SNSUN

That's an odd one. Unless we are planning on selling Adams (hope not) or plan on loaning out Obafemi, this article must be agent talk. Oh and a little tiny piece of me feels sorry for Newcastle fans - they expect a massive takeover and huge signings like Coutinho, they get to keep Mike Ashley and sign Jeff Hendrick on a free transfer. 😖

Better now than in 4 weeks time tbf. Let's hope the player LeG referred to in his earlier post takes it seriously and not only isolates, but keeps fit in that time.

Favourite managers? As in managers I liked, irrespective of talent: 1) Adkins - seemed like such a nice bloke. Seemed to really care for the club. Got us promoted twice which will never be forgotten, perhaps should have been given longer. Poch was a risk but at least it worked out for us. 2) Strachan - always good for a quote and a laugh. 3) Hasenhuttl - there’s something warm about him. You can see his passion for a win when it happens. Honourable mentions to Ball and Koeman. Best managers? 1) Koeman - took a Pochettino team and made it better despite losing big players. Bought talent not egos. I wore my Saints shirt around the Nou Camp when he was our manager with pride. 2) Pochettino - took a promoted side and built a very good team. 3) Hasenhuttl. To take players who struggled to avoid relegation twice in a row, and coach them into better players is quite something. To do it with huge financial constraints and uncertain ownership is even more impressive. Long may he reign. Honourable mentions to Ball, who took a Branfoot team and made us more exciting to watch, and Strachan, for building a team of cheapish players that got to a cup final. And possibly Hoddle but for the ego. Crappest managers: 1) Redknapp. Seriously huge ego, thought he could spend his way out of a relegation battle. We got his crocked son, a terrible Davenport, relegation certainty Quashie and the rubbish Bernard. Not all his fault but I don’t like him so he’s number one. 2) Pellegrino - Just a rubbish manager. Really rubbish. And we’ve been lumbered with Carillo because of it. How we stayed up that season I’ll never know... complete fluke. 3) Hughes - flukes safety then was given the job full time. Outdated and set us back even further. Thank god for Ralph. Honourable mentions to Branfoot (While I was “technically” a Saints fan under his reign, it was only under Ball that I became more conscious of it), Wigley, Gray, Sturrock and Puel. Merrington and Jones escape from this as I actually quite liked them.

Winners: City Relegated: Fulham, WBA, Sheffield Utd. Top 4: City, Liverpool, Chelsea, United. Us: 11th, decent cup run. No 9-0 losses. Surprise good team: West Ham. Surprise shit team: Leicester. Signing of the season as it stands: Werner. Shit signing of the season as it stands: Lallana. First sacking of the season: Smith. The Managerial “get fed up with mediocrity” resignation - Ancelotti. Or possibly Hodgson or Bielsa. Or Mourinho.

Great news. He’s basically been in every manager’s first team reckoning since the day we got back to the Premier League, and he’s improved so much in that time. I genuinely hope we keep him for the duration of his career, but he’s probably one more good season away from being hunted by the big boys. Still if he becomes our “Mark Noble” and stays for life, surely he’s banner material next to Lambert. Oh, there’s no banner anymore. Meh.

Got confidence issues and prone to mistakes. Probably not completely his fault playing in a terrible Stoke side for years. Needs a change of scenery but would be a pretty brave punt for a Premier League team to sign him. I’d rather sign Foster from Watford for a season or two than Butland.

Not a HCDAJFU or particularly Saints related, but I've seen Mesut Ozil is happy to sit on his £350,000 contract until the end of the season so he can leave as a free agent. That's nearly £18 million quid! 😲 Nice money if you can get it. More annoying is he'll get to the other end and someone will offer him a big fat signing on fee and another huge wage. It makes the Fraser Forster contract look like peanuts. ⚽🥜🐘

We've also been linked with Celtic's Ntcham, Stuttgart's Mangala and Tottenham's Skipp. There are probably others. I still think Reed CDAJFU but with one year left on his contract, if we can get £8 million from Fulham I'd sell him.

Splendid. Now follows a month of outgoings while everyone gets pissy about the lack of incomings. 😏 I’d say as it stands, we have a better squad than what we started last season with so hopefully it’s worth the wait. #notITK Re: song, Can we get the Northam learning alternate lyrics to Xanadu?

Well the squad still needs work, plenty of outs and a few ins. Funnily enough, bit bored at work, I just penned the current squad out. It looks like this. (Brackets are either not wanted/needed or youth players) GK: McCarthy, Forster, Gunn, Lewis. - Obviously needs cutting down. Lewis is now over 21 and would need registering if he's third choice. RB: KWP, Valery, (Ramsey) - Not bad now, jury still out on Valery as second choice but should be given time. LB: Bertrand, Vokins, (McQueen) - Same as Valery, jury out on Vokins as second choice but what's the point in having a decent academy if we don't use them! McQueen obviously nobody really knows what's happening there, but surely his days are numbered. (Also worth mentioning KWP can play LB if needed.) CB: Stephens, Bednarek, Salisu, Vestergaard, (Jones, Klarer, Hoedt) - assuing Salisu is a done deal. Jannick as 4th choice? Depends if he can be sold or not. I'd be surprised to see us bring another CB in until that happens. CM: JWP, Romeu, Reed, Smallbone, (Slattery, Jankewitz, Lemina) - Maybe one light there, definitely one light if we sell Reed. Possible outs again for Lemina and Slattery. AM: Redmond, Armstrong, Djenepo, Boufal, (Sims, Hesketh, Tella, Ferry) - Not sure what's going on with Boufal with one year left on his contract. He's technicially 4th choice. If he does go, we need a new AM brought in for me, as Sims and Hesketh probably have no future here. STR: Ings, Long, Adams, Obafemi, (N'Lundulu, Carillo) - Pretty strong here. If we do bring in a striker, maybe Balogun, then I can only see Obafemi leaving on loan, but if that's our 4 for the start of the season, I wouldn't be disappointed. I just hope we start the main season as fit as we came back from lockdown. That would make for a few good early season results hopefully.

Looking at his Instagram he does post a lot about Saints. Maybe he’s retiring from football and saying bye to the good times? Could be a few things but doesn’t give off a positive vibe.

Didn’t realise he was there. He likes clubs with acute accents in doesn’t he! Still maybe it’s apt our worst player and our worst manager ever have such a connection.

While I know very little of Skipp, the Spurs fans on the Fighting Cock forum seem to really rate him as an energetic, all action defensive midfielder and potentially top prospect. As has been said before though by others, I'm not keen on developing other team's youngsters for them when we could do the same to our own. Spurs will want him to go on loan to us because they can see how much KWP's loan developed him, although luckily he was surplus to requirements there and we are able to sign him. That won't be the same for Skipp, whom Spurs will want to keep, especially if he has a successful loan. If it's a loan with an option, then it would be a good deal, but from what I've seen he's 19 and has a big future at Spurs. Still in Ralph we trust.

If Forster is determined to fight for his place here , then it will be against McCarthy. It's then a no-brainer that Gunn will probably get a season loan somewhere. He still has potential but he needs to get his confidence back. In that scenario, I'm not sure who would be third keeper this year though, even Harry Lewis would need to be registered, so that's one extra outfield squad place taken up by a GK.

Same with MJ. He had very different opinions on me to kiddy fiddling but I will still enjoy some of the greatest songs ever written in modern times. 😊

My Fulham supporting mate says he’s the best player in most of their games. He was better in both Semis than he’s been tonight but he’s still been aggressive and positionally decent. As per the Reed thread though, he’s not 5’11’’ in a million years. Wikipedia is lying! He’s 5’8’’ at best. Shit game though. Fulham on top but wasteful finishing. Not sure i rate Parker as a manager. With that team they should have got autos.

One of the Spurs lot on the FC forum reckons Hojbjerg can develop there, comparing him to Wanyama, who apparently was "bang average" before he joined Spurs. That's Wanyama, one of our best ever defensive midfielders. Mind you, these are the same fans that think KWP is not Premier League quality, so there you go. 🙄

I wouldn't use the term back-up, more "squad player", it's less harsh. It's a long season, all our senior players will get game time at some point and may even become first choice at some point. Maybe we sign McKennie and he's not good enough, Romeu would be first choice. I do agree that I wouldn't have Romeu as first choice for the 2 positions though, to start the season. Hojbjerg does need replacing, either with another signing or, if Ralph thinks he's now good enough, Reed. I hate it when we do business with Levy, it always seems to drag on. Everton have genuine Champions League aspirations (hence the managerial appointment) so I'm surprised Hojbjerg is digging his heels in so much to join non-Champions League team Spurs. Maybe commutable distance from home has something to do with it. Personally I think if we didn't want (or need) KWP, we'd have the upper hand, but maybe that's why we've leaked rumours of Matty Cash.

True, but if Reed wants out and is determined to stay at Fulham, then it fairs better for us that Fulham go up, if we get more for selling him to Premier League Fulham than Championship Fulham. That said I would love to see him back at Southampton, I really think he's progressed well, but if he wants first team football and we get McKennie, he's probably going to have to leave. I'd love to see Brentford go up, but I think Premiership experience will see Fulham do it IF they have Mitrovic back for the final. My mate supports Fulham so I'm easy either way. Brentford would be some story though.

Wijnaldum and Sissoko were too good to go down with Newcastle. They got good money for those two too.

No foreign tours for the big boys - that's a few quid that will be missing from their coffers for the usual pre-season nonsense tournaments not going ahead. As all pre-season friendlies will be behind closed doors, will the club even announce them much in advance?

Weren't we linked with him on a free before he went to West Ham? I believe West Ham's top target is Matty Cash from Forest, who we were linked with earlier in the year. (And who would be a decent right back signing.) I'd be surprised if we went for anyone other than KWP though, unless Ralph feels Valery isn't the answer at RB and we end up going for 2 new ones! I see we're still being linked with Zeefuik too but he really doesn't want to come here!

He's been excellent again tonight - great engine and quick. His set pieces have been a bit crap but we already have someone good at those so that's not an issue! He's helped his defence out and has good movement off the ball too. As someone said, if he wasn't our player and we looked into signing him, not many people would complain after the season he's just had. I understand he may look for first team football but I definitely think he can make the step up to the Premier League now and he may be one we regret selling. If we do keep him, his contract would be an issue.

Bump... any others now the season is over? Also, when are the real awards?

Great end to the season and very much a season of three thirds. Spanked by Burnley in the first game didn’t look good, and bar a 3 match unbeaten spell we were poor, culminating in the Leicester defeat which was rock bottom. In the second third we improved as Ralph made changes, players improved and we had a great Christmas, but still tailed off until March and we were potentially on the beach already, Then COVID came along, we had time to reset, and in the last ‘third’ since the restart we have been immense. As shown today, the team spirit is excellent. I thought we were poor in the first half but great in the second half. Ings was so selfless today, at one point he had a chance for a header but knew there was a better placed player Behind him. Great saves from McCarthy too but he needs to irradiate the brain farts. A good win today and a great end to the season. I won a couple of Fantasy Leagues too. With the quick turnaround time between seasons, I hope we get our business done quick and I hope the players return as fit as they returned from lockdown. This has been the best season since Koeman’s last, bar a few blips along the way. Long may Ralph reign.