doddisalegend

But at least he'd be able to challenge for the ball giving the opposition player less time to put the ball straight back in to our area. As it is we just clear the ball to which ever player the other team has left back on the half way line who than has an age, under no pressure, to gather the ball and put it back into our area.

Yeah but he won't sign it just like several other players who saw their futures else where.

No chance apart from ****ing off the fan base the rumours he did him self no favours with the club hierarchy either. We will never see him in a saints shirt again and I'm more than happy with that.

More that bit. Mind you if being captain of your national side makes you a regular starter we have to include Cuco Martina and Davis in the team every week to.

Well it would be bizarre if we had any decent AMs to play there but we only have Steven Davis (never scores), JWP (no one knows what his position really is) or Gaston () I'm really surprised we didn't get linked with a goal scoring midfielder or two in the summer.

So am I right in thinking no one came in for Charlie Austin in the End?

TBH it's the position Gaston should have played if he had ever turned out to be half the player we'd all hoped. Our summer has been pretty good I reckon the squad looks stronger, with more depth over all IMO. Morgan will always be a big miss but we were never going to keep hold of him. I guess if there was one player I wish we had a stab at signing this summer it would have been Cabaye he would have been great just in behind the forwards I reckon.

He is according to the BBC Southampton have agreed a fee of £11.5m with Scottish champions Celtic for Dutch defender Virgil van Dijk. The 24-year-old is having a medical with the Premier League club before finalising a five-year contract.

I remember playing FIFA something a rather with my kid a couple of seasons back and he let me play saints no word of lie Rickie Lambert was like Usain bolt on speed out stripping defenders for pace if he was like that in real life he would have been world class.

Still would love to know how they work out a players strength though seems like a rather odd category and quite hard to work out unless players want to put in a weight lifting session for the researcher.

So Virgil isn't as good as Jose? How the hell did you work out Strength? Did you ask Jose and Virgil to bench press you to work out who was stronger? Looking at that reminds me of Top trumps...

Think I heard the same interview. Lets hope he is right and the guy makes Liverpool Lovern look like a solid defender especially when we play them at Goodison we owe them.

I'm another one in the agree corner. When we clear from the corner 9/10 we just give it straight back to the opposition who under no pressure from our players have time to tee up another attack. If we leave someone like Mane up not only can we perhaps profit from a freak bounce or mistimed clearance but we can also put their last man under pressure so he doesn't have time to put the ball straight back in to our penalty box.

Why would QPR br desperate? If I was them he'd be the one player I would want to keep.

Yes but if Victor was happy to stay that would be the end of it. His various interview faux pas, over the last year, plus his current antics aren't down to his agent but Victor who is a grown man who can make his own decisions. He clearly feels he has done enough for a big money move to a big club (or in this cases spurs).

Except I was at the game and it was one way traffic even before the sending off we were much better than Norwich.

Koeman going to play 4-4 ****ing 2?

Doh just re-read Charlie's post

err no. Was it a Victor style "come and get me Arsenal" interview?

Chelsea. TBF generally only the really big teams have two quality GKs because they can pay the sort of money to back up keepers that makes sitting on a bench attractive. No doubt Charlie will be along to list a load of has beens and career back up goalies at other PL clubs to prove his point that KD isn't that good....as if we didn't realise he isn't world class.

Cheers guys so slighty worse than last season then but not a million miles off. Hopefully yesterday will kick start our season.

Watching MoTD 2 this morning and the tatters pointed out Tadic constantly moving to pick up Pelle's pieces while pointing Mane wasn't (just one game mind)

I wonder if Stephen Fry joined in with the Norwich fans chanting of "does your boyfriend know you're here" in the second half......

Can anyone remember how many points and what our position was after 4 games last season. I can't seem to find an old league table via google just thought I'd compare with this season.

Really? I thought SMS was very quiet and Saints fans seemed very nervous none of the songs round me got going just kept petering out (not help by all the people who don't seem to able to get to their seats until 10 minutes after kick off). Once the Norwich player got sent off the whole atmosphere changed second half the Itchen North was very noisy.