The Kraken

From Saints Twitter Nearly at Sutton. Early team news is that Puncheon hasn't travelled (ankle) and Lallana is still recovering from knee injury

Just to put today's result in a bit of perspective, all of today's other friendly matches in bold didn't go as league status would suggest. Aldershot 3-0 Bristol City Barnet 1-0 Charlton Barnsley 3-1 Huddersfield Bohemians 2-1 Aston Villa Braintree Town 0-0 Colchester Bristol Rovers 0-1 West Brom Burton Albion 4-2 West Ham Chesterfield 4-5 Derby FC Kaiserslautern 1-0 Liverpool Hartlepool 0-5 Leeds United Hayes & Yeading 1-1 QPR Liaoning 0-2 Birmingham Lincoln City 1-4 Celtic XI Macclesfield 2-1 Man City XI Mansfield 1-1 Tranmere Marine 2-3 Wigan XI Nantwich Town 0-5 Crewe Newcastle Town 0-6 Stoke Northampton 3-3 Watford Northwich 0-3 Accrington Stanley Norwich 2-1 Newcastle Notts County 2-1 Cardiff Oxford Utd 1-1 Leicester Peterborough 1-0 Nottm Forest Preston 0-3 Everton Rochdale 1-1 Bolton Rotherham 0-2 Sheff Utd Staines Town 0-1 Dag & Red Stevenage 2-1 Millwall Sutton Utd 1-1 Southampton Walsall 0-2 Coventry Welling 4-1 Arsenal XI Wolviston 0-1 Darlington RA Wycombe 1-2 Reading

They're not massively important I'll admit, but they aren't irrelevant. You can be sure that, had we won, we would be hearing good things about "gaining a winning mentality, nice to get a win under our belts" etc. I'd certainly much rather we were winning these games, and winning convincingly, rather than the stuttering draws we have ploughed out against our non-league opponents. Plenty of time yet, but I think we really need to hit some form pre-season if we are to expect a flying start to the season. I'm also a little worried that we seem to be favouring a 451 formation yet don't really have the central midfield personnel to make it work. If we're going with this formaton for the season I'd suggest we need two new CMs; even going with 442 I think we need one extra.

Presumably because he is under contract to Reading and, as of now, they don't want to sell him. Best case scenario is they have a look at him in pre-season and decide they don't want to keep him, then we step in and sign him up. Whether that will actually happen is anyone's guess though.

Oxlade-Chamberlain has a powerful shot on target palmed away by the Sutton keeper as Saints enter the last 10 mins strongly

Perhaps the most RIDICULOUS analogy I've yet heard REGARDING our new KIT. ALSO, your SPORADIC use of capital LETTERS makes no SENSE at all.

Let's not start that one again. Everyone would hope to have the players in as early as possible, but as AP himself has pointed out it's not as easy as that, getting the right players in can take time and unfortunately we have to play a waiting game for them to become available. We "could" have made many signings by now, but if it means that we subsequently miss out on better signings then I'd much rather wait.

Saints go close from a Dan Harding corner as Radhi Jaidi knocks the ball down to Lambert but he puts his effort past the post

Early team news is that Puncheon hasn't travelled (ankle) and Lallana is still recovering from knee injury . Blimey, do we have any wingers left? Holmes and Oxo to start I guess, which looks a bit lightweight.

Wine and beer is included in the price. But still, 2 hours of buffet food and beer/wine for £75 plus VAT = one big over-priced ripoff to me.

To be fair it's almost an unfair question to ask; as I stated first off back to CEC, I would much prefer we had the option of both of them in the squad as they offer such different qualities. But, looking at it short term for just the season ahead, I would go with Puncheon. While I probably agree that Antonio has the ability to be outstanding on occasions, he also proved that he can be utterly ordinary quite a few times too. For a promotion-seeking side we're going to need a number of players who put in 7 out of 10 performances almost every time they step on the pitch, and I think Punch is a more likely contender for that. Anyway, AP knows the flaws of the squad depth right now so hopefully we'll soon see this resolved one way or the other.

I can look at his comments from two ways. He hasn't mentioned looking for a new CM, and I guess I would have preferred clarification, so can agree with Alpine's "worry" about it. That said, Holmes still has an awful lot to prove in terms of being fit so can't yet be considered a proper replacement out wide, AP is right to say we are very short of depth there. But at CM it could be a massive kick in the teeth for Wotton (and maybe Puncheon) if he also came out and said we had no cover there. That's the positive spin, anyway. But I guess we'll see before the end of August what will happen, I really can't see how we won't strengthen in such a key area.

I've seen that BT will also be offering Sky Sports; any idea of the price (and indeed how it works)? I live in a conservation area and can't put up a dish, plus only have analogue cable available, so any other options would be worth investigating.

Can't be that similar to Richardson's; for his it took the club at least 4 days to work out what it was and announce it.....

I think it's pretty well accepted on here that we need to sign a CM and RM, so yes.

Defence is OK, strike force OK, shame we don't seem to have a midfield.

No matter what the majority of other managers think, it's pretty clear that Pardew rates Puncheon above Antonio for a starting position. And while I wouldn't presume to speak for the opinions of the majority of others on here, the comments I've seen suggest that Puncheon is seen as our first choice RM, based on our requirements for next season alone. So, you're right, we'll have to agree to disagree. Antonio was capable of some very good performances but also very capable of the mundane and awful at times. You rightly pointed out before that he's young and will improve, but for this season at the very least I'd absolutely have Puncheon as he has proven it at this level and is much more likely to be the strong, consistently good player that we need. And I think the fact that he finished with so many asissts (second highest after only playing for half the season, I believe) shows that he's not just an average plodder and gives the team a brilliant extra dimension. Anyway, I'm still in hope that Reading will decide he's surplus to requirements and we can have the best of both worlds with both players. He's only on a one year contract with them and if they think he is only one for the future they have absolutely no guarantee of securing his services once the season is gone (especially if he doesn't feature too often) so they may yet decide their best bet is to cash in now.

Again, very much disagree. Based on their performances at the back end of last season I would start with Puncheon every time. Apart from a few notable exceptions I was mostly un-impressed with Antonio as a starter, and Puncheon was the much more reliable option, hence we he started every single league game since his signing while Antonio sat in the wings.

For right now and the season to come, Puncheon is a better player than Antonio. Antonio may go on to better things in years to come, but it won't be next season, so even if he was here Puncheon would start ahead of him at RM. And where are people saying we won't miss Antonio, or a player of his ilk? Pretty much the common consensus I've seen is that we are 3 signings away from having the squad we need for the whole campaign; a CM, RM and CF to cover Lambert. Hardly anyone is arguing that we won't miss Antonio. But I simply have to disagree with your opinion of Waigo, I won't miss him at all and think that a combination of a fit Connolly and other new striker will comfortably cover the options he gave us.

Again, I disagree. I think the sales are good; on the other thread I stated my opinion that a total figure of 15,000 season tickets would be what I would consider a successful figure, and I think if we don't hit that figure we'll likely be pretty close to it. That said, I think the whole marketing effort this summer has been pretty shabby, in all honesty. If we can attract 15K customers with no real marketing push whatsoever, I think its fair to ask how many STs we might have sold with an aggressive advertising drive. Dave Benson Romsey labours the point somewhat but is absolutely right when he says that the number of STs sold would have been higher if the installment plan had been in place, or if more notice had been given that it was being removed. Also, a minority of people may have needed the renewal packs as a final shot in the arm to sign up for the new season. Now I'm sure the club had their own very good reasons to remove the plan, and I really don't want to get into that all over again, but I'm sure it's removal was not done for marketing purposes. Plus I think most of us can agree that the way it was announced at such short notice was a pretty shameful move byu the club. So with proper marketing measures in place, whether the additional number of potential STs sold would have just been single digits or in the hundreds/thousands is obviously completely unknown; so the extent of the shortfall is impossible to gauge. Nonetheless, I simply cannot equate a large sales figure to a marketing effort which simply didn't happen.

Hmmm; while you might consider the Sales scheme to be a success so far, I don't think the Marketing scheme could be deemed a success; for the simple fact that there wasn't one, certainly not for season ticket sales. Announcing your prices exclusively on your corporate website with no other external advertisement or inducements can't really be categorised as marketing, so I would say that the good level of sales thus far is in spite of any marketing, and not because of it. And while the removal of the installment scheme was catatrophically handled and announced, at least we all know that from all seasons onwards there will be no such plan in place, so have plenty of time to source alternative savings arrangements.

You're going to have to explain this one to me, because I've got no idea how you can justify it. In formations alone we can (and have) comfortably accommodated 442, 451 and 433. Puncheon is left footed but can (and has) played all across the midfield. And while you may have grave doubts about his ability, I'll happily go with the votes of his fellow professionals, AP's view if him, and my view having watched him action on a number of occasions, and say that he's definitely one of the better players in this division. Lalllana can play anywhere across the midfield, plus also up front or just off the main striker. We have excellent attacking fulll backs and 4 very capable centre backs, so could easily adapt to 352 if necessary. I agree with DellDays, we are currently missing Antonio; Oxo is very quick but will need to be introduced gradually and being young his form will be up and down so can't be relied upon for ever-presence. To say we have no plan B makes no sense to me whatsoever; we have an extremely adaptable squad of players.

I'd disagree with Mills at LM, only from what I've seen of him there before, he tends to get a bit lost. I was quite impressed with his short stint at LB though, and maybe a year on he may have developed into a better winger, but I'd be very wary of considering him a proper option. With Holmes, I guess we won't know until he's given a chance. I always liked Holmes when we were in the Championship, but whether he can regain and maintain that form and fitness is another matter altogether. I think he at least deserves to be given the chance though. It's cases like these where I think we would use the loan system if we needed to get someone in at short notice once the season is underway, I get the feeling that loans are much easier to achieve than pre-season as clubs have a much better idea of their needs, and sometimes having a player leave for a month or two does both clubs a favour.

I think this is where you will find common consensus across this whole message board; to ensure a smooth promotion push we would be much better served by having another strong CM to support Hammond and Schneiderlin. Wotton and Puncheon can come in and do a job (Wotton played the JPT final and we didn't do badly there), but neither can be considered a proper long term option. We got away with Morgan and Hammond last season, but maybe having a third CM will give us more options, allow them more rest by alternating with midweek games, and generally keep them all on their toes by providing competition for their place. Edit: and forgot to add, I believe AP has already stated that he's looking for a Lambert-cover, so we can presume that is in-hand.

While I think Oxo may be used a fair bit, I'd prefer if we had an Antonio-type figure as well. At 16/17 he is going to need to play a couple of games then sit out a game or two, so as to nurture his development. And being so yound he will be much more prone to lapses in form throughout the season, so it would be naive to think he can be Puncheon's replacement all on his own.