Dangermouth

No it isn't. It's actually a future conditional and could be substituted by 'were to make' or 'would make'. Whether it means to say it or not is moot given that most people can't speak English but it actually says that he is injured and so would not be available to make a debut until such time (in the future) that he is no longer injured.

Best idea yet. As long as JRod gets at least two, too.

I support Saints, not ticket touts (which this lot are in my opinion).

Congratulations to the team. Now it's time to recover and for the fans to remember that we still haven't won anything yet. Good to see Stephens doing well - I see no reason to buy another CB now as Gardos is fit and should get game time. The substitutions were by and large what Puel would have made anyway - I think you yourself made this particular point at some time - so I don't see anything exceptional in that. It was very good to see Redmond (left foot lacking aside) show some belief in his ability and use his head a bit and make those devastating runs that he can do. We should have scored two from them but the finishing was poor unfortunately. Klopp was right in his interview when he became frustrated by the inept reporter asking him the same question multiple times: Liverpool did play well at times and really only could have done more by scoring. Yes, there was an element of luck in that (as there always is), but the defensive organisation from us was first-class.

We knew all of this already: it's been commented upon in this thread. Does anyone involved in the financial sector that would deal with this type of transaction know when we are likely to know more about the specifics and to what degree?

No idea who you are, no idea who the idiot you're baiting is but if he's got shot of I think the moderators should give a lot of consideration to getting rid of you too. Your actions are, at least to me, distasteful and as St Chalet said there is a burgeoning amount of this on this board (notwithstanding). I'll leave it at that as were you the kind of person who was not reprehensible then there would be no post to refer to.

Didn't see the game. Only watched up to the highlight following the link provided above. It seems that VVD gets the ball, JV then kicks and misses it with his right foot then slightly afterwards (and there's no need for this as he can just plant his foot down where it would have been after the missed kick) he lifted his foot up and deliberately stamped on VVD.

Wasn't it Monk who said that the club saw him ending up as a defensive midfielder? I think he needs to use his left foot more and probably do more on the ball. He could, I think, be an extremely good player but I haven't yet seen him do much other than play it safe.

I simply read Duckhunter's comment as sardonic. Why do you see it differently?

You see, my interpretation of that comment was that those who go to games get a different/better perspective than those who watch at home and so (perhaps) might have a more valuable/considered view. In addition it was a pop at someone who has rapidly become a bit of a caricature of the 'happy clapper' and a reaction to yet more of the same from them. I didn't interpret it at all like you seem to have done.

Well I guess it's time to wish him good luck for the rest of the season then.

Someone who looks past the trees. More of us should question this move and the events surrounding what seems to be happening at the club because we are in a precarious position and are likely to be for quite a while. We aren't too different from the clubs below and around us.

Ta for the figures. Who took the shots? JWP all with his left foot when faced with 11 e.g. Man U players and all his team mates behind him etc? You've made a number of assumptions none of which can be either correctly controlled or factored in to make any type of this analysis worthwhile. For example, a lot of people have said Pelle would thrive in this system. Why? If he were played as SL is he would be out of position and given that he is far slower than SL it would be unlikely that he would be in the right position. It assumes that the chance would fall to him/the striker. It assumes that he would get a shot on target. That it would be one good enough to test the keeper, etc, etc, etc. Look at the Burnley game. VVD went up front. He had one shot from inside the box towards the left of the goal as Heaton/the visiting fans would have seen it and he put it wide. Even if he had not who is to say he would have scored? Look at the header he had. He won it against possibly 4 of their defenders, got ok purchase on it but hit it straight at Heaton. Would any other attacker e.g. Slimani have done as well or better? Looking at all of those chances in that game how many of them were 'good' chances, how many fell to the right player and how many of them made Heaton have to make a difficult save? None as far as I recall, certainly in the second half when he was 10 feet or so right in front of us. Now let's return to Slimani. Pamplemousse Puel decided to publish his dad's 'please keep me in a job' plea so I went and had a look at the Leicester forum which is why I've picked up on Slimani. 30 million quid and he's apparently good in the air. When Leicester throw crosses in to him it's a good idea but it seems they rarely do. As a side note their fans essentially describe Ranieri's tactics as somewhat baffling and repeat much of what is said on here namely the players don't quite seem to understand the system, aren't happy with it but (unlike us) they seem to have a number of players who have reverted to form (i.e. they're crap e.g. Morgan). Now would we as Saints fans like to see a team throw in crosses for VVD to have to defend against. Ignore the other centre-back, just VVD? I hope so because he'd eat them up all day long. Unless Slimani (who seems to have failed to impress overall) is an especially difficult opponent then I would expect VVD to come out on top - Slimani won't be playing, by the way - but this doesn't necessarily mean that he wouldn't score, he wouldn't give VVD a hard time, he wouldn't create opportunities for other players, that any number of other things might not happen. Do I think we need a clinical striker? Yes. This is by the bye, however. Even with Austin in the side - and I do consider him to probably be sufficiently good - we were hardly prolific and as I've mentioned elsewhere Nice do not seem to have been especially so under Puel's tenure. This possibly does reflect the philosophy of "steal a goal and then keep it tight" which seems to be CP's MO. In addition, as I indicated elsewhere this style has been said to be different from the previous template espoused by Les Reed and this indicates that it is part of the now 'quiet as a mouse' Guan's comment about a 'change of direction'. So while I do think that either one of our strikers needs to go on a scoring run or someone else who can do so needs to be obtained I do not believe that this will change much other than that we will pick up more points and a sufficient number to stay in this league. The interesting game will be Swansea because they have done well in terms of some measurements (there is a thread by Baggy Trousers on this which purports to show how well we are doing and Swansea, currently bottom of the league, come 10th in two of those measurements indicating that they are a good team and they have a new coach who should get far more out of them than Bradley did. If they do well and they pick up by beating us then I think that we are likely to be in a great deal of trouble because this squad strikes me as mentally weak.

Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009%E2%80%9310_Southampton_F.C._season "It's all about goals. People don't seem to know what they're watching. Here is the average conversion rate in the Premier League (not including Saints): 5093 shots 581 goals Average Conversion rate of 11.41% Our current conversion rate is: 313 shots 19 goals Average Conversion rate of 6.09% If we even had the AVERAGE conversion rate in the Premier League, we'd have scored 36 goals this season, good enough to be 6th best in the League, and only currently outside the current top 5. We NEED a new striker, we don't seem to need a new Manager. The fault here is with Reed and the board for not purchasing a striker in the Summer. " Fraid that simply shows that we are currently running at about half the conversion rate of the norm. Doesn't show what you think it does. Try an analysis of minutes played per player per opportunity per goal inside/outside the box (including and excluding penalties) to also consider the type of player, the type of system, the type of goal, the time of goal, other factors (e.g. playing against 10 men) and so on. It might show something more. Here's a link which doesn't but at least gives an indication of who is doing what. You will notice that certain not strikers have scored more than our highest scorer, for example. This isn't to say that it is clear that our strikeforce isn't particularly potent because it obviously is one of the worst in the league but there are, perhaps reasons for this e.g. that we shoot from distance because we don't know how to get through a defence or the attackers arrive late and in the wrong position because they've been covering the left-back or their coached position means they aren't close to the rest of the strikers or so on. Even when we had Austin fit his form had dried up somewhat I seem to recollect so it could well be that that as well could apply to any other number of strikers. Also, it does have to be said Duckhunter's comment (when he decided to make a more sensible one than some of his more recent offerings) that the top six are palpably better than the rest does seem to be borne out by the league figures and having seen a few games now it is fair to say I consider that the standard overall is very poor indeed. I've noticed someone say they'll consider looking at Nice's form over the last few seasons and compare it to ours. It's very similar to what we see: few goals but they're shared around. The occasional larger than one result but nothing out of the ordinary. What I did notice when looking at some highlights of French football, however, was how defensively open teams were at times. Perhaps that was due to the speed of the counter-attack or perhaps just because they don't seem to look to keep it tight. I suspect the latter as many leagues bar the Italian and Spanish ones do seem to have frequent attacks where the defence and midfield are not compact. I've suggested it before: why don't our resident experts in French go and peruse the Nice (and perhaps Lyon) forums and see what they made of Puel? If you take out Ben Arfa's goals their conversion rate plummets as I believe he was responsible for about half of the total. I suspect that he would not replicate that were he with us in this league.

I suspect few of you can remember the last five minutes let alone a few months ago. Here’s a link: http://www.dailyecho.co.uk/sport/14820386.Saints_star_faced_a_choice______it_was_either_adapt_and_learn_or_sit_on_the_sidelines_/?ref=rl&lp=5 Now SFC say that they bought Redmond because he fitted the template and there was no need to have a manager because the system in place identified players that would fit regardless of what a manager wanted. He patently didn’t fit the new system that didn’t follow the previous template, however, as the article states. So there’s a nice inconsistency in transfer policy. It doesn’t matter what the manager wants because he fits the system and the manager is allowed the ultimate choice over which player out of a number that fit the system he would like. This assumes the player wants to come to Saints obviously. Yet this wasn’t the case here. In addition, Puel has been quoted as saying, I believe, that he wanted Boufal because the team didn’t have a dribbler and his system required one in order to unlock stubborn defences i.e. the playing in front of teams that we see is ineffective. I take it that is why Sims and Redmond feature as they can do this to some extent. It is clear, however, that Puel has been supported in the transfer market as we bought Boufal and, it would appear, he is not one of those players that would fit the existing template (e.g. Redmond who was either bought as the next Thierry Henry by Reed and Co or a winger as he had always been up until he joined the club and was told he was not to be one. You will note from the interview above incidentally that Redmond himself considers he is/was a winger). I don’t propose to go into this further but do suggest that those who have made the assumptions that many have in this thread *ought* to actually take a look at what they’re doing and perhaps do so differently. If they wish to come to the same conclusions and then explain why they have then all well and good.

So by and large you agree with each other?

Well said indeed. I disagree only insofar as PEH is concerned: not all 'yoof' are quite the same. Perhaps it's because he's Danish, but it's probably because his parents kept him grounded.

Bit in bold. Interesting. Puel has said that for the most part he and the club only have time to deal with recovery and preparation for the next match. When, where, etc does the time come to improve said players? Now where's the proof that Puel has had a direct effect on how e.g. OR plays and improves him, for example that he has show OR how to do a slide tackle or to kick the ball with the outside of his foot? I suspect he has not done any of this. Where is the evidence that he has shown OR that when player X has the ball he should appear 3 yards to his left within 2.3 seconds in order to receive the ball, etc? Again, none. I can recollect OR saying that when he was at Barca Pep Guardiola gave him some advice which he found very helpful when playing but I suspect in many ways he is almost the finished article in that he knows pretty much all he's going to learn. He could improve his weaker foot a bit and so on perhaps but that is likely as much as anything down to him (OR) training it. So where is the evidence that CP - or indeed any manager/head coach - has directly improved the play of a player? Just because e.g. VVD plays well now when he perhaps didn't play well earlier doesn't mean that this can be attributed to the manager. It could be any number of reasons. I would suspect that each of the three that you have named have not 'improved' and nor have they 'been improved' and I would remind you that this is football in the real world, not Football Manager where players will improve because that's how the game is structured. Finally, again, I would ask for some evidence of your presumption and remind you what the club have said about the availability of the time and how this affects what training/development there is and that a great deal of a footballer's life is spent doing training drills the like of which can be seen in videos if you haven't undertaken any of them yourself and so would recognise them from that experience.

Someone above compared him to Ramirez and I think that were he to go on loan he would have the same effect as the former did when at Hull. He's like Tom Cleverley, but even less capable.

I've seen this before. Mostly, when he participates, JRod is the best finisher. The rest are worryingly bad. The interesting thing to watch is where Black places the ball when he returns it to the player. Often he puts it back right in the middle of where they're standing which means their feet are all wrong which probably explains why they side foot it so often rather than try to hit it with the instep.

I'll add my two cents' worth having just got back from the game. Burnley were functional: they could run, head, kick the ball (and often us) and were solid. Apart from that they had nothing, they really could have been a 3rd division side. I thought that, unlike Everton, they did not have an extra gear or two into which they could step and cause us problems. We have much better players (on the whole) but 'play by numbers'. For example we would stop a promising break to work the ball out to a wing to try a cross (to who? Shane Long? Against 3 or more defenders?) and the Burnley defence could simply have stayed in the same spot and just headed balls away all decade such was the efficacy of our play. JWP will never make a footballer; I have now seen enough to recognise that. Redmond I will give until the end of next season but if he hasn't by the beginning of next learnt to use his left foot just a bit I will probably write him off. Any tactic that involves putting VVD up as an auxiliary striker...well, words fail me. Sims looks to have a bit of something about him (skill, looks up, his brain ticks over, I think he's two-footed) and that bodes well but frankly I think that Puel should now go (as in in the Summer as he won't go now) and tend to think that the failings are by and large his. When they did score, and it looked slightly likely because there seemed to be a problem with organising the wall I did not think (unlike Everton) that we would not necessarily not score but considered it would be unlikely given that we really were quite impotent. One annoying thing was that for that last ten minutes we did actually look as though we were prepared to take the game to them and had we forgotten about the obsession with using fullbacks to cross the ball and simply worked it in the channels we could have got more out of it. Apart from the goal, however, the game was very reminiscent of that against Everton: two poor sides 'kind of' playing bad football and the most entertaining thing was the charge made by Andre Gray when he eventually showed his lack of ability and got caught. Someone like Lukaku would probably not have mucked it up like he did.

Well the fact that Mrs Lovren had cheated on her husband (if a fact) was reported in the press. There have been multiple rumours apparently with a good factual basis that AL's child is actually someone else's so those comments allude to that. As to the feeling and the passion of the intense dislike that some feel towards these two individuals (I personally do not) this is both England, English - ness, personal and how it goes. Hence how often football/town rivalries are felt and such feeling is demonstrated so strongly. I do not know if you do/not hail from this country but this is far, far different from other so-called 'rivalries' e.g. Seattle Sounders vs LA Galaxy which, quite frankly, aren't rivalries. It is how it is and yes, some of those involved should 'expect' such 'abuse'. I do actually think that if they do notice it, they can take it. They are grown men after all and the opinion of strangers really is unlikely to even register let alone bother them. It is also the case that the 'light-hearted banter' to which you allude has no place here and, again, indicates that your appreciation of what is is incorrect and skewed. In short, c'est la vie and all is not rosy in the Garden (etc).

I think you misunderstood. There's a difference between what you want/wish for (us to annihilate Liverpool 70000000000000000000000-0 over the two legs) and what you expect. Try this little experiment. We are to play Barcelona's full first team in a competitive fixture. Name the score. Now then. Did you stop supporting Saints or did you look at the comparison between the teams and decide we were likely to be taught a lesson?

Or not. I take it there is no freedom of speech in your part of North America. And as far as I can see it's as much to do with you as it is with me as it is with the ghost of Christmas Past i.e. nothing so I fail to see what it is that you are getting so annoyed about.

False comparison. Compare SFC at the end of MP's first half a season with CP's first half a season. Look specifically at fitness levels, the ability of those to adapt to the system and all those other figures that people like to look at to try to show something that they probably don't. The first two metrics (and the second can perhaps be shown by the third) should show enough. To start things off here's the link to the Wiki page from the 21/01/13 when MP took over: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012%E2%80%9313_Southampton_F.C._season