positivepete

If you go back to the Swiss Ramble link, you can see from the P&L account we made a profit after tax, but the nett debt still increased. Our operating cost are negative and player sales keeps the ship afloat (2015 figures) Swiss ramble also noted that "The figures were “impacted by high exceptional costs” of £15 million, comprising £8 million of “onerous and cancelled contracts”, mainly the termination of Dani Osvaldo’s deal, and £7 million of player impairment, presumably including the 25% sell-on fee that Southampton had to pay Bournemouth following Lallana’s sale to Liverpool. This should have been worth £6.25 million, but it has been reported that Bournemouth accepted a reduced fee of £4 million in order to facilitate the move". Not to say all that is bad, without seeing the full accounts I would still be confident that the company is solvent. It will be interesting to see how the figures change in 2016 and 2017. Certainly we will have increased our wage bill in pound note terms this season against an increase in income, but we will have to wait 12 months to see the impact of that in the accounts.

The Swiss Ramble blog is a good place to start http://swissramble.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/southampton-with-or-without-you.html One year old, so a new post may be out soon

Top six Man City Man Utd Arsenal Spurs Liverpool Chelsea Bottom 3 Hull Palace Sunderland Saints 51 points, wherever that takes us

Can't be worse than Milan! Are we going to draw lots?

Isreal, just as well I have two passports, one for my Arab country entry stamps, and one for the rest!

The Times are reporting that the deal between the clubs is agreed but the player has yet to decide on the transfer

I am in Berlin match day 2, hoping for a local team that night

Concur with that. Ryan Seager also mentioned Jake Flannigan has been injured for 2 years. How heartbreaking for a young lad trying to make his way in the game. Very enjoyable watch and listen. Can see why we bought Harry Lewis, very assured, and a good presence in goal.

Under the new respect rules that would be deemed a yellow card offence. Complain twice and we would be sent off

It is more likely that the targets we were after we have either failed to land, or we cannot land until the end of the window, as was the case with VVD last season, where we had to wait for the qualifying rounds to finish.

Excellent post, thank you block 34. It is also worth considering that these PL riches will not last forever. At sometime in the future there will be another breakaway by the bigger clubs or the silly levels of television money will dry up as people drop their SKY subscriptions and watch matches via Internet streaming. So good financial planning now is essential, and spending loads of cash on "known" players is not a guarantee for success.

Can you clarify? Do you mean someone the forum can shoot after their first game?

Spot on.

That is the problem with the French, they never understood cricket.

I would go for that pair

And fifty years ago since a lot of "glory seekers" on here saw their first Saints match at home to Man City, me included

No, they played at Fratton Park, we would never sign them because of that

Could have kept Steck for £1m, he was happy to stay, but we didn't want to pay that much, so odd that we are now paying £2m for a keeper who is not as good.

RK said in an interview last season that Dave Watson was also responsible for set pieces.

Exactly!

The key is getting the chance. It is always the case when youngsters are given a chance find they find their level, be that they make an unexpected step up, or just don't make the expected grade. But without being given the chance you don't really know. If Puel does indeed introduce a fast counter attacking style to the first team then different attributes will be required, and a youngster we have not considered may come to the fore as the age group teams don't play that style at the moment. The previous MP clearly had faith in youngsters and worked hard to improvie them, the new MP comes with the same reputation, let's hope he has the same level of success.

Are you serious? There are a fair number of owners of Premier League clubs who see their clubs as money making machines, I think it is fair to say that Ms Liebherr is not one of those. Have a chat with a few Swansea fans and ask what they think the motives of their new owners are. We are extremely lucky with our ownership.

Puel may be unknown to most of us on here, but it has been reported that he was on our shortlist when we appointed Koeman. If so then clearly the club think he is a suitable candidate, and have no doubt been tracking him as they are with other managers such as Gary Rowett. Have faith, we may make a mistake one day but our track record is pretty good in this era, and at least we have a system in place.

It is not a big pay day if he doesn't get paid, which is quite likely with foreign currency contracts in Russia at this time.

Agree with that, when I came over and watched him last year in a league game, he showed promise but as you say not ready yet. Hope it turns out ok for him, he has some talent. Good to see some loyalty from a young player.