Convict Colony

Don't think he was harshly sacked at WBA:http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/teams/w/west_bromwich_albion/9388972.stm "The Baggies lost 3-0 at Manchester City on Saturday and the club said a run of 13 defeats in 18 games was the reason for the decision."

Have to say I agree with G-dog regarding Yakin, after not really knowing too much about him or Techul I've read loads of articles on them and their tactics over the last few days and I must say they sound awesome. Has anyone watched Basel or Mainz enough to form an informed opinion ? Great article on Murat Yakin http://www.goal.com/en/news/1717/editorial/2014/04/10/4737306/the-next-guardiola-marvellous-murat-yakin-deserves-a-chance

#saintsfc former players & under-18 coaches Jason Dodd & Paul Williams are the two staff who are departing/being replaced

So some work has been getting done

Any guesses ? Les Reed Gareth Rogers Ralph Krueger Jason Dodd Etc etc

Alan Nixon ‏@reluctantnicko Protected Tweets 58s Couple of surprise departures behind scenes at Southampton...

my guess 1. Will Pochettino remain as manager? No 2. If no will we replace with a Great British Manager or a foreign manager? Thomas Techul 3. How many of our current first tea will we lose during this window? 2 4. How many 8 million pound plus players will we sign during this window. 3

I thought maya was training in toyko with the squad today with kagawa, 2nd from right, ITK FAIL

Its gets tiring worrying about multi millionaires.

I know everyone says he's off to barcelona but I am pretty sure Luis Enrique worked under Baldoni at Roma when he managed there.

I am sure the position improvement since last year has probably covered the first year of this supposed offer.

I think I've called it, from today's guardian - http://www.theguardian.com/football/2014/may/16/didier-deschamps-samir-nasri-girlfriend-france "In a press conference on Friday, Deschamps fielded questions about his squad's behaviour. However when it was pointed out that there was a brothel 500m from the squad's Brazilian base in Ribeirao Preto, the former France captain reacted angrily."

Hang on when was Saintsweb taken over by 13yr old school girls !!

I like the idea that there is a big boys shop, its like we have got money for our birthday and xmas all at the same time and now have the cash to spend on some really good stuff. Wouldn't happen in a million years but imagine selling adz and osvaldo and we get super mario, f*cking hell the whole world would take note, it would keegan mark 2.

Not read much about Tuchel but I like the cut of his jib, sounds very Klopp esq http://www.dw.de/rule-breaker-tuchel-leads-mainz-into-a-league-of-their-own/a-17503661

This is really an investment decision if we can take the heart out of it, improved contracts for adz, luke and poch, invest in the heavily in squad say comes as a 40mil cost (guesstimate). Now what will you need to achieve to recoup that 40mil ontop of the money you have already invested. You can either (A) recoup investments on player sales overtime and we become very much like Lyon whose business model is to underpay/develop and sell at a profit players, or (B) we have to improve performance in the league to qualify I would suspect for champions league against 6 other clubs with higher revenue,crowds and fanbase. I would suggest (A) is a sustainable model which can be achieved easily and which allows for incremental improvement overtime, we like icarus have risen far and fast quickly, lets be careful to not be burn't by the sun.

hobby v business, this is a business for her but a passionate hobby for us, its a different ball game when its your cash. 100% support for what she has done and am happy to accept her decisions which i expect will be based on fact and cold hard logic, sometimes its better to not have a passionate person in charge as we have seen many a ship go down via that approach. Until proved otherwise we will always be middle of the league type club and if we play awesome football and develop awesome players I will be happy, we could be west ham and if we don't push on I think the vibe on here which could be one of anger would be purely driven by the fact some supporters had their hopes up and its the disappoint that drives the resentment, step back, chill and just enjoy the world cup and see how next season develops.

You've got a good array of christian bale gif's preferred the American Psycho one from the other day, it reminded to re-watch it again.

Not sure if this has been posted anywhere, Rafa Silva, 20yr old http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/transfer-news/southampton-transfers-rafa-silva-potential-3532210

I am pretty sure morgan said in one of his interviews that Cortese showed him the bid offer when we were in League 1 and ripped it up in front of him and said he was the foundation for us. Edit - I knew I wasn't going mad, post from last june when morgan was a "done deal" to Real Sociedad"

In the Argie squad, 1 goal and 4 yellow cards in his 14 appearances for Newells, I would suspect he is defo on his way back to valencia unless he gets on the pitch for argentina and plays well. If mopo goes don't think we will attract to many south american's unless he is replaced by one. Personally I prefer newell's striker Ponce as a signing purely for the comedy.

How's Frimpong gonna pull birds now he isn't a footballer ?

Reckon its taking time for his bank manager to give him a 2mil loan.

For those who don't buy it: Response of south coast club to transfer bids will speak volumes about their ambition, writes Rory Smith It is a story that sums up Nicola Cortese’s approach to transfer dealings. A couple of years ago, in his pomp as Southampton executive chairman, the Italian-born Swiss called one of the club’s bright young things into his office. An offer had arrived for his services from one of the Barclays Premier League’s big beasts. It was a generous one, but not sufficiently so to tempt Cortese to do business. When the teenager appeared, Cortese showed him the piece of paper on which the offer was written. He did not ask him for an opinion, or give him the chance to state if he would like the club to enter into negotiations. He simply tore it up in front of him. “That,” he told him, “is what I think of that.” Cortese, who left his post at the turn of the year, is the sort of character who divides opinion. Many feel that he was the ultimate architect of Southampton’s remarkable rise from the depths of the third tier to the top half of the Barclays Premier League. Others, particularly at St Mary’s, feel that life is entirely more palatable without him around. What is not in question, though, is that Cortese was a fearsome opponent when it came to transfers. Few of his fellow executives in the Premier League relished the prospect of dealing with him. It would be fascinating to know how different this week might have been had Cortese still been in charge on the south coast. The season had been over for just a few minutes when a delegation from Manchester United — by chance Southampton’s guests on the final day of the campaign — submitted, in person, a £27 million offer for Luke Shaw, only hours before he was confirmed as a member of Roy Hodgson’s World Cup squad. Less than a day later, Liverpool came calling, this time for Adam Lallana, the club captain and the long-term standard-bearer for what they call “the Southampton way”. That offer of £17 million, or thereabouts, arrived remotely. Both are under consideration. Nothing has been torn up; not yet. Doubtless that will serve to encourage Tottenham Hotspur, too, when they make their long-anticipated move to extricate Mauricio Pochettino, the manager, from Southampton. Ralph Krueger, Cortese’s successor, and Katharina Liebherr, the club’s owner, have done what they can to persuade the Argentinian to stay, and a new contract offer is on the table, but the most effective defence against Spurs’s predations may be one put in place by Cortese, who had a clause written into Pochettino’s deal that means the manager will have to pay, personally, £2 million if he leaves for another club. The presence of Cortese, of course, would not have stopped these offers coming in; he would not have acted as an impenetrable bulwark against the circling vultures. It is hard to escape the impression, though, that those teams who have long coveted Southampton’s most precious assets feel altogether more comfortable making their intentions known than they might have done six or seven months ago. That is regrettable, of course. The work Southampton have done over the past five years is, perhaps, the most remarkable story in English football. They are an advert for how things should be done, investing in their youth infrastructure, bringing through their own players, building sustainably. Pochettino has instilled an attractive, expansive, modern ethos into the way they play. There is a restrained culture among the players that Calum Chambers, another off the production line, describes as “self-policing”. As soon as anyone looks as if the praise is going to their heads, the rest of the squad is quick to drag them back down to earth. They are reaping the rewards for all of that: an eighth-placed finish in the Barclays Premier League. Rickie Lambert, like Lallana and Shaw, is in the England squad and Jay Rodriguez might well have been, had he not been sidelined by injury. Morgan Schneiderlin is on the standby list for France. All of that comes at a price. Glittering jewels attract the magpies. Not many can resist them. Krueger, upon his appointment, described how the club — forever looking to seek the extra revenues that might make them more competitive still — were considering franchising out their youth development expertise. They would give other clubs, other teams in other sports, the benefit of their wisdom at growing their own talent. It was, he said, an intelligent way of monetising their greatest asset. Indeed it is. It is just that football has long had a more straightforward way of achieving the same end: clubs who produce their talent eventually sell it to those who buy it in. Southampton do not have to sell. But Liebherr, while she remains, as far as anyone can tell, committed to the club, has made it clear that they must pay their own way. If that is the case, there comes a point when they have to succumb. Not far off £50 million for two players who cost nothing is simply good business. The coming days and weeks, though, will be instructive. If the aim is simply for consolidation in the Premier League, £50 million for two players — at the height of their value — is too good to turn down. If the plan is as it was, to crack the glass ceiling separating the top six from the rest, they must channel their inner Cortese. They must resist. Which path they choose will say much about where Southampton’s journey will take them next.

Vertonghen is pretty wicked, fullbacks not so much