Saint Charlie

To be fair Fox's delivery is quality, but if a quick break happens it leaves us out of shape, especially as he takes them from the right.

Yeah that was his best moment. He also had a couple of decent shots and I think the key for us is to get him involved near the opposition area as he is the player who has that creative spark to make or take a chance. We have plenty of tidy passers around the mid third of the pitch but he can make a difference for us where it counts. He also took a couple of lovely corners.

On Saints Player Puncheon was asked about Ramirez and a massive grin came over his face and he said something like, "Gaston is a player, when he is fully settled in you will see how good he is. In training he never gives the ball away." You could tell he thought he was class, and from what Adkins has said the rest of the squad do. Definitely a good sign about his ability, but also as he is liekly to be earning more than the others its obviously not an issue if his abaility stands out to the squad - he will clearly help the other players.

Their youth scouting network identifies some good young talent from South America and because of the lighter work permit restrictions they can bring them in and work with them. Good example of this is Taison their striker who they brought in from Internacional and midfielder Sebastian Blanco who joined from Argentina as a teenager. Some of the best Ukrainian talents began at Kharkiv but often get snapped up by the bigger Russian sides and the Kiev teams. 18 year old defender Denys Barvinko is meant to be one of the best they have seen through their youth system and affiliate club Metalurh Zaporizhya and is already on the fringe of the senior squad. They are currently ranked above Spurs in the Fifa rankings.

Silly as it sounds they clearly have a well respected youth policy. Just can't keep the players they produce away from Dynamo Kiev and the top Russian teams.

Can you and Dig Dig take this Scholes, Seaborne, Richardson, Commerical Pilot stuff onto PM so we can talk about the Villa game? Looks like Benkete might start for them.

I was there, and would have said Davis, Fonte and Fox were all worse. Lallana and S Davis easily on a par at best.

What do you expect him to say? "We are good but Southampton had a miles better squad than we do so we probably wont get promoted."

He was decent vs City too. Plus no worse than any other midfielder at Arsenal.

I thought it was a good interview. He started grinning when talking about how good Gaston was. Seems genuinely happy to be at Saints still and only had praise for Adkins and Cortese. Says having kids and a family to lead has made him grow up and says he has in no way fulfilled the potential he has.

Heard about this. There is a follow up session at the new Metalist kharkiv training setup in the Ukraine. Reed and Hunter are going and I expect Barca representatives too.

Fair enough

Both plausible. If it was someone inside Saints then I think they would have waited until the deal was a bit nearer to completion - both Clyne and Rodriguez were reported far in advance of the deal actually beign completed. In Jay's case Nixon then reported that Villa were keen. Surely more likely an agent drumming up more interest than someone at Saints - can't see the benefit of that for the club? And I expect the inner details of transfer offers etc arent known by that many people at Saints so if someone is leaking then its a fairly important employee. Nixon also didn't know much on ramirez - he said himself. If it was a saints source then surely they would know more about that deal than any other? Ditto Yoshida.

True - however, we had sorted his work permit out well in advance of him signing according to the OS (as with Ramirez), so Adkins might have been bluffing - to sort a WP out would a proof of contract be needed?

Most of this probably comes from Agents I would imagine. He obviously has some good contacts and Agents clearly know who is talking to who etc..

This. Can see one of these two options really: ------------Davis--------- Clyne---Jose----Maya-------Fox Puncheon--Morgan---JWP/SD---Lallana -----------Ramirez--------------- ----------Lambert-------------- or ------------Davis---------------- Clyne---Fonte---Maya------Fox -------Morgan---Davis--------- -------------JWP--------------- Ramirez------------------Lallana -----------Lambert------------- IMO it doesnt matter which formation, just about getting our best players on the ball as much as possible.

Sums it up for me, the press/Media have made the current situation a lot more negative than it actually is for a Saints fan. of course if we lose the enxt two games then its different but we certainly have a good chance to beat Villa if we tighten up.

Top teams maybe on a par but the rest are miles better than they used to be. Some every decent teams will finish in the bottom half this season. Strength in depth it must be better than the Spanish league.

Not much to argue with there and I agree we have to stop making basic defensive errors - suggests its more about the concentration/nerves/getting used to step up in class rather than the defenders arent good enough per se. It just gest frustrating when people post as if they don't realise how good three of the teams we played are. City should have beaten Real Madrid on Tuesday and Arsenal after beating us went and won away against the French Champions. This isnt Barnsley or Crystal Palace - its a very tough league where to survive we need less than half the number of points we got last season. We have played some great footy so far at times and certainly need to tighten up. But at least we know that, and we wont face anyone better than we already have done. West ham have played Villa, Swansea, Fulham and Norwich - of course you cant say for sure - but we would have got points against those teams IMO.

Not sure what your point is? We all know we have conceded too many goals, but we also know we have played possibly the best three teams in the league - Im sure City and United will score 3+ goals in a fair amount of their league games and we were also likely to get a kicking a few times this season - only Arsenal have given us one. On the flip side, we have demonstrated that we can score against these teams also - and get goals from open play. Clearly we need to tighten up the defence, nobody is denying that. The question I have for you is - if these games had been spread through the season you wouldn't be overly concerned - you expect it against those teams. Surely you have to give the team a chance in some games vs teams around our sort of level, ie the next run of 5. Wigan was not a great display but we hit the bar twice and their keeper was MOTM. there was a lot of pressure on that game because we knew the others would be tough. If we concede 17/18 in the next 5 games then of course we would all worry.

There was for Arsenal so he was kind of right

Regardless of Davis it is/was pretty clear that Hammond (certainly) and Sharp (most probably) were not going to be up to the Premier League - can't really see what our issue is with those moves - we had to remove some players to make way for the ones we brought in. They are both decent Championship players, but very few would have put them in our starting team this season, and Hammond wouldn't have been a first choice for many last year. You also have to remember that some players do want to play - and Im sure Hammond wouldnt have been too happy sitting in the stands every week.

Clearly not, but they hadn't scored which is another key part of football. Plus they only played 2 of top 3 not 3 like we have. They conceded 4 in 4 league games and were considered to have a very good defence. Just shows how tough the Prem is. Ultimately we are only a win away from moving out the relegation zone and that's the key. No team will be relegated ever after 4, 5 or even 10 games. In any case, let's compare results once we have got to 10games.

Yep, they hadn't scored in the first four and had two points. Hardly a world away from where we are.

Sacking AP was a good decision, worked out best for both parties and loaning out Sharp is very logicial - he wouldnt have got many games.