SaintBobby

This is a really good point. We arent really stitched together to make the most of JWP. We might do better with some Heskey style player or a commading and tall midfielder. (Yosh was quite good from set pieces, but Bednarek and Stephes less so)

If it goes to an employment tribunal, the players will win. This may take 1+ years or it may take 2+ years. But it will surely happen. Of that, have no doubt. No doubt at all.

It has been ridiculous really. I’m not asking for a free service, but what’s the website for? Just make it into a Saints shop and provide no news if you want, but it’s so far behind other reporting that it’s not worth bothering with. It doesn’t even provide official confirmation of breaking news a day or two later. Do it properly or bin it.

Palace away

A few odd things going on at the moment. The shirt sponsor has pulled out, apparently (no confirmation from the club). The pitchside dining experience planned for Saturday and Sunday was cancelled on Tuesday due to “weather and availability”. The Matt Crocker zoom webinar planned for this week was suddenly cancelled yesterday with a stated vague aspiration to rearrange it next month or in October. Something big happening behind the scenes?

Wellbeck would be utterly bizarre. Would be an almost polar opposite of the type of player we claim to be targeting.

Fulham away, Man Utd home.

Been very hard to get on in the last 24 hours. As suggested above, can get to the homepage, but clicking on The Saints just tends to lead to getting timed out. It’s a pity, I know Steve has invested time and money in getting into this new platform, but it seems the problem is pretty fundamental and obviously has moved well beyond a few glitches at the beginning for a day or two.

I agree that he will likely only be there a year at most. Even if he does well, Xavi is likely to get it when the new President comes in. Obviously, if he wins La Liga and the CL, it might be different. But the hurdle to survive is insanely high - even by Barcelona standards.

Really pleased. Kind of weird how slow the OS is on reporting these things though - this was in the Telegraph about a week ago, no?

Koeman, Ball, Pochettino. Ralph not far behind.

All very bizarre and dodgy. I'm trying to work out if this is now a very valuable collector's item or not! https://www.southamptonfc.com/store/saints-memorabilia/20-21-framed-signed-shirt/c-1/c-261/p-3192

Are we still worried that if Chilwell goes for a big money move then Leicester come in for Bertrand or has he signed a new contract yet?

Been unable to get on most of the day...maybe one time in 3 I have got on, V frustrating tbh.

It would depend what you miss. If I went to Spain now, I would miss a board meeting on my return through my own decisions. That's very serious.I'd expect more than a one-off wage cut by way of sanction. Maybe not the sack, but something very serious.

I don’t know what you mean by “legally punish”. They aren’t the police or the courts. I’d be fired though if I went to Spain for my booked annual leave - it would mean I could not conduct my duties (a whole range of diary appointments and meetings already arranged) upon my return. If employees act in a way that they know specifically prevents them carrying out their work, they’d likely be severely sanctioned or sacked. And rightly and legally so.

It has the same effect. Companies can’t physically stop employees doing things really - swearing and using racist language on twitter, having sex with people they line manage, drinking ten pints of beer at lunchtime, engaging in armed robbery, defocating on the office carpet, taking a pickaxe to every computer in the building or going somewhere on holiday which involves quarantining afterwards - what they can do is to “advise” strongly against these things and punish you severely if you do any of them. This has the same effect.

My company has basically done this and are advised it’s legally sound. We can’t physically stop staff going abroad, but if they end up needing quarantine, they will be placed on unpaid leave and may be sanctioned further. If staff act in a way that makes it harder/impossible to carry out their contracted obligations, they can be sanctioned. Pretty severely.

I'm lost. Even more lost than usual....

This has to happen!

Yep, that is a logistical nightmare but could boost attendance a lot.

On some of the academy/ex-academy players, I’m relaxed if they are deep squad players. If Josh Sims is our 4th/5th choice attacking midfielder, that’s fine by me. Valery is absolutely fine as 2nd choice right back. Don’t know much about Alfie Jones, but again can we do better for a 4th/5th choice centre back? I’d like us to put most resources into the starting XI (plus maybe 2 or 3 others). If the deeper squad is a bit tilted to Championship level players, so be it. The recent nightmare has been spending c£15m and £60k pw on players who don’t play for us very much or even at all.

That would surely raise some pretty big financial issues - both for lower division clubs who want more games not fewer and presumably repaying the sponsor in full (I guess they might still have to pay a % back if the competition is diminished).

It’s now linked to the new third tier European competition - the conference league or whatever. Which sounds a bit like the Intertoto Cup in terms of excitement (we would be unlikely to be playing Inter Milan etc, but rather teams from much smaller leagues) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/EFL_Cup

Am yet to see any hard facts on how the League Cup will operate next season. Some reports suggest that teams in European competition will not participate or will be allowed to field development/academy teams. A bit odd that there seems no confirmation on this given there are suggestions that the first round will be played before the Premier League restart one September 12th. With only around 3 weeks to go, I’d have thought they’d have resolved who is actually entering the Cup. If the competition is “downgraded” might that actually be a reason for Saints to take it much more seriously? You can imagine we might be amongst the three or four favourites to win it. I gather that it no longer comes with a Europa League spot, but it’s still silverware. Sort of like a beefed up version of the JPT.