SNSUN

Goldie did a good job following Shep on Blue Peter so hopefully the same applies here.

Early next week, I hope we’ve been eyeing up a decent Bosman or two. Heck I’d take Redmond back for a Championship season.

August and January but my otherwise my thoughts exactly. We are going to have to completely rebuild our squad and we have 5 weeks until our first fixture. I think we start slow but will pick up results later on and squeeze into the play offs. Championship is a tough league.

Cracking news. The younger players will see game time this season and I hope they take their chance. Ballard in particular has a great goalscoring record in the youth teams, why not give him a chance. I also hope Diamond Edwards comes back from his injury as good as he was before. I've seen clips of him play and he's electric.

I said "hope". That's all us fans have to go on this summer.

I know we were expecting players to leave this summer but with the Tino rumours that would leave RBs as Bree and Payne (assuming KWP also goes which we expect). With Lyanco, DCC, Stephens and Salisu most likely leaving we will only have Bednarek and ABK still here and the latter only because he's injured. JWP and Lavia will be gone too... we only have 5 weeks and 4 days until our first fixture. I hope Sports Republic are really on it this summer or we are going to be starting the season slowly which will not be good for promotional aspirations.

Abu like Aladdin's buddy... I wonder if he still has that magic lamp. Could do with a genie.

Welcome Russell. It's not the unifying name I was hoping for but I said I would get behind him and I stand by it. The issue he is going to have is that I can envisage an awful lot of players leaving meaning a complete rebuild which is dodgy the season after relegation and if it doesn't go right, he'll be the one to bite the bullet. Still let's see.

We're waiting until we're League One to sign people to pay less compensation. 🤪

It's ok. I have to try to like the home shirt as it ends up being one of my Christmas presents every year whether I like or not.

We haven't sold anyone so far so we're no worse off than last season. (Actually as we're releasing Moi and Theo we're probably better off, fiscally and in squad terms). I assume KWP, JWP, Lavia etc will all be there at the start of pre-season training unless sold in the next fortnight. I'm not worried... yet. The only thing that concerns me longer term (until the end of the window) is that we might lose too many players and become cash rich and talent poor. We need to keep at least some of our better players. We will want automatic promotion but a complete rebuild of our side could be risky (although I do appreciate we were SO crap last year it wouldn't be the worst thing).

I've seen our trophy cabinet on a tour of SMS. That was 10 seconds well spent. 😎

If he punts it over the bar in his local park hard enough (Ché style) he might actually reach SMS. 😉 He had one decent 5 mins of a (I think it was cup) game where he showed a bit of attacking pace. Beyond that he’s only been half decent in FM. I remember when Shaw signed for United and they knew they’d signed their left back for the next 12 years. I’m a tad surprised that remains accurate but I do think Lavia would be a similar long term signing for the right team.

His Celtic loan actually cost us. If he had bombed up there he'd have gone a long time ago. I'm in agreement with others, I've never seen anything in him that suggests he was worth what we spent or that he was Prem quality. And it's players like these leaving this summer that means we can at least try to reset and cut out some of the rot that has set in.

Been watching a few Championship predictions videos from Youtubers (for my sins) and most of them think Martin is a good appointment and that we will be top 2 contenders. Personally it's too early to predict as we will see a lot of players leaving but it's nice to be talked about as promotion contenders... for now.

Farke, the man that knows how to get teams promoted but doesn't know how to keep them up. Still I suppose promotion is the main aim for the relegated 3 so...

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.skysports.com/amp/football/news/12020/12839344/republic-of-ireland-3-2-latvia-evan-ferguson-strikes-on-first-international-start-as-hosts-edge-to-home-win He played well on his senior debut for Ireland and.... he's a set piece taker which we could be lacking soon. I'm not saying that justifies keeping him but in a summer where our midfield is likely to be decimated it would make sense to keep him at least a season IMO.

If anyone needs an extension it's Smallbone.

That's why I think the most obvious deal would be a sale and a season long loan back. He gets the minutes in a competitive league as do we, he gets the big move and the team he signs for gets a top prospect getting game time. It could be reflected in the negotiations too. Just seems like a no brainer to me. I do think he'll be sold though.

So I tuned in after two minutes played.

I can't see Willy getting much action but it makes sense to have an experienced 3rd choice. Personally I think we'll stand by Baz as number 1 or 2 but look to replace/offload Alex especially in light of the wages he's reportedly on.

I reckon we'd have got £50-60 million last summer had we sold him then and despite not having as good a season he still tops our goalscoring and assist charts playing in a crappier team. £40 million doesn't sound unreasonable and he still has 3 years on his contract. When Newcastle went down a few years ago they still got top dollar for Sissoko and Wijnaldum so it's possible to get good money. On paper that doesn't look too bad a squad as long as we can bring in some decent additions (LB, CB, CM needs a lot of work, maybe a striker). I'd possibly look to ship out Aribo after a dire season but maybe the Championship will be more his time to shine. Then there's the stick or twist situation over the goalkeepers. Do we keep Bazunu as number 1 in the hope he comes good or do we go out and sign a new number 1? For me I'd be looking for a new keeper.

While I do agree in a perfect world we'd get the outs done quickly to concentrate on the ins, the factors are that a) most players will now go on holiday for a few weeks, b) the new manager has to come in, identify targets and who he wants to keep and c) we are Southampton football club and we never seem to do things the easy way! It's plausible that we'll still be seeing players leave after the start of the new season. We just have to be prepared.

Odd but decent finish to a shite season. Sulemana's second has to be goal of the season for us right? Great run and finish. Depending on who we can hold on to we could do very well next year but I still think there's a lot of players leaving before we'll know even remotely what shape we will be in. Interesting few weeks ahead. Please let's get the outs done in the next 5 weeks and then July we can concentrate on the rebuild.

Cool, park it in front of the goal and we put may concede fewer next season.