benjii

Chelsea won because they retained the ball better. We played too many poor passes out of defence. That said, I thought Turnbull looked like a good defender and Targett also has promise. Rowe was very exciting. Sinclair is very quick and Isgrove looks like a good all round player. The midfielders were decent enough but got pulled around and caught out by Chelsea's better passing. Overall though, you can see maybe three or four of those players getting a chance in the first team at PL level.

Maybe we're getting Lamela!

He has a poor touch, can't pass, is not quick nor good in the air. He is a good finisher but clearly not an elite level player.

I hope Justin Lee Collins isn't trying to touch the Pope's botty.

I would not have bothered with it. In fact, I would almost certainly have been travelling at the time. Now, I will make an effort to delay my travelling. I am intrigued to see how he is deployed by Hodgson. To be honest, I am probably being a little naive. I suspect he will be poorly utilised and, unless he smashes one in from 25 yards, will probably be subject to dodgy press reviews afterwards. Hope I am wrong though!

Whether Turkish's act is obvious trolling, concealed trolling, sarcasm, wit, hilarious, morbibly unfunny... whatever... it is painfully apparent that everyone is thoroughly bored of it.

Yep. The Dell.

Bandying "natural" around as some sort of predicate is sloppy and simple-minded. You might as well say "evil" or "sinful". It's pre-enlightenment nonsense.

There was some ill feeling prior to the Lambert incident largely caused by Carlos Vela, who seems to be a bit of a bulb. If it was a competitive match he would've been booked at least three times. Our defending was poor but our attacking was very good. Kelvin needs to keep that sort of shot out. Harsh to blame Fox as the midfield had let Vela stroll through and pick his man out too easily. As someone else said, Chambers needed to put more pressure on Vela for the second as he had looked to have taken it too wide. There were about three players at fault for the first but goodness knows why Morgan didn't boot it up in the air.

Agree. The problem with Ramirez is not that he doesn't deliver moments of proper class it's that he mixes it with too many fairly simple errors. He needs to work on his concentration and consistency in terms of the simple things. The magic stuff will take care of itself. He will struggle to get in the team though if we sign a top quality striker as Rickie can play the creative role so well even if he isn't the "striker". I also agree about Puncheon. He has been consistently impressive since we made it back to the top flight and deserves plenty of game time.

Absolutely pivotal figure in our club's history. Will always have my thanks and respect. I too wish he was here to watch us now but I'm so glad he got to see us lift a trophy at Wembley. Thanks Markus.

My opinion on today's game, for those that care.... Overall I thought we played well and looked like a solid mid table side. That said, there were some worrying frailties at the back. I the first half Guly, Lallana, Lambert and Jay Rod were very fluid. Lambert's starting position was the most advanced but he was dropping into the hole and the other three were running off him. It caused the oppo some problems and was very effective. If your "number 10" is retreating from an advanced position then they will either have a lot of time on the ball (if the oppo let them go) or there will naturally be a gap in defence to exploit (if the oppo go with him). If you then find that player with good passes and they have ability then they will cause problems. This worked very well in the first half. If we sign another top striker then it's just as true to say that Ramirez is competing for a place as much as Lambert as he has proved he can play a deeper role and create chances for the others. Lallana and Guly were very industrious. I till think Puncheon offers more of a threat than either though. Rodriguez was very good. Physically, he has everything. He reminds me a bit of Collymore. He can be a big player for Saints over the next few seasons? Morgan was Morgan. Excellent and proved that a goal threat is a genuine part of his game now. Think he might have messed up for one of their goals though. Wanyama was good. He made some good tackles and looked decent enough on the ball. Even if he has a bad touch he makes sure he protects the ball and he's not easy to get round! I'm not sure he is much of an upgrade on Cork but he should be a useful player to have. I thought Lovren looked very good. Hard to judge a centre back until you've seen them against an array of forwards but he looked good on the ball and his positioning and timing was solid. I think he and Yoshida could be a very good partnership. Chambers was quite impressive although needs to work on awareness. Can't be araes to comment on all the subs! The main concern was that we gave away very avoidable goals, largely due to poor concentration. Hopefully these are individual blips that we are getting out of the way in preseason. It's a bit of a worry though that we might be missing Shaw, Clyne and Yoshida next week.

Lol. ****ing hell. You have problems.

Have we released a commemorative stamp?

Clueless muppets. Happy clapping numpties. Probably "global" fans. We are ****ing around with our usual indecision whilst our clueless management team drags us down the leagues and all our best players leave. Someone needs to speak to Nick and Pocchentonio and tell them that it is best to sign the best available players as soon as possible. You would think they would know that but they clearly don't. It beggars belief.

It is silly but, barring any injuries, it's only really Gaston and Maya that are likely to be adversely affected for the WBA match. Gaston should still be more than capable of giving a decent time on the bench from the bench and it might not be a bad thing to start the season with a more solid midfield in any case. Doubt S Davis would have played 90 minutes for us anyway so the fact he has a competitive game shouldn't be a problem and in any case he seems like a pretty fit and robust character. For Boruc and Lovren play in positions where they shouldn't have any problem playing Weds/Sat at this stage. For Mayuka it should be a useful work out as he would probably be on the bench anyway. Yoshida is the only real concern as it would be good for him and Lovren to get as much time together as possible.

I'm sure there was an article a while ago which said Mali was entirely reliant on Markus for creative direction. There was a bit of a void given his passing and no obvious replacement so it was going to be wound up. You would think someone would want to buy it but perhaps it wasn't particularly profitable business; maybe it was another pet project as much as anything

I want to go to bed!

Downing would contribute more than Lallana or Guly. Bargain at 5 million. Would be delighted with that.

Haha! What a loon!

As you said, there are a number of reasons why you might do this. Reducing the share capital creates an accounting surplus. We might want to do that for some reason or other. It could be related to creating a surplus for a dividend. It could be something to do with the Financial Fair Play rules. It might just be something to do with freeing up some capital for some other Liebherr company. It could be something to do with the inter-company arrangements in the group; it could be to improve coverage ratios for a loan; it could be that, for some reason or other, it is a good time for one of Markus' benficiaries to free up a little cash... we don't know and unless someone on the inside spills the beans or something dramatic happens we probably never will. It might be a "bad" thing. It might be a "good" thing. It might be an innocuous thing. If the meetings between the Liebherrs and Cortese had gone badly, as far as Cortese is concerned, I suspect he would've actually walked so, whatever it is, I reckon NC probably does not see it as a bad thing.

LOL. Pap is running a "Service company" tax avoidance scheme? What a complete ****. I don't personally think there's anything wrong with doing what you can get away with but if I was a tiresome, sanctimonious, verbose, narcissistic, portentous gob****e and I castigated others for doing similar to what I was doing myself, I would rightfully expect to be called a ****.

Bearsy, your literary reviews and scouting reports are the high-watermark of the Saints Web Forum without a shadow of a doubt.

Mate, I think you should add "Tijuana Tim" to the USA section. He is heavily involved in all the major soccerball face-offs out there I think and does some really good scouting for Saints and I think he might actually live there.

Agree on the tactical point (except there is no way I would pick Lallana over Puncheon at the moment). For a tricky away game we should play those three (Cork, MS, Vic) in midfield with Wanyama roaming in front of the other two. Although Wanyama is not exactly a "number 10" in the way Gaston is, Steven Davis was effective there last season due to his tenacity and energy and those are certainly qualities that Wanyama should also bring (along with, hopefully, more of a goal threat). Given our aggressive defending style, players like Wanyama can be very effective deployed in a more forward role. Personally, I hope we put some faith in Gaston this season and get him properly established in the "number 10" position but, frankly, he needs to help himself by showing his fitness is up to it first. I also hope we get some decent corner deliveries this year (ie. not Lallana taking them). A team with Lambert, Rodriguez, Wanyama, Hooiveld and Lovren in it should really be quite dangerous from set pieces! Schneiderlin and Cork are also reasonably tall and should command attention from the oppo's defenders. I note that JWP seems to have a really good set piece (although he will struggle to get too much game time, barring injuries/suspensions). A draw would be a good start and give us some confidence to take into the first home game.