angelman

I don't buy it either. If you talk about Osvaldo, then yes, I would agree with you. Any acerbic comments could justifiably be aimed towards him rather than Lovren. The main difference I guess is our initial buying price and the appeal of the players to others.

I wonder whether St Richmond and St Charlie aren't either the same person or related. I still stand by my suggestion for him that he probably should support some other team, even if he claims to have "supported" Saints since 1954. Being so negative THE whole time really can't be good for his health.

I would think Keane would walk.

I think that Roy Keane should be on that list between Irvine and Redknapp.

Rodgers (if the first few games go badly for them), with Rafa coming back in.

I agree. He is better in the air than many, but he does make more mistakes than Fonte and Lovren put together. Still I would rather him in the back line than Jos, but who knows, maybe Jos's hero can get the best out of him. Stranger things have happened.

I am a little confused.....http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/27538802 Are QPR facing a fine from BOTH the PL and FL?

Probably quite a few until someone who knows what they are talking about comes along, which I doubt they will.

By turning us into forced sellers. I am not so sure that he has cost us millions though and that he could also be re assimilated into the squad (but I doubt very much that that will happen)

Presume Tadic on the left, so could Clyne fill the other with Chambers as FB?

For some reason, if he did decided to jump ship, I would find it the most disappointing. No idea why I should think him any different from the others, save that he comes across as such a down to earth sort of person.

It's not two faced at all. Seller starts off far too high. Purchaser start off far too low. You try and meet somewhere in the middle. If it isn't mutually acceptable to both then it won't happen.

MLG, I would give up. Or just answer "yes" to the question of are we offering wages that are too low. Compared to the likes of Liverpool and Man Utd, of course they are too low, but it seems that some on here are incapable of grasping simple economics.

He seems to have re-tweeted what a wonderful club Atl Madrid is. Now I am not a Twitter user so have no idea about reading between the lines.

Bosman always muddies the situation.

We've been looking to off load Osvaldo for months. People are happy to take him, but not at the price we want. Sometimes you just have to take a deep breath and cut your losses.

What I find strange is the journalists reaction to this. They give some sarcastic chuckle and ask is anyone going to be left in some pathetically flippant manner that I guess is supposed to be (Schadenfreude) humour. They may also bang on about Cortese, ambition, broken promises (!!!) and the such, but they singularly fail to ask the pertinent questions as to why a moderately successful side in a strong financial position cannot keep it's best players who only recently signed contracts. (And no, this is not an attempt to cover this ground yet again, just that the journos seem oblivious to what is going on). I can see this situation happening more and more as the riches of the top clubs increases at a far faster rate than the rest.

I know it is a little off topic, but I do find the PFA's stance interesting. I know that they are the players' union but they seem (and who knows what goes on in the background) only to come out to support the player against the clubs when really they should sometimes be telling their members how to behave.

De Vrij - SFC vs MUFC - no contest there.

I am not sure that many bought into Cortese's dreams. We did like the sound of it when we were riding high in 3rd place, but we all knew it was pie in the sky though, especially as we had yet to play most of the big boys, even though we had won at Anfield and got a draw at Old Trafford. Fans are the ones who are supposed to have dreams and unrealistic expectations, not chairmen and players (not that I buy into them being sold a dream being the reason they came). If any are like me, I am happy to admit that my love of Saints clouded my thinking and that I showed a certain amount of naivety that the group and manager would stick together as I really didn't think that it was a great step up to possibly achieving something. There were a couple of key areas that could be strengthened that would have hopefully brought a lot more reward for the amount of possession that we had during a lot of games (oh for having splashed out £12.9m on Osvaldo - what might have been!!). Looking at the results last season, I can quite easily see us getting 18+ more points than we did. But what I didn't really focus on were the wages, except possibly for the amount that Osvaldo and Ramirez were supposedly on. The group looked happy and close knit. There was hope that little old Southampton might do something different. Why do you think so many supporters of other teams (from all around the world) wanted us to do well? It's certainly not because of any affinity towards the club - in part our style of football was attractive to watch (if it ever got televised) but it was that during the early part of the season we were mixing it up with the big boys and breaking the boring predictability of the PL. It is predictable, and I will bet anyone now that the top 7 next year and the same top 7 as this year. The only "interesting" thing is to see who misses out from a top 4 spot and whether Everton or Spurs can break into the top 4 and displace a second team who thinks it is their right to be there. Everyone knows it is predictable, yet so few question it. Certainly none of the press question the failings of the competition. They occasionally talk about how FFP is holding teams back - Martin Samuel had a good piece in the DM yesterday http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2699215/MARTIN-SAMUEL-If-Financial-Fair-Play-gift-club-owners-buy-Aston-Villa.html?offset=0&max=100&reply=59591769#comment-59591769 - but that is always Platini's baby and never that the PL voted it in, although Cortese is known to have been anti it. http://www.espnfc.com/story/1330784/premier-league-clubs-vote-in-favour-of-ffp-plans. And how are FFP rules supposed to help supporters? With rules enforcing you to live within your means (not a bad thing but it does exacerbate the uncompetitiveness), then the pressure to increase ticket prices is always going to be there. Every £1 on the ticket price at SMS equates to about £600k of revenue over a 19 game home season. While I am having a whinge....and this is not supposed to be sour grapes, but just looking at things (hopefully) realistically. I look at the media build up to the forthcoming season and you would think that there are only 6 teams in the league. Currently it is a tie between the media love in with Liverpool and Man United. It goes on and on and on and on. Sure they have the most supporters, but the PL wouldn't exist without all of the rest. Some might think that that would be a good idea, but would turning out like the SPL and playing each other 4 times a year really be a good idea? The UK press give more coverage to Barca/Real than they do Crystal Palace/Leicester, so maybe it would be a good idea for the CL to turn into a proper European League, although I can't imagine how promotion relegation would happen - it probably wouldn't. The PL is there for a few teams, and it really favours even fewer. There is a paltry amount handed out to the rest of football when the amount of money there is could go to help grass roots a lot more. With this I imagine Southampton FC are as complicit as everyone else. One thing I would do is introduce a 10-15% surcharge to be added to any overseas signing so that money could be given to grass roots development. I have no idea what PL teams have spent on overseas players so far or in a typical year - something like £600m sticks in my mind for some reason. 15% of that would be £90m and an awful lot of good that could do. But no, the PL shows nothing but greed and I am a little ambivalent towards SFC's role in that. On the one hand I hate the greed and would prefer not to be part of it, but on the other, you want to be at the top table. SFC vs Arsenal holds a bit more interest than say, SFC vs Aldershot.

Short answer is no, and all that you can hope for is to be entertained. I have been saying for a long time now that I have a battle between my love of Saints and my dislike of the PL. At present my love of Saints wins out, but the way that our players have left or have made comments about leaving, has made me look at things and ask whether it really is worth bothering with. I really don't care about having a large bank balance while helping other clubs above us improve their squads. Having said that, that is I guess the primary purpose of the academy. In it's current form is the PL really sustainable? If three quarters of clubs have no chance of winning it, then what really is the point of trying to. The FFP rules keep lesser clubs in their place, so no Jack Walker will ever be able to win the PL again, and clubs like us have no chance of offering wages to rival those from the big boys. I wonder whether eventually a lot more people will question the whole thing. Is it necessary to have the best players to have the best competition? Just looking at the PL and the Championship, I would have to say no because as a competition, the Championship is much better than the PL. Anyone can win it. But then again, the PL has probably right royally screwed that as well, what with the huge parachute payments. But as it is with the PL, the small clubs are getting richer, but the big clubs are getting much much richer than those outside the top few spots. There is little chance to compete now, and all that is going to happen is that the gap is going to widen. As I have said elsewhere, there is only one way of stopping this, and this will NEVER happen, and that is to introduce a wage cap that all clubs can afford. Let's face it, football players don't need to be paid £300k a week, let alone £80k a week. I heard a while back about people thinking that it won't be too far away before there are £1m a week wages - it was a little tongue in cheek but not totally. Anyway, it's not about the PL. The PL is just a stepping stone for entrance into CL.

So, no contact from Liverpool for 3 weeks, and then suddenly Chelsea appear on the scene. LOL

I read somewhere today that he was being fined for being AWOL. He's a ****, but still, he scored goal of the season in my eyes. I wonder if those who voted for ALs goal only did so because he was still (half) at the club.

Hmmm, so you didn't. Me thinks it's time for a drink.

And the people who appointed Koeman?