock.

Missed that (reported 30 June) , at least that's settled then until next year.

Does that mean we have extended his loan into the 20/21 season? I know things are a bit weird at the moment, but how does that work, surely his loan ended when the 2019/20 season ended. Not that it really matters, don't think we will ever see him back in a Saints shirt (hopefully).

No, he really wasn't very good in the first place, made to look decent because of what was in front of him.