SNSUN

Yeah Watford are doing decent business this summer but for a fee more than we bought Lemina, albeit in a more specialist area perhaps, shows what good business we did. That said I think their signings of Hughes and Chalobah for a combined £10 million odd is superb business. I Can see Watford mid-table this season again.

Thanks all. Hit my Dad (69yo) hardest. Yeah it was the parrot that gets the kicking. There's two of the buggers now. On topic, was Pellegrino bluffing the other day when he played down the Lemina transfer? Or did he not know about it?

My family Golden Retriever Alfie was put to sleep at 3pm today, and I'm having a rough day at work. This news has cheered me up no end! Welcome Mario! More signings of this calibre and we're in for a good season! (That's a CB or 2, a keeper, and another attacking player.)

So, who have we concretely been linked with this summer at centre back? Hoedt, for one. Wimmer? de Vrij? Trying to separate the rumour from the fact. I guess Hoedt is the one we've most recently been linked with. I still believe we only need one new centre back, partnering Stephens or Yoshida, but I understand why people think we need 2. (Jan Kirchoff still on a free if we fancy a cheapy! )

VVD: Sell me Saints, here's my transfer request. I'm bigger than you. Saints: Fine, you disruptive A Hole, but only for the price we see fit. Chelsea: Hey Saints, just wondering if we could bid £50 million for Virgil? Saints: Sorry guys, he's not for sale for that price. Liverpool: We also bid £50 million! Saints: Sod off Liverpool, nobody is talking to you. Chelsea: OK,OK, I see you like a haggle. How about £60 million and if we win the league we'll give you an extra £5million? Saints: Nope, if we were to let him go, it'd be for £75 million or nah. Liverpool: We also bid £60 million and an extra £5 million if we win the league! Saints: You're embarrassing yourself now Liverpool. Liverpool: Well if you accept a bid from Chelsea, you HAVE to accept a bid from us. We can wait. Chelsea: Fine. £75 million. We can afford it. Saints: We reluctantly accept. Liverpool: We also bid £75 million! He's ours for sure! Saints: We reject your offer, and are handing evidence against you over to the Premier League. Enjoy playing Milner alongside Lovren at centre back *****ez! VVD joins Chelsea.

Have we ever had such a settled team from the end of one season to the start of the next? In fact Gabbiadini in for Austin excepted, the team that started against Stoke could be our exact starting XI next week. Settled is good. The last time we seemed so settled we had a 3-1 win against Leeds in our first game in the nPC promotion season. We start the season with no major outs which is a good thing. I believe Tammy Abraham has scored a few in pre-season, but I still think Swansea will be in the relegation battle this season. As a result I think we'll banish the home voodoo early, and I'm going for 3-1 to the Saints!

The immature side of me likes the bit from one article when it says he got suspended for "punching Toivonen in the groin".

If Lemina is true, and we can get him over the line by midweek, it'll be a big lift for the club and fans. I wouldn't be surprised to see a behind closed doors friendly to ease him in. Definitely seems like the sort of player we'd sign. Good things come to those who wait?

Agree it's low, but we've got more chance getting the add ons with him at Chelsea compared to a similar deal with Liverpool. Not to mention it's worth £20 million to see Liverpool miss out on their top 2 targets of the summer! (Kidding of course...to a point...) I reckon a deal can be done with Chelsea though, it's not the first time this summer their name have been mentioned in relation to VVD. That said, Sod's law states he'll be a Liverpool player soon, as nothing seems to be going for us at the moment. Clubs can see we're wounded and are trying to take the pee with the fee. I still think we'll end up with somewhere between £60 and 65 million if we can hold our nerve...

Brilliant result for Saints. The perfect result to show we need signings, and still with a month to sign them. Better now than getting smashed by Huddersfield on the 27th August when it's too late to do much about it! #positivity

Selling to Chelsea, City or ABL (Anyone But Liverpool) is the natural "happy" ending to this situation for Saints, as I can't see him here come September. Those dipper bastards turned his head, tapped him up and he's now no good to us. I believe we genuinely wanted him here for another season as captain and leader but their devious, underhanded ways have ruined that. The issue is that he's apparently said it's Liverpool his heart is set on. (Because they tapped him up.) I think the next natural step will be VVD handing in his transfer request. This is what Liverpool have been waiting for of course, thinking they can get him at a reduced price. Of course a transfer request will alert other teams, and Liverpool's quest becomes more difficult. We get a bidding war and close to the money we want. Our strong hand is the length of his contract - thus meaning we don't have to sell for less than we want. I say I can't see him here in September, as I think he's burned his bridges, but what if he is... then I agree with others, really his best bet would be to get fit and knuckle down ready for a move in January. Quite frankly I hope they lose their Champions League qualifier, lose Mané and Coutinho, and don't get VVD. Be funny. Petty

We won't get relegated, we won't go into administration. Everything else is a plus. (From the Dalek line of thought!) My (more positive) predictions: Gabbiadini will become the most sought after striker in the Premier League next summer, Stephens will get rave reports and the media will tip him for England, VVD will be sold by the end of the window but not to Liverpool and (non-Saints) Everton will struggle for goals. We'll also get at least a second season out of Pellegrino.

And the risk they've taken with Sandro is not dissimilar to the punt we took on Juanmi. With Lookman still young, I'd still suggest they lack goals in attack at the moment.

A loan would be OK in this case IMO. I'm one that doesn't generally like developing players for other clubs, but I've heard great things about Roberts and Celtic are desperate to get him back for a very good reason. I wonder if Premier League football can swing his head our way. Plus the kicker, City don't often keep their young players, so after the loan, if he feels at home here, we could be in pole position to sign him permanently. He'd be a decent addition to our attack and he has an eye for goal. Hope we pull this one off, even if it's not a full transfer. Besides we can't seem to keep hold of our decent players for long so a season with us is pretty good! But yeah, a permanent transfer would be massive. Can't see it happening though.

Burnley sign Bardsley from Stoke. Another one slips away... etc etc Seems Dyche's mission is simply Premier League safety. Probably wise.

RAWK seem to have it in their heads that we should be delighted with Chelsea's renewed interest because what we want is a bidding war. Sure, NOW we want a bidding war, but that wasn't the case at the start of the summer. We wanted to keep him as our captain and best player - it is the blatant tapping up actions of Liverpool and Klopp that have made his position at this club untenable. Not to say that we'll be letting him go on the cheap even if a bid from Chelsea doesn't materialise, his contract situation hasn't changed and we'll get very close to the £70 million we want, even if he does put in a transfer request. I don't care if his heart or his head or his ballsack are in Liverpool, Barcelona or Bognor bloody Regis, if we don't get the money, he's here for another season at least! Personally I'd be delighted if he goes to Chelsea. I think he'd go with the blessing of virtually every Saints fan if that were to happen. At Chelsea he has a chance of winning things... The whole tapping up situation in general needs looking at IMO. I'm sure all clubs do it to some degree, but Liverpool were the ones caught with their pants down doing it, and rules need tightening to stop it happening, especially for players with 5 years left on their contracts. Granted something as simple as a bid from one club to another can be enough to turn a player's head, but secret meetings with another club's manager or other member of staff needs to be outlawed.

I wonder if the accusations of tapping by Monaco of Mbappe will expose more cases, or wonder whether it will help us with regard to the Liverpoo/VVD situation. If something happens with the Mbappe case, surely the Premier League have to take our complaint more seriously. And if that's the case, surely it makes Liverpool's pursuit of VVD untenable? The longer this transfer saga goes on the more I can see we hold all the cards. We'll get the money we want if he does go, that's for sure. Bonucci's move to Milan was made official today. I'm waiting to see what Juve do next...

If the starting XI on the first day of the season is Forster, Cedric, Stephens/Yoshida, VVD, Bertrand, Romeu, Davis, JWP/Boufal, Tadic, Redmond, Gabbiadini, I'd be happy to start the season with that team. If that's still the best starting XI on the 1st September then I'd agree we've missed the chance to strengthen, especially defensive midfield (and centre back depending on whether you think Stephens has what it takes long term.) We've had some quality players that we signed late in the window, Mane, Alderweired, Gabbiadini, VVD. One negative thing I will say about signing players late in the window is that there is not a lot of time to switch targets if something happens - as we saw with Boufal when he got injured before we signed him. I figure we signed him anyway in the hope that when he got fit he'd be an asset. I still hope he can be an asset to us this season now he's fully fit. I understand about the lack of team bonding-side of players that sign late but as long as they're not injured (as Boufal was, but that won't always be the case unless the club drops a b'llock) they should be fully fit from doing pre-season with their previous club. However I still believe it is too early to be worrying about not signing anyone (bar Bednarek). Still 3 and a half weeks until the start of the season. I'd love a signing this week as a fan, but even if that happened I'm pretty sure a day after we signed x, y or z, people would be requesting another. It's quality over quantity we need - Gabbiadini-type-quality players, and sometimes that takes time, especially with a new manager still settling in. Let's hope we can pull a couple of quality rabbits out the hat though by September 1st. On on the subject of winning trophies, the current squad got us to the League Cup final where we were robbed. As for making numbers in the League - yes we are sadly. We don't have the investment (yet) to do an Everton and try and break the 'glass ceiling' of the top 6 - Leicester was a freak occurance, the top 6 wth their finances won't be allowing that to happen again in a hurry. I'd rather be fighting it out at the top, but that's not what this club is about currently. I suspect that's why we've been looking at investment with the Lander people.

We have 44 days left of the transfer window. Over 6 weeks, or an eighth of a whole year. I dont understand the impatience of some of our fan base, especially when we already have a good enough squad to start the season with and so far we've stated nobody is leaving. I'm sure the signings will come. If we've signed nobody or flogged VVD and whoever and not replaced them on September 1st, then we can be worried. The problem this summer is Everton blowing their wad all over the place early on which is attractive to fans of other clubs. Someone called it the Football Manager generation the other day which is true. With Everton though, for example, if someone comes on the market late that's better than Sandro Ramirez and Rooney, they end up top heavy with strikers. I'd rather we spent time bringing the right player in, not spending for the sake of it. And I love a transfer as much as the next fan!

Yep, but just the asking price. We've put a price on his head, and whether it's Liverpool or someone else, if it's matched, he'll go. We're well past talking about VVD as a £50million player - the Telegraph had an article rating him as the 13th best centre back in world football and he's still only just turned 26. If they really, really wanted him, they'd pay the money. Put up or shut up, and quit moaning about it in the newspapers. IF we don't get a bid we want, I think he'll stay for the next season. Personally I'd rather we never sold to Liverpool ever again after their tapping up revelations, but football is a business, and I suppose if we ever wanted a player from them it'd be wise not to close that avenue. Personally I'd sell him if we get anywhere close to the £70 million (I'm talking £65 million+) and reinvest - who knows how good he'll be after his injury or whether he'll be fully committed to the club all season. Anyway, I've got a source that tells me Juventus's interest in VVD is true and they are seriously contemplating bidding for him to replace Bonucci. Let's hope that occurs. I'd love seeing Juventus at one of the giants of world football. (Not clubs clinging on to former glories from 30 years ago.) (The last paragraph was written purely to wind up Liverpool fans. Don't take it to heart.) The fact is there ARE bargains still to be had and for good young players too, it's just that the big clubs are under pressure to pay big money to appease the fan base who want instant success. Will Hughes and Chalobah will be bargains for Watford for about £5 million each, Murphy at £12million will be for Newcastle IMO, I could go on. (To be honest I'm surprised the big 4/5/6 didn't break off and form their own Super league with the other big European clubs years ago such is their contempt for us smaller clubs.)

His head was in the Nivea advert.

He's earned more than the rest of us (unless one of you is a secret millionaire) will earn in a lifetime from being a bang average footballer. Good luck to him.

Good tip over by Fraser. Good stream here http://www.hesgoal.com/news/17743/St_Gallen_vs_Southampton_FC.html

I miss the days we used to have a "trialist" during a friendly! No Cedric, No Redmond. No VVD. Start the conspiracy theories!

Liverpool been tapping up someone else now. Surely the Premier League can't ignore them again? http://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2017/07/11/exclusive-liverpool-accused-falsifying-document-heart-tapped/