SNSUN

Balogun is 19. And his path is blocked at Arsenal to the first team so if we signed him he’d want to play first team football. Arsenal fans really rate him but Arteta seemingly prefers Nketiah. Had we not signed Long on a new two year deal I could see this happening. I can’t now unless we plan on loaning out Obafemi. Agree that we need a CM more than any other. Vestergaard as a 4th choice CB is fine, so we are stocked there. I would have said we need an AM but it seems Boufal is staying for his last season. The only positions that worry me after CM (which I’m sure we will rectify by the October deadline) is the full-back back ups, with a lot of faith put in Valery and Vokins if KWP or Bertrand get injured long term.

With two years left, I hope we can get this done. If he doesn't sign a new contract by next summer, someone will get a bargain similar to the Hojbjerg transfer. Still he seems to love being here and he's fit as a fiddle now so I hope we can get this done soon. Bertrand's contract too.

I hope Leeds get pleasure from Robin Koch. I prefer Strüken Vag myself. 😈

Wesley Hoedt - stealing a living from football. Actually there's a few Saints guilty of that.

@WALK DMC I've not seen him play but at this stage of a very short pre-season, with two weeks to go until the season kicks off, we have 2 natural central midfielders in the squad and the likes of Smallbone, Slattery and Jankewicz backing them up, or playing the likes of Armstrong out of position. So it's probably more desperation from fans that we want to see a central midfielder brought in, and having been linked to Ntcham shows the club were interested in him. I do think it will be rectified and we'll sign one, but time is of the essence, especially if we lose JWP or Romeu to injury early on.

Blimey, him, Vestergaard (6’6’’), Gunn (6’5’’) and Fraser (6’7’’), we wouldn’t be short of people to put the fairy on top of the Christmas tree...

Fair play to Palace that would be a decent signing from what I've seen of him. But they have a long way to go to completely replace their ageing squad with a wantaway Zaha to boot. I can see them struggling in the next couple of years.

Can we get a better 4th choice AM? It's only for a year then his contract is out so I'd guess he's off then. He can't be happy at not getting regular game time as he enters what is supposed to be his prime. Still 4 keepers on the books. Surely one will leave.

Oh I didn't realise Spurs had £80 odd million in their transfer kitty. 'Cos that's what JWP would cost with a newly signed 5 year contract. Clearly written by a WUM on a slow news day.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.irishmirror.ie/sport/soccer/soccer-news/stephen-kenny-insists-no-axe-22570442.amp I see Obafemi isn't too happy about not getting selected for ROI. Obviously he's fit enough currently.

Yes, I was actually, genuinely, realistically advocating a JWP statue at St Mary's. 🤦‍♂️ Maybe we can build one of Hoedt too so people can take out their aggression before the enter the ground. 🙄

We'd build him a statue at St Mary's, if we're anything like Man City, who are doing it for Vincent Kompany, David Silva and potentially Sergio Aguero! 🙄

Well my predo of Palace was accurate, just got the wrong venue. Still we seem to be decent away, and as long as we start the season as we started the post-COVID fixtures, we will pick up a few points. I always look at the last few games of the season too, on the off chance we have a horror season somehow. (I'm talking Ralph poached, huge injuries to JWP and Ings, points deductions for Gao's ineptitude etc) The last few are favourable and should definitely give us a few extra points if we're not on the beach by then.

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.