Saint Charlie

As an aside the new PL ball is ****e. Too light and can see lots of players struggling to get it under control because it bobbles off the surface.

Very true. Current lineup is worse than last years as it stands. CB especially is a must. For their goal the move only came about after Yoshida made a dismal clearance.

Yoshida has been awful. The front four doesn't really work as we can't then dominate midfield.

Unfortunately no Williamson for them but Colocinni starts and hasnt played any pre season games I don't think.

Very attacking team. When we played with four attackers last year it always looked a bit unbalanced but certainly some firepower in that team!

Needless comments. Once we have paid the money they want for him and then Fonte can chat about him all he wants.

I don't see many posts writing him off. More just that he has got a solid base of experience now and needs to kick on and start earning a starting place every week at Saints which he has yet to do. Nothing wrong with that and until he does that he shouldn't have a chance of being picked for England, he hasn't earned a senior call up.

Indeed. Much better than Cuco so hopefully Saints can use it instead.

Martina has a middle name of Rhu-endly? Brilliant.

But players can only be signed until 1st Sept. So to waittil 26th Aug we need to be sure the deal can be done. Which seeing as we havent signed another CB or been particularly heavily linked with others, we must be.

How many of them would actually get in our team though? Cabaye and Wijnaldum aside, I can't think of any and we can't sign every available player. Club knows what to do.

@MurrayGroves: #SaintsFC interested in #BHAFC midfielder Dale Stephens too after doubts emerge over Jordy Clasie fitness.

He will never go to Real. But will have a good career. I can see both sides of the argument but saying something like "all he needs is consistency" is interesting because to me he is fairly consistent already. IMO all he needs is to add some aggression, tenacity, power to his game...not look to consistently do what he has so far.

Take him to Denmark instead!

He already has "made it" in many ways, he is a PL footballer and probably will be he his whole career, earning vast sums of money. Saints won't actively look to get rid of him anyway because they have built him up as the poster boy of the Academy and the one who stayed loyal and signed a long term contract, plus he is good enough to contribute for us. If he wants regular starts, he just needs to improve. Its not like he is competing with Fabreags for a place in our team.

Well, you can't be if you have never scored one in adult pro football! Hopefully this season will be the start!

All apart from live commentary. But if you are out of the Solent area it is worth the price for comms alone. Shame the commentary isn't easily available online in this day and age.

To be fair he did get dropped for them after the first game of the tournament because he cannot contribute to winning the ball back and they played him as a holding player. He has good technique but if he doesnt improve physically and add some aggression or tenacity to his game then he could only play deep for a team that have 70% possession i.e Barcelona or Eng U21s against Moldova U21s. Which is fine, play him further forward...but then he needs to start using his good technical ability to start influencing games, which in 70 odd PL apps he has struggled to do very often. Cliche but definitely a big season for him and IMO the England talk doesn't do him any favours. Can become a very very good player but this is his 4th PL season, so when will it click? Seems a genuinely nice person from having spoken to him a couple of times at the Awards Night so really hope he kicks on!

Is Tadanari Lee fit for this one?

Too attacking, could maybe have got away with it when we had Morgan, but not with Davis alongside Vic. Would play Reed or Clasie if fit alongside Vic with Davis just in front. Still doesn't quite look as a good a lineup as we had last year but hopefully a top CB and another CM will help.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-3187922/Southampton-prodigy-James-Ward-Prowse-targeting-senior-England-chance.html?ITO=1490&ns_mchannel=rss&ns_campaign=1490 JWP targetting an England first team call up.

Half of those players aren't fully fit apparently. Coloccini not played any of pre season.

Team I saw was: Krul Janmaat, Taylor, Williamson, Haidara Colback, Anita Obertan, Wijnaldum, Sissoko Cisse

Mark Hughes has spent the last two years trying to rectify it.

Is Erwin doing a pre match press conference?