goodymatt

Are we bigging him up now he’s playing well for Fulham? Haha!

Nathan Dyer Jordie Clasie Harrison Reed Michael Obafemi

You're right, LB cover not RB. Might have been Toby that covered RB for them. We can rule him out then, rumours that united might be in for him anyway. I thought Cahill would have been a good buy for us last season and experience is so important at CB. Think Vertonghen is 33 so not really a Saints signing (big wages and no residual value).

Vertonghen is a free agent, experienced and can also fill in at RB when needed. Never going to happen though?

That new Brighton top is a bit too Pompey like for me, seeing Lallana in it just looks wrong.

King.

This is a double cup final for Bompey. They should want it more but hopefully that plays into our hands tactically. I don’t hate them, but agree that after their antics at St Mary’s it would be nice to put a nail in their PL coffin.

Reading all of these rave reviews from Fulham and Leeds fans, it sounds like Reed is turning into a Kante style player. No doubt he would suit Ralph's system and we don't have much money to replace PEH. I know some think PEH won't be missed but if he had signed a new contract at Saints, I wonder if I'd still be reading that. For me PEH is a consistent player at the simple stuff and if Reed can replicate fizzy pop form in the PL, just maybe it will soften the blow of losing our former captain.

I'm still not over that last minute deflection when Hughes was manager... We really are due a win there!

I wasn't born when Adrian Heath scored that last minute goal to knock us out of the FA cup semi in 1984. Do we hate him solely for that?

We did win there on pens in the league cup a couple of seasons ago, if that counts?

The tabs on the bottom of both kits (back of shirt) look really odd! Sponsor looks much better in the block colours. I think I prefer the third kit, reminds me of the league one promotion, where all the fun started. Compared to this years home kit, the new one is much better, wasn't hard though!

Toby Alderweireld on a perm?

I was impressed by the Wolves 'Si Senor' song they stole from the bin dippers. Got me thinking we should try and make this fit one of our players: There’s something that the Saints want you to know, The best in the world his name is Djenepo, Our number twelve Give him the ball and he’ll score by himself Si senor Give the ball to Moussa and he will score I'm not the biggest fan of 'ohhhh Moussa Djenepooo' on repeat.

I would also go for this team. Redmond will be a big loss, everything good offensively seems to go through him. Djenepo would have been my pick to replace him for this game as well. Big opportunity for Boufal to impress, but I'm not sure what we will get from him. With Redmond I fancied us to push them close. Think we will lack the cutting edge going forward and lose 0-2. Hope I'm wrong, I live near Manchester and would love it if we beat them.

How soon after the draw are the televised games normally selected? This surely is the tie of the round, even without the saints glasses on. Simply HAS to be one of the televised picks. Fingers crossed Redmond is fit for it and we can put a full strength team out and put them in their place! Looking forward to it, it's only been 7 years...

Hesketh picked up a minor injury, which stopped a potential championship move this summer. Expect him to make a move in January now, not sure if loan or permanent. You'd think a permanent move would be best for both parties now. Shame as he has shown promise when he's featured for the first team.

Hesketh does have a minor injury, seems par for the course doesn’t it? I think this might have slowed down his exit to be honest. But I still expect him to leave this window. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Just stumbled across a video that shows more than just Che’s goals. He’s crazy strong, build up play a bit hit and miss but always seems a threat. Great start for us so far, scoring in every game. Got a good feeling about him. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

The problem is that since we were signing those successful centre backs, the market has changed significantly. Unfortunately we don’t seem to be willing to pay the equivalent values. I’d imagine we are now priced out of signing that quality of player at that stage of their career. Upamecano is a good example of this. Although his reputation across Europe is already higher perhaps. I’m sure Ralph will improve our current centre backs (with varying levels of success), but I still don’t think what we have will ever be good enough to play the system he prefers. This is the area we need to do something about and I agree with other posters that think we should break our transfer restrictions for this position. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Agreed, the clock really is ticking. Hopefully something is bubbling along nicely in the background. We are very quiet for both ins and outs at the moment, with less than 2 weeks to go.

CB is the obvious weakness in our squad. Despite Ralph's best efforts last season, we continued to set a record for points lost from winning positions. Working with what we have got is not going to be good enough. I trust Ralph to be able to identify a player that will perform substantially better than our recent signings in this area. I do miss the days when seemed to have mastered signing CBs: Fonte, Lovern, Toby, VVD. How lucky we were!

Big Sam has rejected the Newcastle job. Seb Haller feels like one that got away... Did we sign Carillo instead? Haller is worth 40m EUR and Carillo is worth nothing!

Arnautovic gone, £22.5m He’s worth so much more than that, but has left them no choice. Do West Ham have any strikers left? He’s exactly what’s wrong with modern football... Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk