doddisalegend

Selective memory there. Go back and read some threads on here from December of last season plenty of people complaining about boring football, players not good enough, Koeman picking the wrong team relegation battles. I'm willing to bet it was the same in the mid winter slump the season before that and there was plenty of people saying the same, when Poch was in charge, when we went of the boil after Christmas three seasons ago. Now given that people also seem to be of the opinion our squad has got worse every summer since Poch and co left it seems strange that people except Puel to be doing a better job than the last two managers that allegedly had better squads and no Europa league group stages to deal with..

Fair play to Everton if that happens seems a bit weird that a share holder of one PL club is sponsoring another PL club.

I'm pretty sure Liverpool and spurs rotated heavily in the europa league last season. In fact didn't Brendan put out weakend Liverpool teams in Liverpool's CL campaign couple of seasons back including away at Real?

Yoshida has the best pass completion rate? Didn't see that coming. Seems there isn't much between Yoshida and Fonte on those stats.

JWP has improved this season I've said as much a few times before I heard Les say it. That's not the same as saying he is a good player and given some of his previous performances, in seasons gone by, it would have been hard for him to get worse.

Speculating is all it is. Fonte was asking to leave last summer. Despite all the conspiracy theory's it seems clear to me Fonte wants to cash in on his euro winners medal in the twilight of his career ( and why not he only has a couple of seasons left in him anyway). If player sales upset him so much he would have ****ed off ages ago.

But it seems he had already told the club he wanted to leave before a european game had been played. So I doubt that's the reason he wants to leave..

Maybe he was benched because he told the club he wanted to leave when he got back from the Euros in the summer...

trousers the

Are we the only club players leave? I'm sure players leave saints for all sorts of reason (but I'm betting money is high on the agenda) but players leave lots of other clubs to. I'm saints fan I support the club not the players I was here long before Mr Fonte and will be (god willing) here long after he is a half forgotten memory. If player doesn't want to be at the club (what ever the reason) why would I want him at the club? let them go and get someone who does want to be here.

Maybe its the players that have been sub par? and no I wouldn't flog the overpaid, whiney, little cocks I'd make train with the under 18s. We've had problem players (post takeover) before and I don't remember the club sacking the manager to keep them happy. If the manger needs to go that's a decision for the board not the players.

You can't run a football club by getting rid of every manager a couple of senior players don't like...

Were you calling for Koeman's sacking this time last season where we were just as bad if not worse?

Interesting bit from Les "He certainly won’t leave on the basis that he can just go. We would not consider releasing him unless there was a decent transfer fee and secondly that we were in a position to replace him. If anybody comes along on the last day of the transfer window it’s not going to happen.”

Marketable? He is a 33 old CB if we had really wanted to cash in on him Les would have driven up to Manchester at the beginning of the season straight after his euro win. By current PL standards Fonte I going to be worth chump change at his age.

Probably demand the club show some ambition and give him a 5 year deal at 150k week with a clause that guarantees he plays every game and has final say on all the mangers decisions......

How many more good seasons do people think we were going to get out him 1 maybe 2. He has been great for us but players all move on eventually. We got the best out of him time to replace him with someone younger.

He stayed for seven years the only thing that has changed is he won the euros which seems to have made him a bit of a muppet according to rumours.

I've always liked Fonte quality CB but his best days are, in all honesty, behind him he wants one last payday on the back of the euros and the club are going to have to replace him in the summer anyway. He wasn't going to be here much longer so for me while I'll be sad see him go I'm not as gutted as was losing good young players with futures like Shaw or Clyne. I guess his transfer request is simply a come and get me plea for who ever will offer him a final big pay day he feels is worthy of a euro winner.....

We've had his best years as an example of a player we can't keep hold of Fonte as our longest serving player, the wrong side of 30, isn't a very good one..

Spot on

We scored the highest number of headed goals in the PL last season we crossed constantly from the fullbacks under Koeman we are still doing it now . We certainly didn't play loads of fast direct counter attack football last season.

Don't buy that. Yes they are expected to drop back and defend but they are clearly meant to be supporting the attack we aren't playing three holding mids.

The team he put out was more than capable of winning that game. Right now the manager is hamstrung by a lack of a regular goal scorer most of our so called forwards couldn't score in a ****ing brothel right now.

Sorry but I see us lumping plenty of long balls up front this season We had to play three games in six days seems sensible to me.