captainchris

Yes yes yes yes yes but! We - the club have very steadily built this culture of, if you want to leave just say the word guys and we wil let you go. You reap what you sew..... Now we have to break the culture and the rules we have written ourselves..... Easy - most definitely not but we made the rules so what can you say ?????? For the future of the club we are now in a corner we cannot compromise on as this will lead to a further erosion of the clubs determination to hang on to any players st all and yet again will lead to further player power and exodus.... Wake up Soton Football Club, you have to stand up for yourselves at some point or you will never keep a decent player for more than one year again!!!!

Fair points... Vvd needs to know - someone comes up with 75m cash he can go. Otherwise he is in the reassies - your choice - there isn't a queue at the door after all! Agree we lose credibility selling to Liverpool at all let alone for less than the price demanded....

Every year we seem to play some very poor teams indeed in our pre season friendly games. We also don't appear to play many warm up matches.... The programme of pre season games this year looks particularly sparse... Anecdotally I'm not sure we usually start the season too well either.... I keep hearing the big teams playing what seems more games than us.... Can we not step up our pre season number of games and quality of opposition so we are better prepared to face the one big team pre season at St Mary's and then the season start... We are very complacent at times.... What is the point in playing some part time Scandinavian team at any time? Please don't say fitness anyone.... We should stretch ourselves more than that....

Please keep your personal insults to yourself. If you can't have an opinion without throwing abuse around to other legitimate posters then take yourself off the forum.

Oh come come - A 'knowledge of British Football Its not bloody rocket science !!!!! Popular with the players is also no reason to keep him.... New manager should intimate that something was wrong with previous set up.. why keep any part of it .... ??? A bad decision unless you want last year's philosophies to be a part of this year's..... Old management team still around after brining in new management team doesn't make any sense at all...

Precisely....... why do so many of our fans feel so good about underselling our players? 27m is laughable for Bertrand in today's market and given his contract too. His value is what we want and that has to be 50m plus .... We don't need to sell either so if it's too hot get out of the kitchen City.... Still laughing at the cheek of the valuation...

Well not so sure that is actually true.... Fonte was clearly declining rapidly - ask West Ham fans what they think about him!!!

Well 'what ever' now to bo honest... He's lost lots of credibility with the fans and maybe with some if his team mates too... Preferably don't sell anyone ever again to Liverpool unless they pay a 20% supplement. The word to describe their fans and Manager is conceited. Flog him to someone else and move on.... When we play against him put lots of low crosses into the box for our runner who will be instructed to exploit the glaring Vvd weakness and get across him and have a tap in or two....

Dennis Hollywood - Great call !

One of our weak points last year appeared to be set pieces where our centre backs appeared to be left wanting at times. However that may have been due to lack or organisation rather than marking or personel especially. There were issues with in play defending at times but with Romeu having so much to do in our system he was left to virtually defend on his own in some games leaving the two centre backs exposed because he couldn't do it all. I am sure we would have been more suited to 352 or certainly a three at the back as Koeman used successfully but Puel continued with wing backs virtually leaving two at the back and succeeded in somehow being outnumbered in midfield too! Hopefully as long as messrs Hunter and Black are kept away from organisation our centre backs will thrive this year...

'Familiarity' is never a god thing when you have dissatisfied with the previous familiar.... I would want to know how much influence Black actually had last year because if he had any at all he should be gone too. It can only be disruptive to have previous ideas and doctrine hanging around from last year. The fact that the players allegedly like him is also not an advantage in any way. Let the new manager bring his own management style unhindered by past incumbencies. Bad idea IMO

Oh dear oh dear

You are either newly born, blind, don't read this forum very often, don't see many games or his Dad.... Which one is it?

Because Watson has been shown to be suspect isn't that obvious?

Standing is gone for ever I hope... People cannot be trusted to behave.

I doubt we paid very much at all in compensation actually. If Puel made too high a demand for compensation he clearly would be tied to us preventing him going for other employment.

Agree. After seeing as a pundit lately he is fairly inept. He only talks about Utd players all the time and has little concept of tactics or awareness in a given game.

Ball hit totally - a weak thread ...

Well I think quite a few have been bought on loaned money.... I just thought of a very good example errrrrr ....... Coventry!!! ?

Most clubs are bought on debt.... Man U were totally bought on debt, I think Arsenal were and a host of other clubs. Even we were lent the money - it wasn't a gift....

Then they will have to adapt or watch others that can adapt ...

At last some back bone! Credit where it's due ....

Burnley were totally abysmall at our place this year...

Not that it matters but ..... I can't think of one club that has the chaos and turmoil we have had for last few consecutive summers or even one summer even? That is the perspective you need to consider. Nobody loses players like we do continuously every summer. We contrive to engineer a total lack of control over the exodus every year...

If you read his post he was talking about all the recent summers, however so far this one is exactly the same so far - is it not ? Lack of control, mass speculation regarding exits which in previous experience always come to fruition by the way and buggers muddle until the start of the season in prospect again where we will scrabble around at very last minute to find a new manager and players to fill the voids caused by a lack of management of the out of season period. In short chaos....