S-Clarke

Are you suggesting Sulemana and Mara know how we play? They don't even understand football in it's simplest terms, so they would be of no loss to any professional football club. Ross Stewart doesn't know how we play because he's never played. We could lose Ross, Sulemana and Mara, and not replace them and we'd still be no weaker than we are with them.

Are you confusing him with Dibling? Ballard has done sod all in pre-season, was injured all of last year and needs proper mens football to see if he's any good.

That's an interesting note on Fraser - I always assumed that was a done and dusted bit of business, but to me that sounds like the club have moved on from him now. Maybe Newcastle were asking for stupid money and we wanted him on a free? Could be something like that. I like Fraser last year, was pretty effective for us - opportunity to get an upgrade on him though.

They signed a massive 6ft 8 keeper in the summer too - clubs like Forest have no strategy when it comes to buying players, they just stockpile.

Scored as well, almost certainly deal off!

Replace Goalkeepers with Strikers and it's the same track record. To put it blunt, our scouting and recruitment for permanent additions for too many years has been horrendous and is why we were relegated.

Yeah I look at Dibling and see a player there who can make a genuine impact, I say get him tied down to a longer deal first though - as I'm sure 15 mins in the PL, doing well, will make all the clubs want to buy him - it's the way the daft world works these days. He looks like he has that Shaw/Bale swagger about him to me anyway. Amo is good too, but I reckon he'll be the one to loan out. It's a shame guys like Sulemana got more game time than either of those young kids last year, travesty really.

I don't think you could say he's worse tbf, but on equal footing - probably. All it does is go to ram home the utter ineptness of our striker recruitment, not just over 1 year, but many fucking years. Even last year we again fucked up with our striker signing. Whoever in our recruitment team is tasked with scouting strikers sack them...and get someone who knows wtf they're doing, because whoever is currently doing it has no scooby.

Dibling looks to have a bit of a physical presence about him this year, which helps backup his high level of technical ability. Will be interesting to see how he goes in the proper pre-season games. Sam Amo ditto. I think we all know it's time to give up on Mara, it was last year to be fair. But scarily he is our only number 9 option as it stands (I discount Stewart entirely). I have nightmares of watching him try to play football in the PL again. I had enough nightmares watching him try to play football in the Championship! He does look non-plused and half arsed on the pitch, but his style is like that - he's got quite a laid back demeanour, the problem with him is that he doesn't have any level of footballing ability to backup that demeanour, so his laid back approach just pisses people off even more.

We've painted ourselves into a bit of a corner with Onuachu. We overpaid on him by some distance out of pure desperation, he was a £10m player tops. Genk saw us coming, bit like Monaco with Carillo. We will never be getting north of £10m for a player who was never worth that in the first place. I'd say £7.5m is a fair value and I imagine something being settled in that region. He won't stay here.

I wouldn't say the reactions are just based on that, I think it's been pretty clear that's been the plan since he got injured. Stop gap signing until he's back.

These sorts of signings, whilst announced by Southampton, will probably never, ever play for us. I think it's the reality of being part of a multi-club model, the 'main' club acquires the players and then the other clubs profit (At lesser leagues etc). Man City do it all the time, throw their players at Girona - then they do well there, they come back and they pocket a real profit on them when they sell them. So I don't see these guys as Southampton players, they're a profit vehicle for the multi-club model.

Yes, maybe - if we play as open as we did last year then we will be in for some real records of goals conceded that's for sure! I'm intrigued to see how we do really, the slightly more pragmatic approach in the playoffs suggested a slight tweak to how we approach better sides - well, we're facing 17 better sides next year so maybe we'll be a lot more pragmatic than we all think!

The biggest non-surprise ever, the club were never going to sign a new first choice to potentially oust Bazunu - never happening. This was the opportunity to do it, but the club see something in Bazunu that no one else in football does. I just want a keeper that makes saves, nothing spectacular, just saves. Bazunu doesn't make saves so I don't know why we're still pinning our future on him. Statistically the worst GK in England's top two leagues in the last two seasons, not even a close contest either - miles off the nearest. Good with the ball at his feet though. I hope the club target a first team loan though and not a squad filler, but I have always had the feeling that we'll have McCarthy as first choice with a squad filler signed to cover Bazunu's absence. Count me surprised if we do anything different.

Yes, potentially - we did the same with Lis, he was signed with zero intention of ever playing for us. These kids will be the same I imagine, certainly Juan. Clubs like us have to be clever with things these days, so there's a lot more to deals like this than them being a 'Southampton player', a Southampton income stream maybe, but probably never a player. We need to get our heads around that approach now that we're part of a multi-club model.

These sorts are just mental, there's having an opinion and a view - but this is just sick and twisted and causing hurt to those who were impacted by it. Why he wants to prove something like that was a cover up is beyond me - he can believe it if he wants in his own head, but what does anyone gain from him dragging everyone through his deranged episode?

Not sure if anyone has checked out predictions for this year, but most seem to be getting overly excited about Ipswich - much in the same vein as they did about Burnley last year. And I'm really not sure why. I see some decent signings, but nothing 'wow' - they do still have a core of pretty limited players (Morsy, Chaplin etc). We seem to be set to finish bottom according to most, adrift of everyone, based on all I've seen. Not sure what the logic is. I think we'll all struggle, the proof in the pudding on the gap was shown to all last year - if anything maybe ourselves and Leicester (if they avoid deductions) have more of a shot because we already had established PL players in our group. Ipswich are just this years Burnley in my eyes. We'll see.

Yep we were, I don't think he caused it all per-say, but certainly added to it. The financial situation in France (TV Deals) have added to the issues though, really clubs like Bordeaux with their history and facilities shouldn't ever be facing extinction - but this is the world we live in now. I think it was a lucky escape, as much as the SISU one was back in 2005 or whenever.

I've been transported back to 2006 again.

True, the last one I can think of is VVD and that was 9 years ago (where the hell has that time gone?). I think it's also indicative of the changing football landscape and how we've somewhat been left behind financially. From a financial standpoint loans may be all we can really afford, if we want those 'top of the tree' type players (that are out of favour at their current clubs). We seem pretty much set in the 15-20m market and have been since for ever. Defo value to be had in there, but the real top players (VVD's of this year etc) are now north of £25m at best. Will be interesting to see what happens with O'Riley, but it does sound as if we are still playing around in that £15-20m ballpark with him.

He doesn't really seem suited to a Martin team, which is a shame as I like Charly - he's a bit of a maverick, luxury player you could say - the problem is that he gives the ball away loads. I noticed that in the Bordeaux game as well, constantly giving it away. He's a moments sort of player rather than someone you can build a structure around and I'm not sure our style allows us to have 'luxury' players like him tbh. Sulemana is probably in the same mould.

I think you're undermining Flynn's role enormously. He is pivotal to the way we play and build through the pitch, his positional awareness and understanding of exactly what is expected of him in this system make him somewhat priceless.

Confirmed, he stayed at home. Still feel there is more to this than just feeling 'leggy'. Martin continued: "He's had two really good weeks but felt leggy, felt really tired, then we have to travel, be out here on a different pitch, in a different environment. "Maybe it sounds a bit precious and we're going overboard but we have to care for him. For us long term, we need to really look after him. "Ross wanted to be here but then he understands the reason, so he's back there, he's doing a lot of work with the guys to continue to stay fit and be ready.

Wonder if we'll get some truth on this guy soon? Fairly sure he's not in Spain and has stayed behind for treatment on yet another injury, received after 1 day of training I imagine. We were given identical spiel around him and Larios, they won't play games but they'll be involved/get up to speed etc. Larios is clearly visible in training, but Stewart is no where to be seen - he wasn't even watching on with the injured players. Even if he's injured you'd think he'd be there to bond and connect with the group in other ways, that's why it makes me think he's stayed behind because of our facilities to treat a new injury.