saint1977

I can't support anybody else but am likely to be watching a lot more of Exeter City and Plymouth next season. Unlike the local fans, it's a five hour round trip IF the traffic goes well and a pricey day. Happy to pay it on a regular basis as in recent seasons if I feel the club are giving their all as well but not seeing anything from them at present but just grabbing money, whether it's player sales or ST hikes. Sad as had an ST in 08/09, and that was a really grim year but this feels worse and all the promotions and trips to Carlisle away don't feel like they mean anything now. Hope Reed proves me wrong and they spend £60-75m on high calibre players before the Leverkusen game and we get the 7 or 8 urgent signings we need but don't think that's the plan anymore. I was glass very much half full until the Chambers sale but now it looks and smells like an asset strip. If moderate fans like me are being disillusioned, they've got massive problems. Was at a family/friends do this weekend back home and a lot of people with STs feel cheated, they won't be buying them again. The situation is almost past retrievable, we need to see a signing a day for the next few days to restore any sort of confidence.

What about doing a player swap with Inter? I've lost touch with Serie A but who might Inter have available that Saints might want and who would fancy a move to England? If the new addition worked out well, it might be worth a gamble and they could be worth a lot more than the lower fee or loan fee we'd get now. Osvaldo would also be off our hands for good and I suspect he'd be keen to go there and waive any payments or bonuses Saints owe him to make a move happen.

People abusing Dejan's brother is well out of order and unjustified. If he'd been sticking his nose in like Alan Cork has about Jack's new contract, fair enough but whilst Dejan's behaviour is extremely unprofessional, let him hand himself because he'll start the season at Liverpool not in the opening squads because he's missed so much of pre-season. Suits Saints to wait because they've collected enough from Lambert and Lallana that they CAN play hardball and get what they want from Liverpool and there's less chance of facing him first game or if we did he'd be well undercooked fitness-wise.

Swap Van Dijk for De Vrij (who we won't get). Need a second CB (loan Jos out for final year of contract) and also a LB as well. Agree with your other suggestions though.

I think this is what will happen. Got a feeling Lovren might end up at somewhere like Dortmund but good to see Saints taking a tough line. If a club doesn't come up with the money, make the barsteward play for the U21s until he gets his inflated, brainless head out of Liverpool. It was much more difficult with Lallana as he was the captain and clearly intent on stirring up unrest so that Saints were percieved as in turmoil and he got his £100k a week. Lovren doesn't have that kind of leverage seemingly within the club and particularly with the young players who Lallana was setting a terrible example to. This doesn't excuse the stupidity of what Kruger and Hoff-thingy said earlier on mind. Hopefully we'll have got another 4-5 signings in by the time his move happens as well to counter a lot of the rubbish written by the various weird UK tabloids owned by weird oligarchs.

Football was certainly far more competitive and interesting then but the downside was the appalling and lethal stadiums and facilities fans had to endure. Three key turning points: 1) 1983 - English top flight shifts the sharing of ticket revenue with the away club (so the bigger clubs got a much bigger share - check out the impact on Man U's turnover) 2) 1992 - the PL 3) 1985 - Woodford passes away, Askham gets more power from the until 2009 and tries to squeeze as much £ out of SFC as he can, nearly killing our club in the process.

Reed certainly looked composed in the cameos we saw last season. Has anyone seen McQueen play? Club must rate him by giving him a 4 year deal but seems to have gone under the radar a bit compared to say JWP, Shaw, Reed, Gallagher and possibly even Turnbull and Jack Stephens. I have in my mind that he's an AMC/wide player. Didn't he have a fairly serious injury that held him back for a while? Will be interesting to see Targett play against stronger opposition. Does anyone think Jake Sinclair might get a chance? Rowe and Isgrove keep on getting one year extensions so you'd have to think it's make or break for them. McCarthy is another young player like McQueen that seems to be under the radar and have emerged.

Bit of a log-jam in the market around a small group of CBs. Lovren seems to be the key to it - players are therefore keeping their options open as some of Liverpool's targets are probably also Saints's. Would Vlaar consider QPR or Saints a step up though from Villa? I know they are stagnating until Lerner gets what he wants in terms of selling the club but I didn't get the impression he (Vlaar) was unsettled there. I suppose a healthy post-WC signing on fee wouldn't hurt his bank balance but Villa are a historically big club. I've always said we need another CB anyway regardless of whether Lovren goes or not so if he does, make that two new CBs.

Agree with the person who said that we need to fill the ground week in week out before we start criticising the commercial performance in too much depth, although the club have identified it as an area to improve on. Can understand people not being able to go to games because they can't afford it and it's been a very tough few years economically. I have to pick and choose because of the petrol costs for me but go as often as I can. Also, the ST pricing for 11-18s could be much better. However, I do find it a bit rich that some of the worst critics are quite happy to watch games on a stream and then spend what they would have done on a ticket watching an excellent team last season on gallons of cold, chemical lager. Some 'fans'.

Spot on. He's still embarrassed at being taken to cleaners by Lowe - about the only thing Lowe ever won in his time at Saints. He's just an old has-been London tabloid hack, no different to the planks on Talksport or Factless Allen, he's just older and uglier. No doubt we'll see more factless 'opinion' gems from the Mail nearer the election, especially now their favourite far right loon Liam Fox looks set to be restored to the cabinet (great judgement again by Cameron after Fox's adviser scandal). Don't know who is worse - Cameron, Miliband or Clegg. Might abstain in 2015.

K Billy recently posted when someone mentioned Ings which seemed to say 'wouldn't it be great to see a Saints fan playing for his home club soon' or words to that effect.

Which is fine if we have Wanyama in there to balance it out. The best players always rise to the top, regardless of size etc so if Reed is as good as people say, it won't hold him back. Some of S-Clarke's comments about the club not being concerned about LB is a real concern though, expecting Targett to be Shaw MKII is a hell of an ask and even then, it doesn't leave us any cover at all if he's injured, Clyne at LB is OK for the odd game but not a 2 or 3 match stretch. I'm not going to join the bedwetters but share Sour Mash's moderate worries on the other thread about the pace of recruitment - we need to be seeing a couple of arrivals a week for the next 2-3 weeks if we are going to have a shot at doing anything other than finishing fourth from bottom.

Absolutely this. CM is the position where we might get away with it but LB, CB, wide areas and strikers and GK all need strengthening this window to ensure we are competitive and not bottom at Xmas. I've been one of this site's most positive posters but sorry, that's the reality. We will need to replace all the positions lost bar perhaps Morgan and we may need more replacements is certain positions where we were already thin e.g. CB. Anything else is aiming for relegation. Shaw was a bit of a one-off, JWP is being eased into the team over 2-3 seasons and we'll probably need to do the same with Targett, McQueen. Don't know about Reed but his physical development is well behind Shaw's.

I agree with those that are saying we need minimum two new strikers and a wide player as well. Pelle, Ings and Redmond would be welcome. We could use the loan route with J Rod's injury. Osvaldo will off in the next couple of weeks IMO but Mayuka's future needs sorting out - use him or lose him. Didn't set Ligue 1 on fire for Sochaux last year.

Agree with you S Clarke about new deals for Fonte and Cork but don't agree that just replacing Lovren is enough. I'd be terrified to see Jos lumbering out against Aguero or Adebayor again next season. Jos seems like a great bloke and was excellent in our NPC promotion at both ends of the pitch but like Gazza, worth a two goal start to the opposition, especially this division's leading lights. If we can squeeze the pips out of Liverpool, that's Caulker and Manga paid for which means Fonte has some competition at last and that's how he'd want it because the club progresses. The only other option is if the club are considering Chambers at CB? Haven't heard anything about that but you seem to be reasonably ITK so may have a view on that.

Nah, sell him, especially if Liverpool are going to offer £25m. I'll drive to Soton from Devon, take him to Liverpool, drop him off with Rodgers and back to Devon again for that type of money. Caulker is keeping QPR waiting I suspect to see if Saints or another team come in for him and Manga would be ideal competition for Fonte. Need to buy two centre backs so we don't have to use Jos. If Stephens is at Swindon on loan for another season it doesn't suggest the staff feel he's ready yet.

Massive thank you to Markus, Katharina and Nicola for the fantastic recovery and now progress of our club these last 5 years. Some of the matches, moments and players such as Rickie Lambert that we've been fortunate enough to see and experience will live with us for a long time. Now we have a fantastic opportunity to build on that legacy with Katharina following in Markus's footsteps and she deserves our full support in doing so. The club is so much stronger than the last time we were in the Premier League and a couple of Lovren-type prima donnas isn't going to change that. Next season may be one of transition but we'll be fine long-term, I'm confident of that.

Looks like a potentially excellent signing. If all the ITK snippets are to be taken at face value on here, Pelle and Ings to follow over next couple of weeks. That would be an exciting front line with J Rod still to come back from injury. That leaves a LB, 2 x CBs (given Lovren's comments about going) and a GK still needed. One question I have for the ITKs (Guan, KBSS and Monk) is Scott Sinclair - were Saints interested/still interested? Or do the Tadic and Ings prospective signings cover off the wide forward/attacking midfielder vacancies? Of course, the above is contingent on Morgan staying!

Tend to agree. Friends who are Norwich fans thought he was poor for them after a decent first season and played a big part in their relegation to L1. I'm sure he's improved since then but it's still dangerous for people to want us to buy him based on one worldy display at SMS. I'm sure the backroom and scouting staff will have watched him over a far longer period but whoever suggested Alex McCarthy at Reading I agree with, he makes less 'camera saves' than Marshall but looks to have a far better command of his area. I've a feeling Marshall could turn out to be a bit of a Paul Jones - great first PL season but then weaknesses were exposed.

Sell Lovren for £20m and re-invest that in buying Caulker and if there's enough left, bid for Mangan or another CB. We needed two anyway so that we don't have to rely on Jos next season (great lad but miles out of his depth at PL level) and selling Lovren pays for it. The competition will keep Fonte on his toes and if one of those two proves a success and is sold on, Jack Stephens may then be ready. Lovren is a very good CB but not in Michael Svensson's league pre-knee injury so not too sad to see him go if he is this much of a rotten and disruptive apple. Rumour was that he caused a lot of disruption when not selected at Lyon so has previous. It'll take time for the new CB relationships to settle in but better to get that position sorted out quickly and an intensive pre-season schedule to enable that to happen. The moral part of my brain says 'let Lovren rot in the U21s for 6 months' but ultimately I'd rather we strengthened a weak position from last season with 2 new faces, one of which we needed to bring in anyway.

Not only that, but a friend living in Lancs says they are also reported in the local media up there to have had a sizeable bid turned down for Troy Deeney as well although their second offer is expected to be accepted. Sounds like Ings is on the move. Wouldn't mind us moving for Deeney either, always thought he's got a nice balance of athleticism, power and composure, consistency has been his issue but has done very well in the last two seasons, even though Watford went backwards overall last year.

Sorry - not Bart, Gazza. That's offensive to Bart who is much better than that!

Pelle and Tadic signings I'm keen on the sound of, less so Immers who doesn't seem to offer anything that we don't already have in the strongest part of the squad and especially when we have glaring gaps at LB, CB, GK and Striker/s. We've been linked to Aaron Cresswell quite a few times before so not surprised to see that re-surface and clearly on our radar. Andy Robertson sounds highly promising but could be a hell of a risk to throw him straight in as a first teamer. Then again, this forum will moan like mad if we don't buy him and he turns out to be a top player. Still need a GK to compete with Artur and so we can reach a settlement with Bart, a CB and another striker/wide pacy player. That's with the current squad and doesn't take account of departures by Lovren and Morgan.

I wonder if Mark Clattenburg will be able to resist smirking or laughing (which I'd imagine could land him in hot water) when he officiates at his next Saints game and hears the chants about 'Adam Lallana, Clattenburg was right'. Even if he doesn't show any outward emotion I bet he has a good chuckle in the changing room after.

I'd really hope so, it would be sickening if he received a loyalty bonus. I'd imagine Reed told him to submit a transfer request to waive this which is probably where the final tantrum came from. As I posted a few weeks ago, he's on a par with Kenwyne Jones now and we all know what kind of reception he gets from Saints fans. What I want to know is whether he produced his best ever form last season to earn the move. If so, that means he wasn't giving 100% in the second half of 2012/13 when there was thread on here with the consensus that Puncheon should have been selected ahead of him. I know he picked up that nasty injury v Reading in November 2012 that probably held him back a bit but I do wonder. I do hope now that certain posters - and they know who they are - start giving the club a bit of a break. With MP and Lallana gone, that might be the two most rotten apples out of the barrel. This doesn't apply at all to either Rickie or Shaw, who were seemingly professional throughout the process of their moves.