jayrivers

Being on the Comitee doesn't mean they are identifying targets. Also perhaps they say people have is weighted on what kind of player it is. Whether they are first team, or a youth prospect? There are a lot of factors to consider in buying a player, but obviously if someone is on the committee then it means they are signing players!

Yeh but that makes too much sense

I would image it could be quite difficult! Where does everyone get this idea that you can just say, right lets buy a better centre back. There are 100 reasons why this didn't happen. An nowhere is it evident that one deal was at expense of another!

We needed to spend money to get players, had we not we wouldn't be where we are, but probably would have been cut adrift. All in all our transfers have been a success. With one or two taking longer to settle. But that's to be expected. The premier league can be a tough leage to get used to. For whatever reason we didn't sign anyone else. no one knows why. That's the end of that. I don't see your point? What did you expect? Use to be mid table? Hardly realistic is it. We didn't have a prem squad when we came up. I feel we are getting very close to having a very competitive one!

All the articles from reputable news agencies are dated from august and july - before we signed him? As stated about - smacks of someone asking them about him. Bit like what happened when he was asked about would he go back to Italy

Well we have him until the summer at least anyway! So lets not worry about it too much yet...

It scares me they will be out to prove a point now on Saturday

Those are the figures quoted on the sky article http://www1.skysports.com/football/news/11700/8385342/Southampton-s-offer-for-Davide-Astori-some-way-short-of-Cagliari-s-valuation

That's kind of my point. If all the money dropped out of EPL then I think you would see a max exidous to Europe. The same way a lot of Italian Teams are trying to offload players at the moment?

I think until now there hasn't been a reason for Italians to leave Italy. But as there is no money then it's an easier decision to make? You could argue the same, why havn't many English players moved abroad. Because there is money in the Prem and it's where they want to play.

So to get this back on topic. His agent has said Saints are one of the clubs interested. Nothing new but always promising when things are reported by sky and/or bbc? http://www1.skysports.com/football/news/11700/8379961/Southampton-are-one-of-the-clubs-wanting-Davide-Astori-his-agent-has-confirmed

Yep I think he will too. I would assume if he impresses then next season might find himself at a championship club for a while

To a certain extent I think that is determined by the sort of player you have in your team? I feel Saints have been very careful about their player recruitment and put a lot of emphasis on the players personality. Personally I feel we have very few people who would jump ship at the first site of more money (there are going to be some exceptions). Obviously that might be different with new accademy players that may have not been chosen in the same manner. But you can cash in on some and keep the others. It all depends how many we are able to produce. 2 players a year should be more than sifficient to have 50% from the accademy. Also first team football is a big factor for some players. There is no way we can hold onto everyone, no matter who you are someone else will come sniffing. But keeping just a few more than we have been is a start. And I feel that will happen.

The one thing that he very strongly hinted as was him wanting Davis to stay on in a coaching role. Hopefully this might happen?

Also Ryan Seager has been knocking them in for U18s. Might give him some good game time?

That is the assumption I am making

In the chelsea pre-match interview thing on saints player he said Gazza is one for the future, Kelvin has been tremendous and will always have a big role to play at the club, Boruc has impressed massively in training. But now he needs to make a decision as to who he is going to give a good run of games to

Will be intereting to see how he gets on with some first team football. Could be abother for the future?

This sums it up for me. I feel all the people moaning now would also have been the first to moan if we signed players that didn't improve what we have. I remember only a few weeks ago some people saying that yoshida was a waste and pointless signing and where is Aaron Martin! The player has to fit with the team, want to be here, and improve what we have. For players like Rodriguez he's obviously for the future, but I don't think any of the players we signed were at the expense of signing someone else. Some deals just don't happen for whatever reason. Look at Buttner deal falling through. Also I don't want to end up like QPR signing everyone at over-inflated prices and high wages!

Maybe we did but couldn't sign them for a hundred different reasons? It's not as easy as some people seem to think. There is more to offering money...

A few weeks ago we fielded the youngest squad of the season (when Gazza was playing), but Villa beat that at the weekend. I can't image there would have been much in it!

Having a look at next weekends games and beyond this is what I think the table could look like come the new year. And all things considering I think it could make quite good reading considering our start and how things were looking. Or I could just being over optimistic about results going our way? Seems quite a few of the other teams have some very tricky games coming up 14 Aston Villa-----18pts----L Chelsea 15 Newcastle------18pts----D QPR 16 Saints----------18pts----W Sunderland 17 Sunderland----16pts----L Saints 18 Wigan----------15pts----L Arsenal 19 QPR------------11pts----D Newcastle 20 Reading--------9pts----L Arsenal, L Man City Then going on to the boxing day games 14 Saints----------19pts----D Fulham 15 Aston Villa-----18pts----L Spurs 16 Newcastle------18pts----L Man Utd 17 Sunderland-----16pts----L Man City 18 Wigan-----------15pts----L Arsenal 19 QPR-------------12pts----D West Brom 20 Reading---------10pts----D Swansea After the 30th/31st games 14 Aston Villa-----21pts----W Wigan 15 Saints----------19pts----L Stoke 16 Newcastle------18pts----L Arsenal 17 Sunderland-----16pts----L Spurs 18 Wigan-----------15pts----L Aston Villa 19 QPR-------------13pts----D Liverpool 20 Reading---------10pts----D West Ham Then after new year games 14 Aston Villa-----22pts----D Swansea 15 Saints----------19pts----L Arsenal 16 Newcastle------18pts----L Everton 17 Sunderland-----17pts----D Liverpool 18 Wigan-----------15pts----L Man Utd 19 QPR-------------13pts----L Chelsea 20 Reading---------10pts----L Spurs As I said - I might not be giving other teams enough credit. But despite me thinking we may only pick up 4 points, there is still a chance the table could look alright?

When recently in Bruges a man started talking to me outside his shop (no idea what he was selling and he was dressed like a tradition belgium I guess? maybe? Looked like fancy dress anyway!) and he has a saints badge/flag thing in his shop

I mean more how they will develop compared to use over a longer period. I hope in 5 years we are doing consistently better than those two. Maybe that's just me wishing though! I would hope we can consitently push top 10/12? Maybe with a few seasons we push a bit further?

Will be interesting to see how those teams fair after 5 years compared to ourselves. Personally i would expect us to be a much stronger team then? Maybe with the exception of Stoke. But then their fans hate how they play football. I woull ideally prefer our style of football.