Millbrook Saint

The thing is part of running a football club is to excite fans, it's all well and good being clever by only replacing what we lose, but surely the club need to do something to excite fans, there's only so much fans will take of seeing players leave and replaced by potential. What if the potential doesn't work out? Personally I'm excited by our recruitment but feel we should have added a striker and defender, imagine the excitement around the club if we'd signed a proven striker, remember the buzz Osvaldo brought, ok it didn't work out, but I couldn't wait to see him play. This is the excitement the club need to generate for the fans, I feel the club are so set in their way of 'breeding success' that they forget that part of their job is to excite their customer base. Record season tickets this season, will it be the same next year with fans knowing what will most likely happen.... can't see it myself, it's all well and good saying who needs these 'plastics', 'bed wetters' etc but these fans are the ones we need to entice back each season if we're ever going to become a bigger club. Most Saints fans are reasonable enough to know that players come and go, we're happy to spend within our means, we know we can't compete with the top teams but for ****s sake they need to give us something to get excited about. The lowest net spend in the league is frankly embarrassing, can't see there being much of a buzz around the ground with people excited that our net spend was less than everyone else.

Dickhead

Personally think it's a culmination of things, firstly our last 2 premier managers, whilst inexperienced here were both known and respected players before they got here, so straight away both players and fans respected them. Secondly koeman was so popular amongst fans that our next appointment needed to be a real statement of intent otherwise it's too esay for fans to get on their back, look how long united took to get ferguson out of their system. Lastly i'm sure before he was appointed french journalists were saying he was quiet in front of the cameras but brilliant on the training ground, just hope that the players who liked koeman give this guy a chance and aren't moping around saying 'the last manager didn't do this'

EFL - What the fook is this, we're not american so get rid of this desire to make everything an acronym of what it should be. uuurrrgh

Bit underwhelming if true, they get Mane, we get an injured bloke they no longer want

Completely agree, the club deserves better, if it wasn't for Southampton he wouldn't be playing for Portugal, if it wasn't for Southampton he wouldn't have won the Euros, if it wasn't for Southampton he wouldn't be a multi millionaire, if it wasn't for Southampton he would't be playing in the premier league. The player doesn't deserve a chance at a big club, how about the club deserves a little bit of respect from these players who wouldn't be where they are now without it. What are we supposed to be, just a place for players to serve an apprenticeship akin to the reserves until they 'deserve' their chance in the first team.

Don't think he was really saying to run the club in the same way as Leicester, more stating that success is possible if you're a smaller club, how that success is achieved is the crux of the matter. I'm sure the club have signings lined up but as fans it's hard to get excited about how much money the club have brought in when you see the players who we've lost. Like it or not what builds excitement in fans is seeing new players arrive, bigger clubs have to excite their fans by buying ready made, world known players, whilst fans at clubs like Southampton are more content to see lesser players or players with potential arrive. The trouble with buying potential is when they realise that potential and the big clubs want their ready made players. Either way fans need to be excited as the new season approaches, currently I'd say most of us happy to let the club do their thing behind the scenes, we've made a couple of decent signings and we may yet make a couple more, however it would be nice to make at least one signing that gets the fans excited, instead of having the continual feeling of the rug being pulled from under you. It is a pretty **** feeling when fans of other clubs think they can just take our players at will. Fact is united, city, chelsea and to some extent liverpool were all in a season of transition at the same time, causing a perfect storm which Leicester took advantage of, this is not likely to happen again for a while.

Yoshida, Ward Prowse, Targett, Romeu. I'd say that's over a third of the first 11 who couldn't get a start last year. I know our transfer dealings haven't finished yet and we have to wait to see if our targets get better offers before coming to us but even so that's not what I expected to see at the start of the new season.

Have to agree, whilst I know the transfer window hasn't shut yet and we'll most likely make a couple of signings, it was still demoralising to turn up on Saturday and see the starting 11 full of players who couldn't get a start last year. It just felt as if we were in the midst of an injury crisis with no first teamers available.

Well of course not, we would have something in the contract stating we'd have to get an offer we view as adequate. Do you really think an agent would allow his client to sign a 6 year contract with no way of getting him out of it. I know you'll say we could just turn around and say anything under £100 million is inadequate but that's why these contracts take so long to sort out, the player, club and leeches all have to be happy.

Lol never said it was a piece of info, just a theory as to why it may not be as easy as we think to just tell fonte he ain't going anywhere. Would also explain how we managed to sign these players to longer contracts whichever way the club spin it

Someone in the pub said yesterday that he has written into his contract that if a club come in with a better offer then he has the choice of whether to take up that offer. If that's true then i guess he's gone and i guess all the other players who just signed extensions have similar clauses.

Didn't someone somewhere in the build up to us signing him say that Puel is completely different in front of the cameras compared to when he's with the players, I believe they went on to say to expect boring press conferences but behind the scenes the players all loved him.

Didn't someone somewhere in the build up to us signing him say that Puel is completely different in front of the cameras compared to when he's with the players, I believe they went on to say to expect boring press conferences but behind the scenes the players all loved him.

Surely the board will just turn down any offers, in this case we're in the driving seat, he'll be what 34, 35 when his contract expires so no sell on value, we just tell him he aint going nowhere and what can he do about it

Thing is, part of the excitement of supporting your team is seeing your newly signed players, it's all well and good saying we don't need anyone and that may be the case, but it hardly helps build excitement and anticipation for the new season. Imagine making a big money signing, the excitement in the city would gp through the roof. Then again we may still do that

Surely we'll all be fighting a war so won't need jobs eh?

**** off cock

Tend to agree with this, if tottenham sold all their best youngsters leaving the 'not so good' ones they could hardly go on to moan that the manager never plays youngsters.

Thing is if your agent is telling you that he hasn't been approached by the club, then some journalist asks if you're interested you can give one of 2 answers either 'I'm interested but the club haven't approached me' or 'No I'm not interested in that job'. With the size of most peoples egos in football I can't see option 1 being very likely.

Maybe not gardening leave for the remainder of his contract, but at least until Everton agree all our clauses, they'll either sign up or move on. At the worst koeman sees out the last year of his contract doing ****all for £3.5m. Whilst this is a lot, it's a stand that needs to be made by the club.

True story, 2 scousers walking along southsea seafront in front of me, the wife and daughter, scouser 1 to scouser 2 'there's france over there' as he points to the IOW, cue for my 9 year old daughter s******ing and me having to tell her to be quiet

You're way too big, what a ******* joke, you're a has been club who's got lucky with an owner willing to put cash in, you may have won things 30 years odd ago but most people don't remember that, including I suspect some of your fans. Before you come back with what have we won, we know exactly where we are in the football pecking order and without the lure of your new investors we wouldn't be losing managers to your lot so don't try delude yourself that you're some massive club. Now if you could kindly fook off to whence you came and whilst there ask the rest of you filthy scouse *****s to swallow that phlegm in your mouths before you talk as it's irritating listening to whiny voices as you cover us in spit when you talk

You say that but what if he had got us to 7th and 6th in consecutive seasons and the scousers came in for him, don't think loyalty would have counted for much then. We only think he was loyal because he was pushed before he jumped

Yeah, bit of a double edged sword really, we all want success, or relative success but as soon as we get it we lose key personnel. As I said earlier it's a shame our owner hasn't got more of an ego