tajjuk

I think Afonso Alves is the ultimate example of why you should be beware of good strikers in the Eredivisie. 45 in 39 for Herenveen, £12 million move to Borough for 10 in 42 and relegation. Young players from Ajax/Feyenoord/PSV that have had Euro experience are possibly worth a gamble. Particularly Ajax as they have an excellent academy and you player training system.

The reasons Stoke kept a lot of clean sheets was because the whole team was set up to do that, i.e. keep as many people behind the ball as possible. This season Pulis's away strategy against anyone higher than Wigan has essentially been park the bus and hope to score from a punt or freekick. Keep the defence deep and narrow to restrict the space in behind them. Then you have two giant centre-backs and a giant keeper that should in theory be able to deal with the inevitable crosses that come in. (as this is the most logical way to attack a deep lying, narrow defensive unit) Doesn't exactly work well with a manager that wants to play attacking, possession based football that looks to press high up the pitch and play a high line. A massive contrast in football styles, in fact probably the complete opposite of each other. Attacking/Defending set pieces maybe but we don;t benefit from a whole team of giants who have been signed mainly for their size/heading ability.

Lallana has still shown a lot more than Zaha so far at comparable levels, obviously he's older but Zaha is very much raw potential at the moment. Hardly would be a shoe in for our team IMO and rather pointless for us on loan, if we are going to have a player that needs games to improve surely he should be our player so we get the future benefit? Agree with others Ince has pace and trickery but seems to have a much more complete game and I would say a better footballing brain. We aren't getting Lamela, he's essentially this years Hazard, it'll be Utds and PSGs after him not us. Osvaldo though might be an option with his disciplinary problems and the links with Pochettino, I'd happily take a risk on him even though he seems a bit mental, maybe he will get on well with Boruc?

Osvaldo has been kicked out of the national team for a tweet about his coach. http://www.corriere.it/sport/13_maggio_27/osvaldo-confederations-cup-esclusione-prandelli_7c9ebaaa-c6f7-11e2-91df-63d1aefa93a2.shtml

Yeh cos Man City are a great example aren't they, their success is clearly built on that FA Cup win, not the millions and millions they have spent. Totally stupid argument, but you are trolling as per usual because people don't agree with you, every other fricking post is yours. Look at the non top 4 FA Cup finalists of recent years they are nowhere, Wigan are relegated, Portsmouth in league 2, Stoke in a relegation battle this year, Cardiff just got out of the championship, Millwall still in the championship. Spurs got in the champs league and are still around the top 6, same with Everton.

4th place, would love us to win an FA cup but where does it get you these days? Means a lot less in modern football than it used to. 4th would actually be a much bigger achievement and give the club the opportunity to kick on.

Currently financially, reputation wise, and exposure Premier > Every other league. (not quality/ability mind) It means basically we are a better proposition over most other mid table clubs in other countries and may allow us to punch a bit above our weight in the transfer market. Similar circumstances that saw us get Ramirez.

He's a better defender than Bale was at his age, defends and reads the game with a lot of maturity for someone who's only 17. To be honest a lot fullbacks are a lot better offensively than they are defensively these days, especially English ones - Gibbs, Johnson, Walker etc. He's already developed his attacking game a lot over one season, he'll also get quicker as he gets stronger and older. He's probably still growing, it will take him a while for his body to fully mature so I would expect a few of these little knocks that older pros would probably shake off more easily. Bale had the exact same problems at Spurs which partly explained why he struggled to hold a regular place at Spurs the first few years. Hopefully he'll get a good rest and a good pre-season now. Wilshere suffered from going to the U21 tourny didn't he?

I do wonder at times whether he's tried too hard to impress, tried to do too much on his own. Pressure of a big fee in a smaller team?. Games where others have also been playing well, moving well have seen him flourish like Liverpool at for example, Lallana, Jay Rod and Lambert were all causing Liverpool trouble in their own ways and Gaston seemed to thrive on this, moving the ball about quickly, one twos etc. In games where we haven't flowed as well he often does these flicks, very deep dribbles etc. and looses the ball. Maybe another one/two big money signings might take the focus off him a bit.

Personally I think it was down to them having an easier start of fixtures that allowed them get going in the league to get their form and confidence going. We had a baptism of fire and I think it took a little while for our players to truly believe they belonged here.

LOL @ Stoke getting more the same facility fee, no one wants to watch them. I reckon after some good games against the big boys this year we'll pop up on TV a few more times next year. We're down low because we were newly promoted but considering pretty much the whole world only watches games with Arsenal, Liverpool, Utd, Man City and Chelsea performing strongly against them will get us noticed more I reckon.

LOL like Ferrari & McClaren need to advertise, there are huge waiting lists for their cars, probably the same with Lotus. I'm sure all the people out there that can afford a Ferrari need to be reminded about it whilst they are watching Saints. If we were sponsored by Red Bull then we would be sponsored by Red Bull, not the F1 team. Same for Mercedes and Honda. We aren't going to be sponsored by an F1 team.

Why would be sponsored by an F1 team? F1 cars themselves are completely covered in adverts. What are they selling? Glad someone has also noted that he's just signed a new contract which probably had a signing on fee or bonus amount and would also allow him to have a bigger mortgage. I would suspect he's just buying a bigger house.

Not sure why people are comparing our first 10 game and our last 6, like comparing Chalk and Cheese. The team was all over the place at times in the first 10 defending like clowns. Last 6 we had an off day against WBA, but aside from that we have looked very solid and controlled most games but in reality haven't taken our chances to win games. As for our current squad if the first XI were all fit and on form then they'd be good enough for top 8, in reality though we need better alternatives to Hooiveld, Fox, Gazza, Chaplow, Guly etc. who have made appearances this season so we can rest the likes of Lambert, Morgan, Cork and Shaw. Hopefully this info in the OP will see us first off not sell anyone, and then add 3-4 players that can challenge for a first team place/improve on what we have. With that then a top 8 spot is within our grasp. I think to finish in the top 6 we would need a Lukaku level season from a player, who knows maybe Gaston?

Whilst I agree somewhat I think that's a bit harsh on Austin. He's a goalscorer and has done it at every level, people said Lambert couldn't do it but he has so there is no reason why Austin couldn't. He's also only 23, so could improve even more whereas Sharp is about as good as he's going to be.

Very very sad news, all my best to him and his family.

Agree with most of this. I would probably give Gazza one less, Boruc one more and Jay Rod one less. Jay Rod had a purple patch but faded of late, over the whole season probably not a 7 so similar to Gaston lots of promise but not enough conistent good games.

It's a blog piece to express his opinion, not really the same as reporting a story objectively. He's using Cortese as an example to criticise football club ownership, particularly focussing on Chairmen who run the club on behalf of the owners. Like I pointed out earlier he groups Levy in there for no apparent reason, who has overseen an excellent period of sustained growth at spurs, seems to criticises directors at Barcelona who have had one their most successful periods ever and are backing a manager who is going through a tough time (and was appointed from within) and obviously dislikes the sacking of Mancini or at least the handling of it yet seems to blame this on the directors not the owners. Whilst there are some elements of facts in the story he has blown them way out proportion. He knows nothing of the conversations between Cortese and Katrina Liebher, none of the details about Cortese's comments, and yet he has taken 'considering his future' and turned it into 'footballer's hissy fit for not getting his own way. Chairmen are too important and are ruining football'. Sensationalist journalism at it's best and something he has done in the past. As opinion blogs go it's of a pretty poor standard and I've seen many more objective and sensible opinion blogs from those that don't get paid to do it.

I think that is because the translator gives him some prompts to help him out with certain words, he seems to understand most questions in english these days but obviously won;t know every word.

Ugly football same with West Ham, but also we have 3 points from a possible 12 against these 'hoofball' teams so it's something Pochettino needs to look at, we need to get more efficient with our chances. Begovic will go and I think without serious investment that team will go down. I suspect Pulis might go and they will end up with a transition year because they have a collection of footballers who are basically set up to play that way.

I think a more advanced position suits him, he 'did a job' filling in for cork but doesn't have the defensive or physical side of his game to play the role regularly. He worked hard but found it difficult to influence the play. I think long term he'll be playmaker type player, seems good on both feet, low centre of gravity and happy to drive forward with ball. There's a little bit of Iniesta in him, if he could become half the player he has then we'd have a very good player on our hands.

This. Start of the season he was good, in fact he got an England call. He got an injury and has struggled for form on his return. 3-4 months of poor form does not make him a bad player and he showed at the start of the season that he was good enough for this level.

Yep 3 academy graduates, one 'developed youngster' and Crouch.

Every newspaper article good or bad should be taken with a pinch of salt, particularly one from the daily mail and Martin Samuels. Firstly he knows no more about the situation than we do, the whole thing was clearly blown out of proportion by the media and was actually a storm in a tea cup. Secondly this statement - Seizing the moment? You mean doing their jobs, how the hell can anyone criticise what Levy has done as Chairmen? They have developed that club from mid table fading giants to top 4 challengers with about a 10th of the spending of Chelsea or Man City and they are in the process of constructing a new stadium. Is Levy ever seen talking in the media or commenting about stuff? No, he's getting on with his job which the owners have appointed him to do. Shocking really that experienced and well qualified businessmen are appointed to run football clubs.

tickets@saintsfc.co.uk Use that, I hadn't received my Liverpool game tickets and they e-mailed back with an hour and sorted it out. That was during the week though but I would presume they have people there on a Saturday. Go to the ticket office though and they will re-issue you a ticket.