S-Clarke

I agree with a lot of what you say, and there are definitely advantages and disadvantages with our approach. But one thing that is absolutely critical to our general approach is scouting, they have to nail that with a fine toothcomb. For sure, every club has players signed for big money who haven't lived up to the hype, but when you look at our 'flops' then they were all bought within a similar time frame, under the same DoF and technical director and none of them worked out. Elyonoussi, Hoedt, Carrillo, Lemina, Boufal, Vestergaard - that's around £100m of transfers, every single one has been an absolute failure. I wouldn't begrudge the approach if one or at worse two of that lot didn't work out, but for every one of those big signings to not work out is catastrophic and signifies horrific scouting on multiple levels. That period over 2/3 transfer windows, when we sat with around £60m from VVD, was a criminal offence in my opinion. What should have been a strong legacy for our football club was flittered away on players for big wages, big money, that now no one wants. Ross Wilson and Les Reed, take a bow. The general idea of getting good players, offering them a decent amount of money compared to over leagues, is all well and good - but you need your scouting to be top notch, and during those 3 windows it wasn't acceptable. I'm glad we've restructured that area now and hopefully over time we will see an improvement in our approach. I guess I've been frustrated at the lack of investment, but we're hindered by the poor decisions and poor management of the past. Let's just hope we can get through this bump and eventually Ralph is able to build a team fully in his mould.

No more excuses for Gao, I bet he can't wait! I look forward to his imminent investment.

£3.5m for Boufal? Absolute loose change again, but what can you do. I guess if you add up all of his previous loans we may have recouped close to 8 or so mill for him, but whatever is said, he has been a catastrophic signing and a financial disaster for a club of our size.

He's had a lot of injury problems, but he strikes me as the sort of mobile/forward thinking midfielder we lack. It's not like we're 300 miles from London, pretty much straight up the m3. Bertrand lives just outside of London anyway, so I can't see that being a problem. Plus, once he see's west quay and the Marland's, there's no going back to London.

Apart from Chelsea! Talking of loans, they may have a few worth looking at once the window draws to a close. Loftus Cheek?

Terrible game of football. Slow pace, no movement, backwards and sideways for 90mins. Very lucky to have won that. Iceland are a dreadful outfit too, so a big wakeup call. Need to get the best out of players like Foden, Sterling, Sancho, Kane etc. That's as good as an attacking 4 around, but they just didn't get into the game. Lots of work to do I think.

It's been flawless now for a good few days. I hope this is it sorted now!

I'm sure Gao would put his hand in his pocket to cover the outlay. So glad we have such a responsible and engaged owner.

That's probably more to do with COVID than anything else. Sky are going a bit mental with their cut backs, but with the online content nowadays and the PL review show the need for those sorts of shows has diminished slightly. I never really saw the point of the 'Debate' show, which has been canned as well. I guess in a way Sky Sports are evolving in the same way they evolved when they ditched FanZone, You're on Sky Sports etc - both massive staples of their 90's coverage, but they moved on from those.

Good point. That's when we were best placed to jump in when one of the big 6 fails? Yeah, that went well. Cheers Les, you blundering old fool.

Well run club, Leicester. Lose a key player and they have a replacement straight away using those funds. I don't think we're that badly run these days, we just need to get rid of more to free up the space for our PEH replacement. Issues from the past!

Some positive news - Premier League clubs hold positive talks about the prospect of additional matches being televised. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/54016886

I think that's what we all want to know, but it's all gone silent. A lot of people have offered their help on this thread as well, unsure if any have had their offers taken up.

I've used Invison forums before and I've never seen it act like this, it looks like some sort of server backend issue to me, rather than the forum software it's self. No updates at all anymore though, I think this place is being left to die on it's arse which is a real shame. As someone has said, if Steve doesn't have the time to run this anymore, and he's done a bloody good job for years and years off his own back, then please just see if someone else would like to take it on rather than let it fall away.

Even though he's turned up in those pictures, he's not on the updated squad page on the OS. Weird. https://www.southamptonfc.com/first-team Kit looks smart though.

Disgusting result. What has Ralph been doing? We ended the season so strongly and now we're back to the normal. Everyone out.

Have you seen the Swansea starting 11? I've been trying to find it but I can't see one, they've unsurprisngly kept it very hidden.

#ITKwatch

Yeah, that's true. Pretty much feel the same about them, although with Teun I believe he's always been a CM, defensive in nature. Morgan was actually capable of 'playing in defence' when we bought him too, in fact I'm sure he played there, but it was pretty obvious he was a CM. Same is the case of Teun imo. Don't even know if we're interested in him though! I'll await your confirmation 😉

I don't think he was suggesting we sign McNair. Just a versatility comparison.

If he really blossoms at Fulham, they will probably stay up, at which point he's there's by default as per the agreement for £5m! He won't though, so it's fine!

That's as photoshopped as you can get.

Teun is a very talented player, very stable on the ball. I'd say pretty similar to JWP in how he plays. Good range of passing, all that standard stuff. I wouldn't say he's particularly powerful or quick through the middle though. Although he'd certainly add some height.

Absolute pocket change really, that obligation fee. Only thing which will help us here is the lack of his wage.

Why do we have to find out about these matches via other clubs sources? Granted, we can't attend and fans don't need to know, but our weird secrecy over everything is a real pain in the backside.