Greenridge

Forster up front with VvD and Yoshi in goal. I like he look of that except for Boufal not being available.

Two great goals from us. Two absolute shockers for them.

It was clear we were short up front before the season started. Very clear. I'm surprised we haven't yet exploited Puel's undoubted knowledge of the French leagues for our recruitment. Other than Pied of course.

Thankfully all clubs have die-hards who will go through thick and thin but the commercial need for Saints, and all clubs, is to get additional support. Unless we turn things around then crowds will start slipping for sure. I would expect a pretty low crowd for this replay.

Hopefully they'll add to their seasons haul.

To me he's the epitome of the type of player a struggling club buys in the January window when there's some panicking going on. He's 29 and his previous clubs have been Livingston, Sterling Albion on loan, Leeds in their League 1 / Champ days, a relegated Norwich team and likely relegated Hull team. Hardly an inspiring CV but maybe that's just me.

Joking aside, it was made very clear when Claude was appointed that he was tasked to develop (and showcase) the youth at SFC. The rotation 'strategy' gives him the perfect vehicle to do just that. In saying that I completely understand our business model that relies on us either buying players with potential and selling them on or developing our youth and selling them on. This being the essence of long term sustainability.

It's not obviously the case whatsoever. Talk about speculation.

Didn't he get the hump with Koeman last year? Maybe it's a hangover from then. Either that or he has indeed had enough of the current 'Southampton Way' or his opinion of his own ability is misguided and he see's himself elsewhere.

Unfortunately we're not doing much of any of those three with any regularity right now.

Indeed they can. He could be making 1 yard passes to Cedric, VvD, Forster, Romeu and Bertrand all game.

Indeed they do but not to the tune of 5 - 8 pretty much every single week. No one does that on a regular basis. No one.

Do you not think that if it was such an innovative idea that gave a huge advantage that all the big clubs, well all clubs for that matter, would be doing the same? Surely little ol' Southampton haven't beaten everyone else to this strategy.

Yes, I agree, you are speculating.

I don't know much about him except for both Klopp and Wenger have allegedly been interested him in recent months and they're both pretty good judges.

Probably why the club have gone to the press with the Fonte news today. Be interesting to see if it's someone who's been on the media radar or an out-of-the-blue signing.

I always wondered how someone could ever reach 40k+ of posts on a football forum.

Not expecting him to criticise. He could have just published the information from SFC / Reed but he's done more than that he's actually endorsed it fairly significantly with additional comment.

We're paying I assume rather than getting for JF?

Ah OK. The PA Dugout Twitter feed is quoting it and they're normally pretty reliable. Whichever way there seems to be lots of interest in him and at the fee quoted or thereabouts.

Celtic must be following our model. They only bought Dembele last year for £500K as a development fee. That's some return.

West Ham have apparently bid £20M for Dembele at Celtic.

Modelled himself on Wayne Shaw. Actually, as you say, he did OK for us. Big lad.

He's talking about this. http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/dejan-lovren-cryptic-comment-southamptons-12353169 It's all 'social media' whichever way you look at it.

Reading Blackmore's feed I was surprised how he seems to have completely taken everything as said by Reed as gospel. We all know how the propaganda machine works- on both sides - with each party wanting to present themselves in the best possible light for the ensuing move.