John B

I think that for a team to get promoted there needs to be a nucleus of decent current players which can be added to with new ones Two years ago we had KWP Bednerak Smallbone S Armstrong A Armstrong and Adams and possibly Eidoze to which we added THB Manning Downes and Fraser and later Brookes and Rothwell and used other players which we already had such as Stephens Bree Airibo etc Today I feel we do not have a decent nucleus as Downes A Armstrong and THB have lost form and no one else apart from Fernandes and Robinson are guaranteed starters although THB is likely to improve with more game time So it is very difficult to try and recruit new players to gel in with what we have already got to get a promotion team so I think we will end up towards the top half of the table Just buying players like we have done recently has proved to be a failure so what is the point of wasting money

I agree with your comments but I see little evidence that the current recruitment is based on new players who will enhance the team instead they seem to be low cost players who will develop a bit and then will be sold at a profit But if wages are low not many talented players will want to come to St Mary;s

I expect they did that but getting players to St Mary's is not easy these days as our squad continually Deteriorates

I was quite surprised that we got promoted that time but we did have a top goal scorer in Rickie Lambert and Martin Chivers in 1966 and MacDougal and Boyer in 1978 Last time Armstrong and Adams must have scored over 40 cannot see the current strikers scoring loads of goals with their current performances

They are not good enough to get promoted we need at least one top striker it is just fucking obvious

Stoke is in The north Midlands

You are bound to know if there is any VAT involved in the transaction

But they are not getting Dibling for peanuts if he goes and they thought they were getting an experienced International player like Eze with 147 appearences and 34 goals

What makes you think Dibling can replace Eze immediately and perform well in the PL

Get promoted and then explode again is my worry

The rebuild can only start when we get rid of some of our players and of course not many of our targets want to come to St Marys It is not easy to rebuild instantly

What do you mean by screw up i If an identified player does not want to come to Southampton that is hardly the fault of SR surely

Having followed the Saints since 1960 I know what a decent CF is In 1966 for instance we got promoted with Martin Chivers in Ted McDougall and Phil Boyer in helped us back into Div 1 1978 and of course Rickie Lambert in 2011 You may not have been around in those days but I can assure they were far better than the ones you mention

Do not feel very confident regarding the coming season as like previous windows have not recrited a decent CF Our creative future seems to be in the hands of a teenager who is bound to turn into a genius but does not want to sign a Saints contract and could not get in to one of the worst PL teams ever and a relatively even to Chez unknown Armenian who plays in Russia and wants a decent pay day anywhere but not necessarily Southampton

Personally I too don’t think an offer of £35m + £8m + some sort of sell-on is buttons for him given that he has only 2 PL gpals and 2 U21 Caps