positivepete

We are not doing well with knee injuries recently. Have a good recovery Gardos.

J Rod was very effective playing from that position before he was injured. I am sure we will see more movement across the line this season.

Not much around the ground but inside the ground there is a bar just outside each block entrance in the ground, but you have to buy vouchers in a hut where you walk in, before you go 20 flights up!

There is a wider logic to this. Dutch players, or those from other countries that also do well in the Eridivisie, tend to have the technical attributes we are looking for to match our style of play. Most Dutch players speak very good English and so are likely to settle quickly. We do seem to attempt to take the bigger picture into account before we sign someone.

Mario Licka looking for a club... http://www.theguardian.com/football/2015/jul/22/fifpro-tournament-unemployed-footballers-lifeline

Nine, because I bought my Stoke away ticket on the gate!

Mine was processed overnight.

Just checked, not yet.

Top 4 Man Utd Chelsea Arsenal City Saints - 55 points Bottom 3 Watford Norwich Leicester None of them will reach 30 points First to go: Ranieri Top scorer: Aguero Bournemouth will start well and do enough in the first half of the season to avoid relegation after struggling in the second half. During this time their ownership structure will come under scrutiny and they will dive back down the leagues after the financial support is withdrawn. Eddie Howe will be poached next summer by another mid table Premier Club. For saints, Mane will have a great season as will Clasie. Callum Slattery will make his first team debut. Forster will not play. Agree that England will brush aside the remaining sides in the qualifiers and made to look very average in the high profile friendlies in the Euros, we will battle our way to the quarters, get dumped out playing boring, negative football. only play 1 good game in the whole competition with Roy stating how delighted he is. He will then leave

I believe that there was a Bosman style case being prepared against UEFA. Not sure if went to court or UEFA changed the rules in response.

Well said, and as Les Reed pointed out in the interview (and Redsio has pointed out in his blogs) we cannot suddenly go throwing around big wages because of the constraints of the Financial Fair Play regulations.

Might as well get Van Beek from Feyenoord whilst we are at it. He will be a class CB, although only 21 now.

Liverpool are an interesting case in terms of soccernomics. They bought Downing to provide crosses for Carroll. The bought a number of our players presumably because we played a similar pressing game to them so they knew the players had the right attributes. But the strange thing was that they rarely used any of the players in the way it might be assumed they bought them for. Something does not seem joined up there. Back to squad size; in my professional area I visit many industrial plants around the world and one of the common issues is the poor way companies treat their revenue producing assets. For me it is no surprise that the best clubs run on smaller squad sizes, these are the clubs who invest in better quality assets and invest in looking after them. A mantra I keep on to my clients about. The table on post 16 of this thread is a good example of that, I might try and put that into a future presentation!

Yes. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/liverpool/11738370/Why-Christian-Benteke-could-be-a-bad-signing-for-Liverpool.html

With Suarez, Wanyama, and Clasie we will not be winning the fair play league. All are pretty combative and all pick up regular cards, so having all three makes sense!

Which press? Martin Samuel?! He still can't get his head around anything positive about Saints.

2.73 points last season, 13 wins 2 draws

Couldn't have been much further out! Interesting choice, suggests a different style of play and more ambition than just staying up. Not saying it will work mind you, but I am sure a lot of other clubs fans thought that of us when we appointed our last two managers.

Says here he will travel to Austria http://www.theguardian.com/football/2015/jul/06/southampton-morgan-schneiderlin-27m-manchester-united

Cover, Bertrand has just had an op on both knees and will be out for six weeks http://www.theguardian.com/football/2015/jul/06/southampton-cuco-martina-transfer-ryan-bertrand-surgery

If they are good enough they are tall enough! Classie will do fine in the EPL.

http://www.theguardian.com/football/2015/jul/01/stoke-xherdan-shaqiri-inter-agree-fee We were linked with Shaqiri last year I think. Could do worse, swap for Gaston? !

Classie will be key in keeping the tempo of the passing high, he will be key in the transition from defence to attack but will not get forward much further than the centre circle in the opponents half.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/football/teams/manchester-united/transfers/11701461/Morgan-Schneiderlin-Why-Arsenal-Man-Utd-and-Tottenham-want-him.html Article on Morgan stating how valuable he is....

The couple of times I have seen him play live he had good distribution which given the pace in our side will add to our transition prowess.