up and away

When our midfield dominates, they win us games. When they don't and put in performances like Saturday, they lose us games. Thankfully we have been rewarded most of the times. I am careful not to have a pop at our two central midfielders (two from JC, MS and DH) because they can all put in match winning performances then disappear after a couple of games. Schneiderlin was the only player close to doing his job against Blackpool, but I would still have been tempted to change him out for Hammond and retain Cork. As his value was far less because the rest of the team were not doing their job. Morgans pass stats are a misnomer, a bit like our possession figures against Blackpool, requiring an additional factor to be of any true value. Tactically we got the midfield so right against Watford I was left scratching my head at just how easy the game was, especially considering the teams they turned over prior / post our encounter. Against Blackpool we got things so wrong and on each occasion they were following Adkins instructions. Adkins is still the best thing since sliced bread, just not immortal yet!

Not saying this at all. My major point being that when we are playing badly is to recognise that fact and to adapt to a type of game where we can be more effective. Don't go throwing the midfield in support of the forwards when you are having little success, you only expose the defence on the break by doing so. When you are commiting so many forward without success and equally exposing the back four, you can do something about your predicament. Get men behind the ball and set up more defensively. At least you can be more difficult to beat and have you really lost anything attack wise when you were making little head way? We have lost a few games this season because of this problem, some deliberately where we have tried to force the issue in the last 15 minutes. I don't have such a problem where it is done in the last 15 minutes where you are risking 1 point against a possible 3, but the weakness in judgement still applies, what is practical with the resources and form at that particular moment. Away to Brighton was another example when we had to deal with Ricky getting sent off. What we should have done is kept the midfield which gave us the domination in the first half and brought on Forte as a lone striker and see how things developed. Trying to keep Forte and Connolly playing upfront just loaded all the eggs into one basket, without a midfield now to support them. The game just turned in that instant and we were never a threat again. It's all about being practical when we find we don't have the best hand.

Go back to the first game of the season against Leeds and you saw most of what got us to such an elevated position. We had several players prepared to pass and move the ball quickly to each other. When a player received the ball he would quickly pass the ball on or turn and face the opposition, looking to make forward progress or pass and immediately putting the opposition onto the back foot. Players would cut through defences using triangles or later develop the ball out to the full back coming down the wing. Teams just did not know whether the L/R midfielder was going down the wing, cut in and develop a move or cut in and establish the full back coming down the outside. When you have Lambert, Connolly, Lallana, Guly, Cork, Hammond and the FB's all doing this well, you are unstoppable with that quality of passing. Leicester were the first to show they had figured us out and had two banks of four in front of the goalie denying us space between the lines to get our passing game together. Add to that a tenacity to get in our faces and we found it very difficult to make headway. When things broke down their midfield could step up as a unit and have the freedom to attack at will. But we did come back at Leicester because we were still playing reasonable football that we produced against Leeds, with Sven gaving us a chance by changing his formation. Against Blackpool we were again faced with a midfield and defence that had done their homework and a Saints side with little resemblance to the side that started the season. No movement off the ball so the triangles became totally predictable and static, no tuning to face the opposition once having received the ball and just laying it off in hope or back to someone in defence who then came under pressure. We passed it to ourselves for long periods but only getting ever closer to Kelvin. When the move did break down we had managed to pull ourselves so out of position in defence retaining the ball, that we were totally at 6's and 7's when confronted with most of the Blackpool midfield bearing down on an out of position defence. Never mind the wings, they had space all over to pick a spot, combined with a defence totally out of position. What we failed to do on this occasion and several others is to realise what we can achieve when not able to play our pass and move game. Get the midfield behind the ball such we are not giving the opposition the freedom of the park to take us apart at their ease. Go to 4411 or 451 to get control, at least then we can deny the opposition the space they were denying us. Blackpool looked brilliant because that is what we made them look like, but it would have been a totally different story without the space we afforded them. If you look at all the really bad performances such as this, it's because the opposition have put up a fight, denied us space and we were off form. This has been a real weakness for Adkins in how we play when in such poor form. Trying to play in the same manner as when we were top dog just gives the whole game away so easily, whereas I am sure we could have got far more out of these games by not exposing large voids between the defence and attack for the opposition to exploit.Yes that does mean we are no where near that same level of attacking threat and have to try and nick the game from a set piece or chance from Billy. If the worst team in the league can pull that off against us with Billy, there's no reason we could not do the same to Blackpool or at least look good for a point.

When we are playing well this is never an issue because the opposition has to fall back to defend or we cut through them and render the game meaningless in minutes. The trouble is that we play the same way (with some minor exceptions) when we are not playing well and just invite trouble. What we really needed to do against Blackpool was to set up in front of them and play on the counter. Fair enough we may not have scored in 180 minutes with that form, but at least we would have had some control over their attack. Trying to play on the counter with no pace or size up front is a difficult task, but even Doncaster can get rewards from it. I don't believe Blackpool were even that good, just met the self afflicteds at the right time.

That was a disappointment, a very inept performance. Bearing in mind the sheite every player had in support, I can only see Schneiderlin as being the least culpable. This was nothing to do with Lambert, except we would have scored the penalty and won a few headers in midfield. This looked more like subbueteo. This performance typified a pass and move team who had forgot the move part, combined with no pace. When a midfield pass broke down we found their entire midfield exposing our defence, causing all sorts of issues and I doubt Fonte will get much sleep for a while. We needed our midfield covering for that eventuality but without any pace up front, we were never going to make a dent in Blackpool unless our midfield exposed itself as it did. That in no way males it right though and a more tighter practical approach was required when we are that limited. Forgetting about the penalty, I thought Billy was dreadful and needs to reclaim that spot on the bench he has rightly earned. We eventually figured out it was not best to pump up long balls to all 5'8" of Billy and got it into his feet. Turn and give the defence an awkward moment on the front foot, rather than finding one of our centre backs with a 25 yard lay off. This game to me showed how lacking we are without pace that we have to try and force the issue with the midfield, only getting totally exposed when we are not up to the task as today. So many players putting in such a bad performance, such you can forget about our improvement in the second half when the game was over. This was the sort of performance we put in during our slump and anyone taking consolation from the 6 point difference between us and West Ham must have over looked this means we have to play Reading in a couple of games time. Given the current forms of the two teams our prospects seem far from rosy. A draw today would have been brilliant, meaning Reading would have needed 2 results to get past us and West Ham 3, but we never gave ourselves a chance of collecting that 1 point.

Does not seem a bad side at all. If Butterfield is up to it defensively than it should not be too bad. Don't know where I shall hide if we get a penalty. It would not surprise me if Chung has done a metatarsal. Just the one out from Ricky and Chung is bad enough due to the volume of games coming up.

Why bother, it's so obvious he has his pants round his ankles, adopted the thrust position and trying to squeeze one out. How many other authors would try and justify their authenticity of the article with? Southampton did not deny that senior officials are in talks to sell the club when contacted by Goal.com, although a spokesman refused to comment publicly.Or does he believe that Saints respond fully and immediately to these type of questions? That is such a lame and amateurish paragraph, such to render the remainder of the article valueless. Looking at what has actually been said by Cortese gives a slightly different slant to the interpretations being made (courtesy of the SwissRambler. ) These are the only comments on record I know of from all the parties involved and all everyone has seen is distortions and interpretations of these comments. Starting with "This was never a financial transaction" how can anyone read into this that the prime objective here is to sell at a point to maximise profit? Secondly the situation with Cortese and the Liebherr family as to how the project goes forward. It's very difficult considering all these comments to not conclude there is a case of no smoke without fire, otherwise it is very odd for Cortese to throw this in. What I do find interesting is that Cortese terms that as a lack of commitment, not selling out, combined with other options. This strongly suggests that finance for a major project such as the stadium may be sourced else where should the Liebherrs decide not to do so.

The OP is a very poor analogy. On one hand you have a company funded by debt with little chance of repayment, on the other hand you have a company funded from ample reserves. It is of no real significance that loans were converted into shares, because it's all from the same source. In the grand scheme of things, whether that source decides to call in those loans is exactly the same if they decide to sell off part / all of the club. Irrespective of the loans being converted or still outstanding. There is absolutely no comparison between Saints and Pompey over financial issues. We can afford to balance any short fall between spend and income from another source as demonstrated in the accounts. Eventually we will have to square the circle of spend and income at some time in the Premier to be sustainable. That's to be expected and something adopted by every Premier club that balances their books, even though the finances can get out of kilter going through the Championship to get to the Premier. The trick is to be self sustainable in the Premier unless you have a constant source of outside income.

I look back at that Dutch model where they developed the best team in Europe more than once. If they were playing in the Premier league there would have been no reason to break up the squad for financial reasons, they could have gone from strength to strength. And if you get a group of young players who are competing and beating the likes of United, City, Arsenal and Spurs, then you will have further increased your chance of retaining these players. The likes of City will always draw off from every top club in Europe when you are prepared to pay that much above the odds, but it would not be impossible to compete with the others given the right conditions. This is a long way off as we would have need to go through several build and sells to get to that point, but not impossible. When we were in the Premier, I always felt that a 35k stadium would have been optimal. We had about 4-5k who came along for Premier football but with what I would call a soft spot for Saints, some even estranged supporters of other clubs. It will take time but I feel we can eventually get those neutrals back and if we start playing the type of football we are talking about, then 40k does not seem implausible after an extended time. The problem will be the cost of seating and how we could fund such, which I believe would cost many times over our original stadium price. Getting to that 45k stadium could well cost an extra £125M. Something I don't feel we have in our budget and would have to look at outside help to finance, something that will be very difficult for a football club in these times. You only have to look at Arsenal and the monumental task of making the Emirates work. Only achieved by Wenger and how he managed to keep Arsenal competitive whilst providing something like £250-300M towards the cost of the build, Ours would be no where near that level but very similar on degree of difficulty.

Very true, but it's not difficult to realistically see things far better if you put the work in to achieve that end. Players such as Surman, Dyer and Mills could stil be here. Bale we may have been able to keep for another 2-3 years. If you get the strong bond going between the club and this band of juniors, it would not have surprised me that we could have kept the likes of Oxo for a few more years without his father around. You only have to look at how the Dutch clubs developed and managed to keep their stars for those extra few years before selling them. The big difference would be if you get a set of players to that level, enjoying that success in the Premier league, you have a far bigger chance of keeping hold of far more talent. The only thing that stopped the Dutch clubs from moving on to this level was the financial rewards of the league they were stuck in. A very different kettle of fish when you are in the worlds most profitable and exciting league.

The only way Saints can realistically have young players such as Lallana is if we develop them ourselves. Once developed the trick will then be keeping them, which will again be a mammoth task. But I do believe Cortese may have the knack here, he certainly appreciates the situation. Executive Chairman Nicola Cortese commented: "We're doing this with the reason to develop players who are going to be Premier League players and love to come to work here because that's very key. I've been asked about the usual players that have come from the Academy but none of them are still here, so what we intend to do in the future is to develop players who love to stay at Southampton Football Club and work for the club. You have to create a good working environment for them, and that's what we're doing." The one thing that will be missing from this equation will be first team football, something very difficult to achieve when you will have so many coming through at different levels and ages. We need to find a method of sending them out to other clubs for a season or more to develop and still retain the desire for playing for the club, especially if you are in with a group of others.

You stupid old thwat. Markus set up the trust for Saints in the knowledge he was dying. This has nothing to do with the rest of his family making provisions for Saints once he had passed away.

Just because Katrina has little interest in football or Saints, does in no way mean she would not be prepared to respect her fathers wishes if he wanted to set up a trust for Saints, along with any other member of the family. Especially when they have inherited more money than they know what to do with.

There is no evidence the Liebherr family have invested any money in Saints, only Markus. There is no pressure on getting any money back or sell the club, it was never part of their portfolio in the beginning. When ever the term 5 year plan has been used by Cortese or Liebherr it is in conjunction with promotion to the Premier league, this is categoric. Liebherr even talked about Champions League, well bearing in mind they allowed 5 years to get into the Premier, it really sounds that Liebherrs "long term" vision when he bought the club, extended well past that 5 years. Markus had owned the club for a season when he made allowances for it to continue after his death. It would have been so simple and easy at that point to put the club up for sale if the only reason was financial. Why would anyone want to try and control an investment way past their death for such a minimal return, even if you got a good price for the club. Yes minimal return, it hardly makes a scratch on his £3B fortune. Even after all the hard work and struggle several years on you may if lucky come out with £30M profit (without looking at tax). That £30M profit represents 1% of his wealth, just why would you bother with such an inconsequential amount and trouble when you are on your death bed? I believe Markus like the rest of us got caught in that love affair that is Saints, cemented in place by that Johnstones Paint Trophy at Wembley. He wanted that dream to continue even though he would not be there to witness the events. That's why I believe he set up a trust to continue long after his death, administered by Cortese and his family. There is just no rational for a multi billionaire to concern himself with such minor values when on his death bed, unless for other than monetary reasons.

To me it does not look like the Liebherrs have an active interest in Saints and I cannot see any intelligent person with a knowledge of finance getting involved in investing in a football club without the passion. There are obviously links with the club and the family but I really doubt it extends to them dipping into their own pockets to invest in a football club. There is just not the personal interest from the family as we had with Markus. I am sure they wish us well, respect their fathers wishes and hope we are a success, but I cannot see things going any further, If you look at everything that transpired previously with Markus and his father it does provide clues. The Liebherr group was split up amongst the family. Some family members never became actively involved in the company and just took the shares / value and lived their life as they wanted, others took an active interest such as Markus. When Markus left the Liebherr group he gave back all the shares and assets of his Liebherr group holding to the remaining original family, having already successfully established MALI. Upon semi retiring from MALI he then did the same as his father with his own direct family members. He had a total wealth of around £3M and a personal wealth of some where around £1.2M. It was heavily stressed when Saints were bought that this all came from his personal wealth. Upon his death the MALI group was divided amongst the immediate family and some others. I would expect most of his personal wealth to have gone to his wife and what ever funds he left for Saints and other personal projects. Although the Liebherrs have accrued vast amounts of money, there is no sign they live any where near their means, being far more conservative and frugal. So how much of Lieberrs personal wealth was left for the development of Saints? Bearing in mind the projects and cost we have taken on at Saints and without short changing the current family, I would estimate we have a pot of £150M - £200M to draw upon. I don't believe there is any chance the Liebherrs will add to that figure out of what would be their own cash, but there will be links from the Liebherrs for administering this "trust". I don't believe Cortese will have complete freedom, but sufficient within a loose agenda and the family keeping a watching brief. If we wanted to develop / rebuild / move the existing stadium I believe that would have to be funded at least partially by private investment. I would expect we have sufficient capital to get Saints to work in the long term, something like 8 -10 years, but after that we will be on our own.

^ Still this Simple logic. Needs just a bit more logic. If West Ham beat Reading, that would mean Saints only have to win 3 games (one being the Reading game) and draw 1 game. The rest we can lose and get still have a good chance with goal difference. If West Ham lose to Peterborough, then a Reading win would mean we can get away with just 3 wins and still get through on goal difference. But it's only after a West Ham loss against Peterborough that your theory comes into play, otherwise it can require 4 wins. In practice, it would not surprise me that 3 wins and a couple of draws irrespective of other results should be good enough because it's a heavy run in for all the teams.

I don't think you would. If West Ham lose to Posh and Reading, that would mean we could afford to lose 4 games and still be in the driving seat. That would be absolutely massive, with Paddy Power paying out for promotion there and then.

I agree with that, although with some caveats. De Ridder I thought played well, better than Chaplow to some extent but it's all about what each player brings to the pitch. With De Ridder we give up some midfield control, when Chaplow came on we got that back and looked far more solid. We really were little threat on their goal until we changed things around and Billy's header came out of the blue. From then on it was relatively easy. What Billy showed from the second goal was similar to what was needed with his miss against West Ham. But this time he quickly lined his body up and made things look very easy. We never missed Ricky when he went off but to be fair I would not put this game forward as suiting Ricky the best. Good to see Chaplow playing well and I really hope he is at his best or very soon, we really need him on the right.

I can find little fault with that point of view with recent history backing that up. My estimate is that we would need something like £20M from Cortese to bolster the playing squad, just to ensure we became a mid table team. And stil using the Premier income to improve the squad further. Swansea have been really special in their performances and outlay, something that will not necessarily carry over to other teams. Our big difficulty will be in spending that money wisely where it looks most targets will come from abroad. I know we have done some steps towards international scouts but are competing in a very competitive market, lacking the experience at this level. Our first season could be very difficult. Where I feel you may be underestimating our prospects is down to the way the club is working. As well oiled machines go, it's difficult to look at any other club that have got so much right as Saints have in their progress. There's been very little luck, just a lot of hard work and excellent decisions. That's why I feel even with the reasonably expected budget you mention, that we will be punching far greater than our weight. I also expect that youth players will be fast tracked into the first team, even though this means sacrificing early results to do so. Many very successful business men have come into football and made a pigs ear of it. Somehow Cortese has got all the important bits right. He had no right to get so lucky but the harder he seems to work the luckier he gets. I believe we have someone special for a chairman, someone who can get us punching well above our weight.

As fans we can never be 100% of an owners intentions, but since the beginning Liebherr was rung all the right bells, that has filled me with confidence. Cortese is investing so much into the long term future of the club, I just can't see it as a splash and dash. If you wanted to maximise profits from a sell on, there are many unneccessary costs that could be shed. Things as minor as the new ticketing systems just highlights good is not enough, it's got to be up there with the best for the job. The Academy underlines this attitude, even though we ae not even a Premier club as yet. Corteses drive is relentless and can be *****ly to some, but seems to have realised that the team does all the talking for him and he just gets on with his job. I doubt many of us would enjoy working for him, so driven and hard working and expecting the same from his staff. I am gobsmacked at just how well Cortese has got this club running, with everything and everyone pulling in the right direction. We can say this is not all down to Cortese and that Adkins, Wilkins, Reid have played their part, but Cortese has put the peices together and allowed them the space and freedom to be a success. You only have to look at the removal of Pardew and his subsequent success at Newcastle. Normally that would indicate a failure on a chairmans part having to risk that season upon what he felt required to be done. But Adkins appointment has been a master stroke that there are very few who would want to swap Adkins for Pardew now, even with his success at Newcastle. I am not completely sure how Cortese has achieved what he has so far, but he certainly knows what he is doing. I look back when he increased Adkins contract to 5 years after just a couple of months in the job, when we had not even seen anywhere near the best from Adkins. How Cortese had that figured at that stage just makes his judgement look that much better.

One very subtle difference, it was not Hicks and Gillettes money that was actually used. The term loan has been used for possible tax and accountancy issues, but means nothing of significance to the fans when it's one person who owns the club and "lends" the money. The debt as in Abramovich's case is meaningless. As the club is not making a profit, just how can these loans cost the club any extra tax. That loan can stay on the books for as long as they want, no ones going to pay any extra tax. The only real benefit these loans can make as I see it, being that if the club were sold the Liebherrs can deduct those loans from the sale price and only be subject to tax on the difference. Being that our £20M loan includes the purchase price etc, it's even of less relevance. There is no threat to Saints the club here, just the belief in the owners as with any other club.

Abramovich has loaned Chelsea £740M and can pull that out at any time. But when you own the club as well, you can have zero loans and still sell the club off as you wish. Abramovich is not worrying about repaying Abramovich, but it is an indicator of how self sustaining the club is.

That just about covers most points and as you say, if Chung is back it looks very straight forward. The only problems going to be the tired legs that came off against Hull and a Doncaster side who will just pack the midfield and just leave someone up front on occasions, as they did at home against us. We came unstuck because we were not playing well and tried to convert 1 point into 3. Which we did but to Doncasters gain rather than ours. I doubt Chung will start because I would have expected to hear some snippet about him by now but it would not surprise me if Chaplow or Sharp made a start, simply because it's Doncaster and how they will line up. Both Chaplow and Sharp are out of form at present, but this game could well see them thrive. Fonte should be able to move up into midfield and I feel may well be the key in breaking down Doncaster. Understand your comments about De Ridder but am not sure this will be his type of game with the space afforded to him? Either way it's going to interesting to see what Adkins does after the master class he performed tactically against Hull. Adkins defended Guly vigorously when questioned by Solent recently, listing out all the additional things he offers when referenced against De Ridder. I don't believe that is so strong a case against Doncaster, but he is strong in the air at both ends of the pitch.

And why do you think Billy has such little game time, Adkins blanking him in training? Adkins and the staff have had more than enough time to look over Billy and evaluate what he has done during games. You only have to look at Chung to see how he has developed, even though given less opportunity than Billy at the beginning. There is a very good reason why Billy has not had further game time, his performances have just not been good enough at present. I clearly stated that I expect Billy to put in some telling contributions this season and would not be surprised if Adkins got him going in the Premier, given the chance. So far from not giving him time, that's the remainder of this season and next, no one is saying to kick him out. That's your muppet interpretation.

Never really a big fan of Billy, but he is a decent Championship striker. Adding him to our squad made a lot of sense and when you look what was on general offer at the time and our needs, still looks the right way to go. I expected out of Billy and Connolly to have one decent striker along side of Lambert for the rest of the season. Billy will get his chance and who knows what he will deliver after a full close season with Adkins or even the run in. Disappointed with his form which is mainly due to "niggles" not allowing to get up to full fitness. My biggest concern is that he offers nothing different to the forward line as he does not have the pace. Lots have commented upon his good link up play with Lambert but I feel this blunts Lambert fractionally, rather than adding. I don't see Billy as near Premier quality but you never know when Adkins and his staff start polishing him up, as I expect them to do for some valuable contributions for the remainder of this season.