S-Clarke

Not sure if anyone has seen this, but our brand value has grown 89% in the last year. We're now above clubs such as Inter Milan, At. Madrid, Napoli. Southampton, thanks in part to their recent successes under Mauricio Pochettino and Ronald Koeman, are this year's fastest growing brand. The Saints' brand value is up 89% to $183million (£120million). http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-3115064/Manchester-United-world-s-billion-dollar-brand-Red-Devils-beat-Real-Madrid-Bayern-Munich-Barcelona-surge-past-mega-money-milestone.html

How's everyone getting on with this now? There are some fantastic players you can pickup early on, and they become £30-40m players easily. Ladisslav Krejci - left winger/amc Romagnoli - you can get him from Roma's U20's team at the start of the game. Within 2/3 years he is the best defender in the game. Carrasco - Belgian attacking player from Monaco. Absolute talent. Can pick him up for £10m and he is Gareth Bale-esque in his ability. Oliver - You can grab him on loan from At.Madrid. I managed to negotiate a £14m purchase fee. Well worth doing it, top player in the AMC role. Thomas Partey - Another At.Madrid player which you can pickup for loan with a view to buy. He's basically Wanyama, so when Wanyama does leave he's a pretty sound replacement. Gaston Gil Romero - Got him for under £10m. He's Morgan basically, just Argentinian. I sold Morgan in the 2nd season for about £29m, got this kid for £10m. He's only 21 and is based at an Argentinian club - you have to get in there kind of early in the window, as some Italian clubs are sniffing. Alan Noym - Great replacement for Clyne if you sell him. He's very quick, very strong, has a terrific delivery on him. Costs about £6m. Another RB worth looking at is (another!) at. madrid player, Silvio. They don't want him any more and you can pick him up for £1m. Portuguese international, 27 years old. He's rock solid Sold Wanyama, Morgan, Clyne for a combined 60 odd million I think, got the replacements with plenty of cash left over. I ended up with this team by season 3, finished on 72 pts in the Top 4: Forster Silvio - Fonte - Romagnoli - Bertrand Gaston Gil-Romero JWP Carrasco - Oliver - Quintero Rodriguez Subs - Stekenberg, Partey, Nyom, Austin, Sims, McCarthy, Reed

Markovic was actually bought as an attacking wide player, but Brendan Rogers, being the tactical genius that he is, played him at right or left wing back. They've also got Aspas, who is out on loan this season. They have a proper stock-pile of strikers not good enough for them, quite odd.

Bit of a reality check for Liverpool I think. Linked with the likes of Higuain, Lacazzette, Vieto etc.....but end up with Ings. Good player, not denying that, wouldn't have said no to him here.....but he's not the sort of signing which is going to propel Liverpool back into contenders.

Stop trying to pretend you're ITK.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/transfer-news/chelsea-transfers-loic-remy-chase-5840461

Don't bite to it Roger. We've got his trash for weeks yet, if people just ignore him then he'll go away. I hope.

Give me another season or 2 and I'll get them there.

For me, the goal which gave me the biggest emotional release was when Rickie scored against the Skates in the cup game when we were in L1. The other goal was probably Jos making it 3-0 against Coventry, the rest of the game became a massive party. Biggest moments were the new contracts for Morgan and Lallana, and the signing of Rickie Lambert. Huge, significant. Not sure where we would be if we didn't have that sort of goal scorer in our setup.

Rumour has it that Utd are very keen on Kane and want to push a deal.

http://www.dailystar.co.uk/sport/football/446535/EXCLUSIVE-Tottenham-leading-the-chase-for-Liverpool-target-Yannick-Bolasie what the actual fu....?

There will be better games down on the Sunday park pitches.

He's been rubbish this season tbh, in and out through injury, 1 or 2 flashes, but when he has played a lot of largely ineffective performances - like the one we saw at St Mary's. I know L'Pool fan's are the biggest fans.

Nice to see the standard of the game is the same as usual.

Because they play for Utd and Liverpool, probably.

2 GK's on the bench as well. these games are a waste of air.

I thought Austin was going to start? Same old. Sterling has done **** all for 6 months other than throw his dummy, no idea why he gets in. And why do we have a CB at RB? come on!

The CL is totally beyond a club of our size, it's not negative or depressing to state that - it's just being realistic with your expectations. That's why finishing in the Top 4 this season would have been a step too far, in my opinion. We'd have ended up in the Europa play off anyway IMO. There may be a unique season whereby we do qualify, but even then getting to any decent stage in the competition after qualifying is near on an impossibility without incredible investment on PSG/Man City levels.

It's always the same with Arsenal and Wenger though isn't it? A strong last few weeks to a season, covering over the obvious cracks which appear during mid-season. He then ignores them again and the issues occur the next season at the same stage. It's like a loop.

If he was going to reach his potential, he would have done by now. He's 28 and by all accounts on a decline downwards. I would imagine there are plenty more capable players out there. Glad we dodged this one.

He would cost £32.5m, and probably 80-90k p/w on wages. Southampton will never spend that on a single player. Not in the next few decades anyway.

Yeah, think he's been on our list for a while.

From what I made of that, we didn't offer him enough $$, whilst Bestikas did. Sounds like it's all about him joining Bestikas.

It was the cleaner who refused to return any of Lallana's calls last summer as well. Shambles.

He does, it's run like a seaside b&b.