Midfield_General

Who's that I spy making a cameo appearance down in the bottom right corner of that picture? It's the lesser spotted Mr Spirit-Of-Southampton-Scarves-For-Arms-Squiggle-For-A-Body-Alternative-Club-Badge-Man! He's been discussed before, but very rarely seen in the wild. A collector's item indeed.

I have to say, I don't remember watching Kelvin Davis, Danny Fox, Jos Hooiveld, Dean Hammond, Richard Chaplow, Jason Puncheon, Billy Sharp and Guly hoisting aloft the Champion's League trophy or the PL. Playing international football at some point in your career also isn't really a particularly high benchmark, especially if you're from one of the smaller nations. And none of the players you're presumably referring to were at international level at that point either. Schneiderlin, Fonte and Shaw didn't get called up for their countries until two years later, in line with their development. Ward-Prowse didn't get capped until 2017. Lallana and maybe Lambert were the only ones who were really close to that level at that point, and even then it was another year before either of them got called up. The rest, while undoubtedly talented and with a lot of potential, were still very much a work in progress when Adkins was managing them. It's not like we were buying full internationals when we were in the Championship. Loads of players from other clubs who have gone on to play international football will have played in the Championship as youngsters at some point as well, that's not unusual at all.

Lavia's injured, unfortunately...

I suspect Blackmore has a personal relationship with Ralph/ Semmens that pre-dates Sports Republic. It’s mutually beneficial. Ralph and Semmens give Blackmore first dibs on the info that they are happy to share, which keeps him relevant, and in return Blackmore takes the soft soap approach, takes their side and rarely asks them difficult questions. So if Ralph and/ or Semmens go, it weakens Blackmore’s position as he doesn’t have that same relationship with SR, and the next guy may not want to have the same relationship with him. Hence, it’s in Blackmore’s interests to defend Ralph and Semmens and try to keep the status quo in place for as long as possible.

I like to read that as Salisu, JWP and Perraud as three goalkeepers, with McCarthy offering selfless running and hold-up play as the lone striker. it’s the last thing they’ll be expecting (taps nose)

Which is mystifying, given that - as also discussed on another thread - AMN isn’t a defensive midfielder, never has been, and sees himself as a winger. When we’re signing wingers to do the dirty work at defensive mid it’s no wonder our midfield is in the shitter. Might as give Theo a go there, why not, let’s try and get our money’s worth for that seventy grand a week or whatever ridiculous deal it was that he was given.

Gosh, that's a surprise

Nicky Banger. Hat trick on his debut in the league cup. Fair to say that was the highlight of his career.

Serious question. Ralph’s under a lot of pressure at the moment for our poor form, but if you were him, what would you change to try and save your job? Has to be within the confines of what is actually possible given the players we have in the squad, Livramento and Lavia being out injured, the fact that the window is closed, etc. What do you think he could realistically do with the resources available to him that might help us get results against West Ham and Bournemouth? (And ‘resign’ doesn’t count!)

Preferring 6 points to 3 - it’s innovative thinking but it might just work (Just joking 😉 - I know what you meant)

The problem there though is that AMN isn’t an out and out defensive midfielder and never has been. He’s certainly not a specialist like Romeu was. AMN has said that he considers his best position to be as a winger. So when Lavia is out, because JWP or Diallo aren’t that player either despite how much we seem to want to pretend they are, we have no other proper ‘destroyer’ type defensive midfielders at all. AMN won’t solve that. And that’s one of the reasons our midfield is so ineffective at the moment - the balance is all wrong. Plus, Romeu could receive the ball, protect it and play out successfully from tight situations, which none of the others can do as well as he did. So we’ve lost that element of ball retention too. Our midfield and attack are just a mess at the moment, which is why we’re so poor.

We’ve got a goalkeeping coach. Andrew Sparkes.

This is bullshit. No attacking intent whatsoever. (I'm joking of course. If we can shithouse and timewaste our way to a 0-3 or 0-4 I'll be absolutely delighted).

Lopetegui now available - sacked last night by Sevilla

New young keeper has signed on a free: https://www.hampshirelive.news/sport/football/football-news/southampton-transfer-everton-manchester-city-7633316?int_source=nba

Bella-Kotchap on the bench for Germany. Nice. Who’s the last German full international we had?

Rangers

I know… it’s very misleading, but “Ancient_Unused_Keeper” just didn’t have the same ring to it

Ancient, unused 3rd keeper. The Willy Caballero/ Stuart Taylor/ Kevin Miller role. Basically just there for moral support and praying that The Cat and/or Cloggy don't get injured.

Nice! I don’t remember it, but that’s great. Just a shame we couldn’t get it out of him a bit more often.

Nearly, but not quite - Anders Svensson got 148 caps for Sweden and Shilton got 125 caps for England. There might be a couple of others who got 100+ too. Bale's also had 100 caps for Wales and will get a few more at the WC, so will also shortly join that club!

He was a funny one. Most capped player of all time for Sweden playing 148 international games, many as captain, and often brilliant for them, yet routinely bang average or anonymous for us. There was a proper player in there, but we just didn’t seem to be able to work out how to get it out of him. I remember him being a fixture in the team for quite a while, but off the top of my head can’t remember a single significant contribution. I’m sure he did some good things for us, I just can’t remember any - all his moments of brilliance were for Sweden.

John ‘Budgie’ Burridge. Massive show-off, very average goalkeeper.

Literally the worst first-team goalkeeper we've ever had in my lifetime. Though run close by Chris Woods. Both made Dave Beasant look like Peter Schmeichel.

Neil Shipperley Jan Bednarek