Sidney Fudpucker the 3rd

My wife is Dutch, so I've spoken to some of her family about Veerman. Jury seems to be out. General vibe was that he's had one good season in a team who are basically Championship standard. Started as a defensive midfielder but plays a more attacking role at Heerenveen. Good passer of the ball. Poor in the air. Not a great crosser of the ball. When I mentioned that he's been linked with Southampton the four people I spoke to all seemed surprised and said "Maybe as a substitute (I think they meant reserve) but Southampton will have better players". I had to explain that Southampton are really struggling for midfield players, particularly someone who can play the defensive / holding role. They all said, Southampton can do better... But none of them realised the current state of affairs. They can't understand why we're looking at him unless it's for the future. They all think we should be spending £20-£25 million, which we probably should, but we obviously don't have that sort of money. I had to laugh when I asked my brother-in-law for his view and he paused and said "He is maybe Norwich City".

Lost there last year, so that's 3 points gained this year. However, we won at Palace and beat Spurs at home last term and we lost both of them this time, so we're 3 points down on last season from the same 3 fixtures. Really need to push on with a win next week... And get those 3 signings that Ralph has talked about over the line..

As predicted, we're going for a loan option, although I think I said I thought it would be someone from Liverpool or Spurs. All the talk of the likes of McKennie and Ntcham was just hot air. We've clearly got no money and have resorted to the loan signing of a player who is probably no better than one who we've just offloaded to Fulham. As others have said. What's the obsession with shopping in poundland? This club is so fucking frustrating.

Couldn't agree more. Why would any player want to join this shower of shit?

Done! Problem is that it's full of shit again after watching that fucking joke. We are fucking shit! FACT!

Face facts... 1. We haven't got a replacement lined up. 2. We potentially had one but sold him to Fulham. 3. The 'targets' that were supposedly identified were clearly just a load of hot air. McKennie, Ntcham, Choudhury. Why would any of them come to Saints? 4. We'll end up with some kid on loan from somewhere like Spurs or Liverpool.

Completely embarrassing. Outplayed by a weakened Brentford team. Saints are the masters of selling players and not having a replacement lined up. McKennie, Ntcham, Choudhury... All talk. We clearly don't have anybody lined up and will probably end up taking a couple of midfielders on loan at the 11th hour just to dig us out of a hole. Clearly, our best option would have been to keep Reed and to actually give him game time. Typical Saints. Get our hopes up with a decent run of games at the end of last season and then 6 weeks later look like a League two outfit.

I wonder which of those they'll wear at St. Mary's?

Quite like the new Crystal Palace shirts. Same template for all 3. Makes you wonder what we could have had if we had a decent kit manufacturer.

Pretty confident that we won't see him in a Saints shirt again. I expect he'll go for about £5m plus add ons, which I think is a bloody good deal for one club.

I always thought he offered us something different in the middle. No doubt about his work rate. He's one of those niggly players. A mate describes him as being like a Jack Russell. Never stops running and not afraid to have a go at anyone. I'll be really disappointed if we let him go, particularly if it's to a team like Fulham or Burnley.

Surely the purpose of manufacturing and selling these items is to make money? Why would you produce something that from the outset you know will never sell in any quantity? I wonder who looks after these things at the club and gives to go ahead for crap like this training shirt? There's clearly something amiss. This year we had a training shirt that was only available to buy for about a month and then the club announced that there wouldn't be any more. So we had a shirt that wasn't available, which equals no income, and now we have a shirt that's so hideous it won't sell, which equals no income. There's a theme developing here. We're not very good at capitalising on merchandising opportunities.

It would be disappointing if we let Reed go to Burnley. I genuinely believe he's capable of doing a job for us.

Exactly. Reed's been one of the best players in the Championship this season. He can definitely do a job for us.

I'd rather see Reed in the team over Hoj.

A mate who's a Leeds fan and watches a lot of Championship football said that he'd seen a good bit of Reed this season. He said he thought he was exactly what Leeds are lacking in Midfield. He also said that he'd be in the top 3 Championship players that he's seen this season. The others being Benrahma and Pereira.

Always like to see us in stripes. If we had to go for something a bit different then I'd like to see us adopt a half and half shirt, like Feyenoord. Not many clubs have this design. Off the top of my head, I can only think of Blackburn. Oh, and Watford, this season. A few clubs have done this design as an away shirt, but I think it would be a cool alternative to the stripes that make us look like Stoke, Sunderland and Brentford. Maybe something like this.

Sunday's game probably took a lot out of the players but they didn't seem to show it judging by the first half performance. Just a shame that there were so many missed opportunities. It could have all been over by half time. Sometimes that's the way it goes.

We should stick to stripes. I understood the sash kit for the 125th anniversary, but would have preferred it to have been our away kit. Our home kit should always be red and white stripes. Why do we do we allow pointless designs like this? A red shirt with a white sash is not a Saints shirt. Could you imagine the reaction if Celtic ditched the hoops in favour of a green shirt with a white sash?

Does anybody have one of this seasons training shirts for sale L or XL? I contacted the club shop in January and they said they never received many and wouldn't be getting any more, which seemed odd.

These are superb. You know that what we'll end up with will look like dog sh1t compared to these beauties.

Didn't expect that. Thought it was a well executed performance. Why can't we play like that at home? Some consistency would be nice. I'm tired of seeing us do that one week and then play like we did against Arsenal the next. Imagine if we got 9 or 12 points from out last 6 games. That's would a superb finish to the season. Hard to believe that this is the same team that got dicked 9-0 at home by Leicester. Fair play to Ralph for turning things around. I think we all thought we were dead and buried after that performance.

Safe? Watch that 10 point gap disappear over the next couple of weeks. Bring back lockdown. At least we didn't have to endure this inconsistent crap every week. Our run in isn't as easy as people seem to think. I think we'll be lucky to get 4 points from our remaining games.

Can't see them losing 3 on the bounce. We'll probably do our usual thing of looking half decent one week and utter shite the next.