SaintBobby

As stated above, we would have "tied". Play-offs do take place for position (as was possible between Chelsea and Arsenal), but are only actioned if they are "meaningful" (race for 1st, 3rd and 17th, always, I think.....plus maybe for a Europa spot had that kicked in?).

Agreed. All on 2 words. Squad depth.

Aye. I think they've sorted out this weird thing by which most Italian-based players are co-owned. Not sure if that applies to Astori, but if it did, it's squared. Only issue will be salary, I think. I think he'll be our first signing. (if he isn't, I think something may have gone badly wrong!)

Fair play. But that's surely a "Who is our starting XI" thread. Not a "CDAJFU" thread?

Yep :-) Deal done for about £9m. Contractual terms TBD. I reckon he's in, but that last hurdle or two could still trip it.

I'd shift S Davis to "undecided" and Kelvin to "def" (as no. 2 keeper). I think Fonte is also leaning towards "def". Lallana is clearly a def (if he question really is CDAJFU?) Astori, if we nail it, is also a def for next year. (I accept he's not a current Saint, but should be soon)

No idea on date. But the first signing will probably be Astori for c. £9m. It may unravel, but he's pretty much "first in" barring a clusterf*ck (which is possible)

This too. Offer me 14th right now for next season and I'm saying yes. I think we could do quite a bit better, but I'd take 14th now.

Clyne and Cork were excellent. 8/10 for both. Cork probably MotM. I sort of felt we would have got all 3 points if we'd really needed them and Stoke hadn't. Only slight sour taste for me is that when I first saw the fixture list, I thought the last 6 games wld be 10+ points and keep us up. We took just 4 points. But, overall, 14th is excellent. I think this current squad would get to about 10th-12th next year, but I'm hoping we improve on the present squad. Fair aim is top half. But, tbh, I'd take a comfortable 14th again....

In fairness (god, I can't believe I'm saying that!) Redknapp said he'd "take 37 points". Given QPR's abominable performance under his management, he was right here. Actually, he should have taken 30. Amazingly, he has made Mark Hughes look like a competent Premier League manager.As it turned out, Saints would have stayed up on 36 points given our superior goal difference?A number of fools, trolls and cretins suggested 40 points or more would have been needed to stay up.Best to treat these people as laughably infantile in future.Particular highlight was the "We are going down" thread as Sunderland went 1-0 up. I doubt the utter moron who posted that will be back. Which is sad, in a way, as I think he'd receive useful therapy from people on here if he wasn't so predictably wrong (amongst other predictions were that we would miss out on L1 and Championship auto-promotion...do not buy any financial product or take any financial advice from this man!).It's also crushing to see the "yoyo strategy" in tatters. Hell only knows how we adapt to a "staying up" strategy. The business plan must be in bits....

Does Shaw being under 18 mean he can go for a song? I seem to recall a similar problem with Walcott. If Chelsea offering him a contract now (or next week), would we get anything more than a derisory fee for him? As to the OP's question, depends on price for me rather than "loan back". Ultimately, every club is a selling club if the price is right. I definitely would rather keep him than take £10m though. But if you doubled that to £20m, I'd definitely sell.

I'm not scared of being successful at all. But I think it's worth keeping a sense of realism. If Terry Paine had said "Saints are going to win the league next season by at least ten points", I'd consider that mental rather than ambitious. Saying we could finish top 4 is clearly less mental, but still pretty damned fanciful IMHO.

Top 4 sounds mental to me. I think the top 5 are some considerable away of the rest and then Liverpool and Everton are measurably better than the teams from 8th downwards. Maybe Everton will unravel a bit without Moyes, especially if they lose some of their stronger players. But I still think this makes 7th, and more likely 8th, the highest reasonable target for some while.

Such foresight. What a moron.

I reckon about £40m gross, maybe £30m-£35m net.

I hope he doesn't leave. It's pure comedy club every time he pops up.

I hope they resolve this sort of stuff soon. We all care more about what happens on the pitch rather than admin issues, but the club are spectacularly bad at the latter.

Awesome thread. Has been truly enlightening and most informative.

I think Alpine is right. This has been a disaster and no one will sign for Saints and we will probably still get relegated this season! LMAO. I'm guessing/hoping Astori is an early signing.

I'm in agreement with alpine_saint. This is a disaster for the club. We are certain to be relegated next season, and possibly even get relegated this weekend. No players will ever sign for Southampton with this level of uncertainty. In other news......get the fook in!!!!

This thread definitely gets filed under "happy clappy" :-)

Is there any suggestion/possibility that Cortese has other possible backers in reserve? E.g. some other rich family or a consortium steps in to buy the club off the Liebherr Trust. I'd imagine NC is well connected to a lot of very wealthy people.

Like I say, very binary. There's lots of things I don't think will happen - but I'd often accept there's still fair chance they actually could. Indeed, we still have a fair-ish shot of coming tenth even after a string of poor results. For example, I don't think Saints will win the FA Cup next season. But we have some sort of chance. I'm not going to say something as definitive as "It won't happen" just because the odds are measurably less than 50-50.

That's pretty shoddy if true - surely he gets his account shut down?

Do you think it's possible, even remotely possible, that this issue might be resolved before pre-season? You know, maybe in the next few days, or something? Gees. What a cretin. Why not start another thread "We're going down and won't be signing any new players". That should ensure several international superstars arrive at St Mary's within about 120 seconds.