Saint Martini

Because Davis will be starting in goal? And Fonte was hardly a starter when we didn't have Lovren under MP. Besides this was our first match against professional opposition, perhaps the players are a bit rusty after not having played at that speed for a few months. If we're playing like this in our final friendly then I'd agree but not under these circumstances. A tactical observation I made was that we were much less vulnerable to the long ball being played when Wanyama was on the pitch.

We're not pressing as high up as we did last season.

Quite strong, haven't seen a list with subs but the only players I'm missing from the starting 11 that would normally play are Huntelaar, Farfan and Papadopoulos.

Isgrove is fast!

The stripes seem to have fallen down onto the socks.

I guess that would fit the versatile RB description. How did you get the info? Saw him? Contact at the club? Cabdriver? Glasgow_Saint?

Their season starts a week earlier so thay are probably a week ahead of us fitness wise. There's also a big difference between playing matches against lower league opponents like we did an a proper test like a match against Besiktas where its not just about match fitness. I expects MP to have not play two teams like he did earlier and not making as manybchanges early in the match.

Alderweireld? Although describing him as a RB seems wrong, he more of a versatile CB with RB as a very good back-up position.

A big fat no to Castaignos and Matavz. Also very sceptical about Dost. Not sure at all he's better then Rodriguez. Can't say I know too much about the other players.

Seriously, what is your problem? He makes a valid point even if its nitpicking. I you don't care, just ignore it but if your going to evaluate the performacnce in the match it might be useful to know if its League Two or Conference North/South we're talling about.

Couldn't find the information anywhere online but on FM2011 Bergessio has an italian passport aswell, the same goes for Alejandro Gomez.

He's a winger and if PSV announce the deal is done on the 24th of June then I'd say the transfer was completed in June. Now stop picking on MLG.

He's said in an interview he didn't want to go to Norwich because their style of play doesn't suit him very well. He wants to be involved in the build-up whereas I suppose Norwich will have a more direct & counterattacking style. It does mean that we would have a good chance if we were interested. Our style of play isn't that different from Ajax so he wouldn't have to adapt too much.

Alderweireld has rejected a move to Norwich. The reports in the Netherlands say that its not because of the stature of the club but that they couldn't agree on clauses in the contract. Not sure if its the wage or if Alderweireld perhaps wants a release clause in the contract.

And send the bill to the company that put it there.

Its how long every spell of possession lasted. The graph shows that we manage to restrict our opponents to very short spells of possession but that we don't manage that long either which means that possession changes teams a lot in our matches.

Norwich have had a bid for Alderweireld (Ajax) accepted (8 million euros). If he's willing to go to a club that is not playing in the CL then we should be all over this. Excellent centreback that is more than capable at rightback as well (plays rightback for the Belgian national team). A back-four with Clyne-Alderweireld-Lovren-Shaw would be top quality.

50 ****ing pages! Get in! Awesome signing, gives us some real competition for places in the centre.

I'm guessing Cortese is there to sign as well? Or wasn't that what you meant Pilchards?

We haven't signed that many player that cost a "decent fee" compared to todays market. Wasn't Delap our record signing until we signed Ramirez last season?Players like Lambert and Fonte cost us quite a bit for League One standards so I'd say they're the last ones that cost a decent fee that "made it".Another candidate would be Killer (2 million if I remember correctly).I'm not including last seasons signings. Can't judge after one season.

Steven Fletcher? Not sure if excell is the right word but he's an above average striker and if he didn't have his injury problems he'd probably play for a bigger club.

AS Roma are trying to sign Strootman from PSV so they might be trying to make some funds available by selling Osvaldo quickly. If we're the only team interested at the moment then the situation between him and Lamela combined with AS Roma needing funds could push Osvaldo our way. I'm worried about his antics as well but on the other hand MP has been his manager before, he must know what he is getting into.

Weren't we linked with him in the january transferwindow as well?

It means that the club failed in its transferpolicy, it doesn't mean the targets were unrealistic to begin with. You can't judge something to be unrealistic by the result. At the olympics at least 4 people had as a goal to win the 100 meters sprint. Usain Bolt won, does that mean the others had an unrealistic goal or does it just mean they failed to achieve it? If were chaising unrealistic targets (players already at top clubs in the big leagues) then I'd agree we'd be waisting our time, but we're targeting players that have an interest in coming to Saints although we could lose out on these signings if someone else comes in. Its ambitious, and difficult to achieve but not unrealistic (in my opinion). If we don't sign anyone at the end of the transferwindow this means we failed but it can also be a blessing to not sign anyone compared to signing player that the club outgrows within 1/2 years as long as it doesn't mean we're not down to bare bones.

We've been linked with three players in the media so far and we've signed Lovren but there's one thing that seems to be missing for me and that's a winger. Last winter we tried to sign Countinho which (to me) at the time didn't seem like the highest priority but the transfercommity decided otherwise. But now we've not been linked to anyone at all that can play on the wing and to be fair I'd say that at least one more winger should be a higher priority then an attacker. We've got Lallana and Puncheon as our starters with Ramirez, Rodriguez, Mayuka, Guly and de Ridder as backups. Eventhough Ramirez and Rodriguez are really good players their best position is not on the wing and of the other three only Mayuka has the potential to become a decent PL player. I really hope we're getting another winger otherwise an injury to Lallana or Puncheon will hit us really hard.