The Kraken

I'd honestly be disappointed if NA sees RL as an impact sub for a lot of games this season. I think we're much better with him in the team than not, and if we were going to adopt this new 4-3-3 as our preferred way of playing I'd have liked to have seen us sign the players to suit RL. I think we'd be worse with Rodriguez up front and Lambert on the bench. In pre-season and games so far, when we got 442 it with Sharp up front rather than Lambert and Rodriguez together, which is why I'm very much struggling to see the logic in spending such a chunk of our budget for a player who doesn't yet seem to fit into the ways we want to play. Early days of course, and I'm by no means writing him off, I just find it perplexing from what I've seen to date.

The question is, what happens if/when we get a proper left winger. I can't see JRod usurping Lambert up front, can you? In which case £6M+ would be a hell of a lot of money for a newly promoted team to spend on a reserve player. Its a bit of a bizarre situation.

Leaving aside Captain Pedantic's predictable yet boring riposte..... I'm yet to see the logic in signing someone for our record fee and playing either he or our most prolific striker out of position. JRod's signing only really seems to make sense if he replaces Lambert or plays up front with him; neither of which look like happening right now. And Michu is an attacking midfielder, not a genuine striker like JRod or Rickie.

I think I agree with the gist of that, but I'm not sure. Could you provide some fictional quotes from various Saints-related personnel to make it a bit clearer?

It is extremely odd, as if he can't make a point about what is being discussed so has to create an entirely new fictional argument. Thoroughly bizarre.

No-one has said that, have they? The club are clearly doing things to bring in players, but so far they've been unsuccessful in certain key areas that they themselves identified needed filling by the start of the season.

No, but we can judge by what the manager actually says. Which was that he wanted 1 or 2 GKs and 1 or 2 CBs and before the season started. That didnt happen, the goalposts have now moved and he says he wants them before the end of the transfer window.

That is true, but lets not forget we only made 4 signings last summer, 3 of whom were first team choices. And lost 1 first teamer in the Ox. We supplemented that with 2 strikers in the January window, but neither would replace RL. So we still have the bones of a former league 1 team and need to do some catching up pretty quickly.

Adkins has already made public some of the targets we're looking at. We're also obviously working behind the scenes to bring in other positions (Ramirez and Buttner deals). So I don't think anyone is suggesting that nothing is being done. Simply that there has so far been a collective failure to get deals done in time for the start of the season, which was one of Adkins' stated objectives.

What are you on about? Adkins has previously said he wanted to bring in "1 or 2 goalkeepers and 1 or 2 centre backs". His words, published in print. We were obviously interested in at least 1 winger, perhaps 2. And a left back also. That's potentially 7 positions we were looking to fill, and we haven't done it yet. No-one is saying how or why that hasn't happened. Simply that it hasn't happened, yet, and therefore the manager doesn't yet have the resources he and his transfer committee have identified as being necessary to compete.

He's had a calamitous August, the poor lad.

No idea actually, I think the Morgan one was posted either in this thread or on another one by ladysaint. Maybe Opta?

What's clear is the Shay Given has suddenly had a talent bypass. He was awful for a terrible Villa side.

Well at least we'll have got there by lack of talent, rather than lackof signings. We need at least a fighting chance first, if we can't compete after that, well then questions will obviously be asked and decisions made on the back of that.

I don't rate Morgan as high as a lot on this board who think he's the next Premier League star in the making. I think he's accomplished but often too casual and gives the ball away too much for a player in his position. I also think he's sometimes too ponderous in his play and we lose the initiative going forwards with him in posession.

Our "best shot" surely involves signing the players the management have identified we need. Currently we haven't done that, not even close, so its perhaps no surprise we're struggling.

I would of bought this up earlier myself.

Wes, there was a stat that Morgan covered more ground yesterday than any other player in the league. So he put in a shift. I don't agree it's just a lack of effort we're missing out on. It's a lack of creative play, it's a lack of stretching the play, and it's a lack of ability to change play and do something different IMO.

I'm going for (f) 1 or 2 new players and claim that's all we were after / all we needed in the first place

It's getting a bit ridiculous now. We started with NA wanting up to 5 or 6 more players (and signing 1 in Gazzaniga), and saying we'll have some before the Man City game. That's since been downsized a little bit; we're apparently no longer after a left back, its gone eerily quiet altogether on another keeper. We know we're after a winger of sorts with the previous interest in Ramirez, and who knows exactly what's happening with a new centre back (Alan Nixon is tweeting that we haven't got a clue which CB we're going for, which doesn't sound overly optimistic at this late stage). I was concerned when this thread started, and my overall wish was that we avoid the kind of last minute Jos Hooiveld deal that we had to make last season, a last roll of the dice gamble that may or may not come off. I'm absolutely sure we won't hit our original target number of players, right now I feel I'll be utterly delighted if we get 2 more new players in. And lets remember, being as we keep getting them highlighted as a benchmark, in the transfer window last summer Norwich brought in 8 new players and Swansea 9. We so far have 4.

That may be part of it. But the simple fact is that, at midday today, the online system showed that zero seats were available in blocks 1, 2 and 3. And onlt a handful of available seats in the Itchen stand lower. Yet come gametime in those areas there were various big areas of empty seats, far more than just one or two here or there. I'd estimate there were actually only around 27K - 28K people actually inside the ground today, nowhere near the actual figure published. But then the club do have form in publishing attendance figures which could be construed as dubious (particularly when records are at stake); so who knows?

Of course, that must be it. Another one to add to the list. Good work.

Too many ***** to be clear. How many home fans did we have today? Its quite simple, you take the number of away fans in attendance from the total number in the crowd. Also, how many Man U/neutral fans will we have in corporate and home ends, as you suggest? If you could provide those numbers, that would be great.

There it is!!!! :lol::lol::lol: Oh Lard, you're so desperate to be proved right this time, aren't you?