SaintBobby

Stunning signing.

I think my order would be 1. Austin 2. JWP 3. Davis 4. Gabbiadini 5. Bertrand

I thought we were easily the better team today. Then I saw the stats. So, I have decided to ignore stats from now on!

Can someone explain why the European angle is a problem. The narrative is that no English club could buy once the season starts, but could still sell to foreign clubs. Why not change the rules so that English clubs can neither buy nor sell once the season begins?

Which papers? Genuine question. I googled "Southampton Walcott transfer" and nothing came up on the first few pages (well, nothing recent)

Thanks for this. I was wondering why we didn't yet have a thread on the Virgil issue. Really grateful for you starting one!

Davis as club captain. Romeu as team captain.

This one does look like getting over the line, no?

I'm a fan of the "long contract" strategy, although it hasn't really been tested yet. I don't think you can say that bigger clubs won't still come in, but it does give the club the whip hand. It also acts as a deterrent though. Let's assume (just for sake of argument) that Shane Long is an average player who we want to keep. We'd be battling to keep him if he had just a year left on his contract. For more desirable players (Redmond, Cedric, Bertrand and Tadic), the long contracts act as a major block to us losing them. VVD is an exception - he is a world class player, not just an excellent player.

FourFourTwo magazine predict we will finish 8th.

Pretty pleased with today's performance. We did seem to press high up the pitch with our attacking players, but my impression was that we dropped as deep as normal when the ball was in our half. Cedric outstanding. Stephens, Romeu and Davis very good. The new Flannigan kid looks promising. Redmond had a poor game. Surprised we didn't see any of Austin or Hojberg.

Disagree. You may as well include academy players who get a contract then. If we sign up 10 of them a season, our recent signings list looks poor. If we sign up none, it looks stronger.

It's a depressing list, but also a deceptive one. If we now sign ten players for £1 each, does that matter?

I think this rule will be used sparingly. I think we may get no bans this season.

The club are doing the right thing. Patience is a virtue. Just see this out.

Agree on Boufal. Or hope I agree. Could be a break out season for him. Mind you, he could also just continue to frustrate. But he is the one to watch. I reckon about 10th in the league, but some exciting football.

He's the makeweight in tomorrow's deal with Coutinho coming to St. Mary's?

All the usual riders...can't read anything into a pre-season friendly etc etc But we looked pretty damned good there in the 2nd half.

Taylor nowhere on that cross. Thought Fraser was in goal for a second! :-)

everyone else got feed down?

Anyone watching this feed http://www.footballwhispers.com/blog/watch-live-st-etienne-v-southampton ...will see that we apparently beat Brentford 2-0 according to the text above the stream. Things are looking up.

What the utter f**k is that thing on the upper tier behind one of the goals (the one we are attacking in the 2nd half)? A prison? A concentration camp? A torture chamber?

Yeah, 96 fans being criminally killed and a three decade cover-up is a right little giggle, isn't it?

Yeah, I reckon they are. If there is one thing Liverpool do appreciate, it's that virtually all non-psycho football fans of all clubs are on their side on his one. So, yeah, I'd say they are glad for that.

Thanks, that being so, I'd think £200m is a snip. As mentioned up thread, you could get much more than that by simply selling all the players and you'd still have a stadium, club, brand name etc.