Saint Charlie

If you add Lallana and Ramirez to attacking options and take out Rodriguez from this season as we knew he would miss a huge chunk of it then its quite different. Mayuka as first go to option of the bench is poor. At times last season we were bringing on Lambert or Osvaldo, plus Ramirez and the first season also had Puncheon. With no attacking injuries aside from Jay long term, we have Mayuka as first option then either Isgrove or Hesketh. West Ham had Zarate on the bench unused yesterday, Swansea Dyer, Palace Puncheon etc and have Mayuka who has come on in the last 3 or 4 games. Would rather have Carlton Cole or Bobby Zamora.

I can't recall a game Long has started where he has been over 6/10 though? Maybe Newcastle at home, he had a good game before going off with concussion. But otherwise better as a sub. Better as a sub option when the hassling is more effective. He wastes most chances, has **** touch in tight areas and often just makes us seem more ragged. When we were at our best, Pelle and Tadic were bossing it because the midfield were playing with great shape, dominating possession and generally playing with quality. We have lost that lately.

Pelle was back something like his best tonight and I thought Tadic was decent. Davis and Wanyama did well and some of our passing moves were great, often until someone realised they needed to have a shot. Need to take chances obviously and Long especially just has no composure. Still think he was a bizarre signing at that sort of money, especially given the role we ask him to play. For me Long should be an impact sub. Key for me is to get Morgan back and return to the proper 3 man midfield which then allows the full backs to get forward which is really our main differential versus many other teams. Will also be nice to get JWP back as the bench was horrendously lacking in options. No chance of that squad being top 4 because there are no options to change a game. Very thin squad. Mayuka pointless and no other forward options which is backwards on even our first PL season. Finally on players, Forster....so hesitant going off his line. Should have done against City and had to make a worldie save from Aguero and then today for the first goal he really could have got the ball if he had rushed out. Then he never comes and claims balls into the box with any authority. Better than Boruc? Not for me so far. Burnley probably our most "must win" game of the season so far to shift the momentum again, with tough games home to Everton and Chelsea and away to Palace to come. Could easily be 4th on Jan 1st and equally easily 8th. Big spell coming up. Also worth tempering expectations with the facts that we have lost to Liverpool, Spurs, City, Arsenal and United this season so far. Hardly horrendous but equally not the sign that a team is one of the best in the league.

Bench tonight and last few games isn't that of a top 4 side. No disgrace but we havent got the squad required. 5th or 6th doable and would be great.

Toby playing would be a massive boost, regardless of whether its in midfield or (preferably) at the back.

None of our academy lads play Adult football so why would he?

Its just newspapers trying to destabalize us because most of the London Journos are West Ham fans and see us as competition. Clyne is from Stockwell where honour is valued highly. He will sign a new contract, either with Saints or another team.

http://www.insidefutbol.com/2014/12/08/southampton-poised-to-win-race-for-new-zlatan-ibrahimovic/175342/ Promising if we can attract the best young talent due to the growing European rep of the club and the excellent facilities. Will be interesting to see if this actually happens but Gazzetta dello Sport usually reliable(ish). A few of the clips he looks about 10 years older than the opposition

Would be a big shame to lose Chambers and Clyne in successive seasons given how strong we were at right back last season. FAO Roger: no need to jump on this one, just an opinion, nobodies fault etc.

Centre backs are similar, our full backs and central midfielders are better than theirs though.

They certainly have a good amount of options up front. Zarate is a good player and he can barely get any pitch time.

Wonder how many teams have now had to use a keeper other than their no 1 this season? Must be at least 7 or 8. Hope we never have to! West Ham will be level on points with us if they win I think.

This guy is a top prospect. Scored a ludicrous goal tonight. https://vine.co/v/Or7YnzM5tUi Scored in his last 5 apps and attracting a lot of attention.

Koeman and Reed have both said it but don't let that get in the way. Most likely he will start playing for the first team roughly around start of Feb. Not sure what is nightmarish about saying that? FFS. http://m.basingstokegazette.co.uk/sport/11619623.Jay_Rodriguez____won___t_be_rushed____back_into_action_for_Saints/?ref=mr

He had another minor op and is on track to be back roughly start of Feb.

Standard of refereeing hasn't ever been worse in the PL era IMO.

Certainly interesting that Arsenal chose to rest Koscielny today rather than against us. But City were just miles better than us. Arsenal we were worthy of a point.

Surely he means some of the players we bought, probably Toby or Tadic etc?

Newcastle would only be 3 points behind us and everyone has been raving about our start. Has to be said that you won't stay ahead of teams at the top for long by taking 1 point from a possible 9. Table tightening up which reflects the reality I think. Could do with Chelsea equaliser.

If TA plays hopefully it will be at centre back!

Hard to know what is on about really.

Yeah, no point speculating on a football forum. Haha.

Regardless of their attack, defensively they are still very getable. Despite injuries I would still leave either Long or Mane on the bench because its important to have someone from the bench that can come on to make an impact. I would go with: ----------------------------------Forster----------------------------------------- Clyne-----------Fonte------------------------Gardos---------------------Bertrand ----------------------Wanyama-----Davis------Reed---------------------------- Tadic-------------------------------------------------------------------------Mane ---------------------------------------Pelle---------------------------------------------

Ha. To be clear, my thoughts are as follows: - Its never ideal to let contracts of very good, young(ish) English players run down because there is a small market for them, the big clubs need them to keep up with the homegrown quotas etc, so they are in demand. - Once the player gets near the end of his deal, and there is a sniff of interest from a big club, its in his interest to sit out his contract and as they have on a transfer fee, the club will give him a lot of money in wages/signing on fees. - If the player says to the club they don't want to sign a new deal, the club will nearly always look to sell rather than get nothing for them. If we sell this summer, we would probably get decent money for both. - We did well last summer, but replicating that every year is difficult. Also to lose more English lads would be a blow, because we can't really afford top English players as replacements, so will end up being a foreign majority team (not that there is a lot wrong with that, but it has been nice having a big core of good, young English players). - I would hope the club has been trying to get Jay Rod and Clyne to sign new deals since this time last year, and I don't know that they haven't been, although then everything was looking good, so would have been a bit of a suprise if the player wouldnt have wanted a rise then. Now they have more options and more exposure. - If we offered one last year and both flatly refused then fine, we cannot do much more other than make the best offer we can. - Koeman said recently that talks would begin with Clyne because you don't want a player entering the last year of their contract. http://www.sportsmole.co.uk/football/southampton/transfer-talk/news/koeman-southampton-in-clyne-talks_190060.html That would be a strange thing to say if the talks had been ongoing for a year or so, or if the player had said a year ago that he didn't want to sign. - There was also the Cork and Fonte saga from the summer, which is only partly sorted out. Hopefully Cork stays, seems silly to wait so long to sort it and can't be great for the player who has been excellent for us. Summary: Clyne and Rodriguez will probably be sold this summer because their contracts are running down. We will get decent fees, but a shame to lose good players, especially Clyne who has developed a lot at Saints. If the Board tried to get him to sign last year and he didn't then fair play. If they only started talking after the summer, then IMO that is too late. We will probably never know.

Clyne would be mad to turn them down now though. In all seriousness it would be a great move for him (if it materialised).