John B

Add a few top class loanees and we could have a decent season if Still is any good as a manager

Or Sothampton in The Championsip either

Most top teams in the Championship get in loanees like we did recently

They did not offer Lumley a contract as we are in the Championship and they are happy two have the goalkeepers who took us promotion I doubt Leicester and Ipswich will win so many games this year and there do not seem to be teams of the calibre of Leeds around But only time will tell

Unfortunately players like KWP Adams Ramsdale and probably Fernandes and Dibling do not want to play for Southampton whereas Stephens and Manning do

The same FC Porto that were in the recent World Club Championship Jan seems to have landed a decent contract with a Top Europen club Others like KWP Adams and to some extent Suleman who long with Jan helped us to Promotion in 2024 have also moved to top clubs along with Managers Juric and Martin Meanwhile we recruit new players and a manager from lesser known clubs and hope they will develop into decent players However our track record for this is not good with only Fernandes currently deemed to be a success although we made a lot of money with Livramento and Lavia. Our Academy has not produced a regular PL player for sometime and our current star Dibling has escaped once and seems to want to do so again as he has not signed a new contract. Although the squad is poor compared with previous ones it is probably one of the best in the Championship and all the players could be replaced by better ones we need to support them an Will Still as I believe they can be in the promotion shake out in May.

That is a good reason why not to sign young players for loads of dosh happens at most clubs I would have thought Sancho at £70M is a good example

Clearly not Hampshire's

I do not like the Kookaburra but I expect Tilak Varma does

I was thinking the same but we have enough players many of whom got us promoted recently and others recruited for the PL Unless we move players out I cannot see many new players coming in

How are you going to get rid of them?

These are players who are contracted to the club I doubt it is easy for them to be shipped out as you suggest I do not disagree with your sentiments but Airbo and Fraser have contracts which end next year and they may wish to see them out Likewise with Dibling he may wish to stay another year and see what happens

Yes I thought that too he came as part of the Martin Chivers deal

Yes he is better than Tony Godfrey goalkeeper in the early 60s

Clearly there were good teams twenty years ago but in general the standard of the PL has improved in that time do you not agree

Stephens is a better all round footballer than Benali Dodd was pretty slow from what I remember The teams that Dodd and Benali played against were far inferior than those Stephens played against

Perhaps we will not go up in May 2026 but go up in 2027 or 2028 with a young team led by Jack which could stay up in the PL. That could be the plan as at present the standard in the PL is probably the highest ever

So what do you think the fitness coaches were doing sports science is pretty advanced these days perhaps they were told rushing about was not helping so conserve some energy

A small ground easy pitch batsman in the form of his life nothing to do with bpwling resource management in my opinion Wood came on to get a wicket which he did shame it was not Cox Cox is an excellent batter I saw him at the Bowl last season when he got a ton if Essex get relegated it would be great if we got him in and sent Orr to them

So did we not have any coaches monitoring the players fitness levels last season

But you do not fix things that have been caused by neoliberal economics by doing the same thing as the Tories did We were promised change but as yet nothing has materialised saying you are not going to raise certain taxes is economically illeterate

I agree we should keep Ramsdale Fernandes THB and Dibling get in some good loans and give it a go cannot see any other way to eeturn to the PL and stay there. But the agents will not help us

That may have been the case a few years ago but nowadays the teams finishing in the top 17 in the PL are much better than similar teams in previous years. For instance Man U and Spurs finished nowhere with squads we can hardly compete with Perhaps it will change but teams like Nottm Forest Crystal Palace Brentford Fulham Brighton and Brentford are contantly producing £50m players which we and other ex Premier Leauge clubs have failed to do over the last few years. It will be interesting how much we get for Fernandes and Dibling if they leave Ramsdale and THB may go for what we paid for them like most of the players we have off loaded

Just shows if we had invested in two KWP standard players we may have had more success on the playing field but are the owners interested in results or just how money they make

Clearly if we had signed PL quality players we would have gained more points last season in fact A more interesting question is who were the at last 7 premier league quality seasoned professionals we have signed in the last fuve years who have played 40 PL games for us