Barsiem

This is the guy who posted the rumour. Updated today, translated is: Beşiktaş is the club that officially made the offer to Southampton. If the black-whites transfer Onuachu, they will give Javi Montero, Mustafa Hekimoglu and Emre Bilgin to Göztepe. Mustafa will come to Göztepe on loan. Official talks were held last night.

I *think* loans last until the 30th June as well (albeit this could be me confusing Football Manager with reality 😅), so it would make sense for the official signing date to be 1st July.

Surely that's a loan move for such a small amount? I'd rather have him as a squad player than get rid of him €3m. He's better than Manning, and can't have a huge salary

Not a signing I wanted, but he's here now so let's hope he makes an impact

Forest themselves said that Wood is contracted until 2025 when they signed him https://www.nottinghamforest.co.uk/news/2023/january/20/forest-complete-signing-of-chris-wood/

Easy run chase today 🤪 If McDermott bats as well he kept today there'll be a wicket first ball...

No surprise given the way he was applauding the fans after the play off final. Looked like he was saying goodbye. Been a great player for us.

I don't get this viewpoint myself. He did well at Saints and got offered a move to a bigger club, who had big backers, a big name (albeit cr*p) manager, and some big (but again ultimately a bit cr*p) players like Coutinho. Why wouldn't he take that opportunity? It didn't work out certainly, but it's better to try than wonder what might have been.

Apparently has offers from Fulham & Fiorentina, amongst others. May also stay with us. https://www.dailyecho.co.uk/sport/24360298.armstrong-reportedly-future-talks-fiorentina-fulham/ Someone on here was insistent he was retiring to go into law though I remember. See what happens but would be great if he stays

Loan with an option at c£20-25m would be ok, but buying outright would be madness. He looked great for 3 months at Saints (3 years ago!!) and has done fcuk all since, albeit appreciate he had a serious injury for part of it

If Lavia is available for loan better teams than us will want him. A Brighton or a West Ham (which may help us get Downes anyway). Very unlikely he'd end up back here for another relegation battle

I've made this point before but the last time we were promoted to the Premier League we brought both JWP & Luke Shaw into the first team during the season. JWP even started our first game that year (away to Man City) when he still was 17, relegating a certain Rickie Lambert to the bench. Putting youth into the first team is possible in the PL, but not many managers are brave enough to do it.

One thing that struck me when watching the extended highlights on Sky was a comment Don Goodman made about how three times we've played Leeds, (deservedly) beaten them three times, but in each game we had less possession. Many on here have taken the p*ss out of Martin's obsession with possession football, but here's a clear indication that he's more pragmatic than perhaps he's given credit for. We're going to need that in the PL

Nice for him to finish with us on a high, assuming he is going. I am a long way from his biggest fan, but he had some great spells for us (alongside some terrible ones). His command of the area was excellent yesterday

Anyone else think singing "We Are The Champions" in the aftermath was pushing it a bit?? 😂 Great day. Defended brilliantly so I was fairly relaxed throughout. No bad performances either, and THB has now signed permanently!

It states on the website you have to collect, but they also state you can collect from Wembley from 11am on the day

It's interesting to see the hype around McKenna - being linked with the managers job at Brighton, Chelsea & Man Utd! I can't remember Adkins getting the same hype, albeit social media was a lot simpler back then

Very important win. Need a couple more to drag us away from the bottom teams

Buy it and report the bastard to the club once you know the ticket number! Then get an eBay refund after their tickets cancelled Does it matter if it is true? I think it's good they recognise their staff like that. I'm sure the players receive even more tickets than that....

Can you not pay the £20 for the membership to get in the 9:30 queue? You can still buy a membership

Like the home semi final the people hard done by here are those who have memberships and have been to several games this season. Having to only have been to one game to be eligible first up means it'll be a real scramble. I've screwed myself anyway as none of the games I went to this season are on my season ticket number....

This is probably the single biggest improvement they could make. Stop acting like the guy running about the pitch and seeing things at crap angles is best placed to make decisions and overrule them like what happens in cricket. The worst thing about the pitch side monitor is that the ref always changes his mind in line with the VAR official anyway, so what's the point?

It could happen if 14 PL clubs vote for it... https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/c4n1ndlknk1o Would be great if we go up AND don't have to deal with VAR next season! Here's hoping

I'm not going to argue it to death but I will point out that I never stated we don't give youngsters a chance... That would clearly be ridiculous. I stated ( although I admit looking back at my original post, not explicitly) we don't give our academy players a chance. I don't think our current academy players will be loving the fact that lots of young players are being signed from bigger academies and being played over them. The message that sends to me is your better off in a big name academy if you want a team like Southampton to play you. More money, likely better coaches, better standard of players to play with, more opportunities for decent loan moves or transfers. We also do not have a manager currently who is actively looking to give opportunities to these players. We had some dead games at the end of the season where none of the academy players were even on the bench. Adkins started JWP on our first game back to the PL in 2012 away to Man City, Shaw broke through a few months later - when we were fighting relegation. Poch continued this with Chambers & Reed, but since then, with a slight exception of Ralph on occasions, we haven't had a manager who has been prepared to give these players a serious chance. You could argue it was the standard of player that we have currently, but if this group is so great some of them should be getting first team minutes by now. Particularly given we're in the Championship rather than the Prem. But all of this detracts from my main point, which is that if another club is going to pay substantially more wages for you to be in their youth team over Southampton's 99% of players are going to take it, and IMO would be fools not to.

Irrelevant? Who was the last player to establish themselves as a first teamer from our academy? Genuine question as I can't remember! Shaw? Could say Harrison Reed but he was never a regular. Even Tella, who came from the Arse's academy, could only properly establish himself elsewhere. Every player we've given a pathway to in recent years has been a big money move from a big teams academy. This season we have given Samuel Edoize multiple opportunities and Tyler-Dibling an odd cup run out. Only young player who's played this season is Charles (bought from a big clubs academy), who cost us £10m, and even then he's mostly been on the bench. For saints, if you're paying that sort of money for a player, it's to be a regular starter. Only other player who has had a sniff was Amo-Ameyaw, who played a few games in August and was promptly ditched, again to get the odd cup game. Another player who didn't come from the Saints academy So in summary, the best path for a youth player to play for Saints is to sign for a big clubs academy and do ok there, whilst earning more than saints would pay to be in their academy. Then get a big money move, without even playing a senior game for that team, to Saints and be instantly in the match day squad! Anyone who thinks there's a pathway to the first team for our academy hasn't been watching us the last several years