stevegrant

Neither you nor I have any idea whether that statement is true or not as it was never actually put to the test at this level. The only player who was even remotely linked with a move away LAST summer, after an ultimately successful but relatively mediocre season, was Shaw, and that was based more on his potential than him tearing the league up like he did in the season just gone. Nobody else was in particularly great demand, Lallana had been largely poor, Lambert had scored goals but nobody was going to pay big bucks for what could have been Grant Holt MkII, etc. Also worth bearing in mind what happened with Oxlade-Chamberlain. Clearly, we were in a much weaker bargaining position having only just been promoted from the third division, but the fact is that he wanted to leave, got his representatives to kick up a big stink, and got his wish. Cortese was chairman throughout all of that, so let's not go rewriting history here.

I would imagine so. I'm pretty sure that if I just arbitrarily decided I couldn't be bothered to show up for work, my boss wouldn't be paying me a penny.

It's pretty easy to say "I'm not coming back" when he's not actually due back for a couple of weeks yet anyway. Let's see what happens when he's actually supposed to return and when his actions would start to cost him money.

Also worth noting that it's quite easy to say "I'll never play for the club again" while two days into a two-week holiday before returning to pre-season training. I do wonder what would have happened if we'd played hardball with him. Ultimately, once we get to a training/game situation where he then refuses to work, then he's in breach of contract and all those lovely "loyalty" (LOL) bonuses he wanted to ensure he kept by not submitting a written transfer request suddenly disappear from view.

Osvaldo absent from training today due to illness, apparently. Cue speculation...

Also coincided with Ben Foster deciding he did fancy playing for England after all, and the emergence of Fraser Forster. I don't think you can necessarily draw a straight conclusion that Watson oversaw Ruddy's decline when Norwich's defence only conceded 4 more goals last season compared to the previous one. After all, Watson was also present when Ruddy was first called up. Keepers tend to go through peaks and troughs, Boruc has had spells with us (and other clubs) where he's gone from being amazing to being terrible.

Crook's already revealed his angle, that Lallana told the club he wouldn't play for them again, effectively going on strike.

If you know what this "news" is, say so. The "hint hint, wink wink, nudge nudge" schtick is ****ing tedious.

@Swanie_888 Some nobody. Great.

Meaningless without having the faintest idea who wrote it.

What's the betting on him sustaining a "niggling injury" around the 21st February 2015?

I think it's about time grown men starting acting like them. Unfortunately this is professional footballers we're talking about, so that seems like something of a pipe dream.

Nor is Lambert. Stellar have had involvement at SFC for years, Wayne Bridge was on their books, along with the likes of Bale, Surman, Blackstock, Dyer, etc.

Seriously Locking this while I waste my time going back deleting all the ****.

Difficult to take the report too seriously given the source, but it's not an Ashton piece so perhaps it's not so tainted? Who knows.

Attached is a spreadsheet which will allow you to import the fixtures into Outlook (and probably others) SFC2014_15.xls

Thanks for the heads-up, consider that thieving loophole "being fixed"

You can set the number of posts per page in your user settings.

I knew you'd crack

I reckon Southampton City Council have ballsed up by declaring their interest in this, they could have kept it quiet and waited for the NIMBYs in Portsmouth to reject the idea. Instead, one of the PCC councillors at the meeting last night specifically said "if we don't approve this, they'll go down the road to Southampton", which will probably make them vote in favour now, when they might have been minded to reject it.

I thought he'd handed ownership of the site over to someone else after all that nonsense a year or two ago?

Appointing a manager with trophy-winning pedigree? Who are you and what have you done with the real Southampton FC?

Dubai Phil certainly isn't 25

More than 200 words when he could have just written "just a hunch, Saints to finish in the bottom half, decent odds of 5-4".

Gabi's been outstanding so far.