John B

I doubt the club ever expected him to stay for 5 years when he was signed for the club Most likely he was convinced to join us as he was told he could go to CL club if one came in for him and like Hypo said he will probably go for £20 to £25 million We have already got his replacement from Chelsea

I wish whingeing fans from other clubs who are possibly spouting bollix would just piss off we have enough of our own who we have grown to ignore Martin is our manager now I wish him well but I do not expect an immediate return to the PL I just would like to see a fair amount of home wins with little or no chance of relegation SR have fucked up completely since they become involved with the club so all I want to see is stability If four or five of our best players leave their is little chance of us surviving in the the PL with the players that performed so dismally in the PL last season especially as we have very few decent youngsters coming through who are committed to the club.

I agree that Lyanco is not the problem himself the problem is buying players like Lyanco who were not PL ready

I have no idea as I do not know what players are going to move on

What a load of Old Pony Fulham Villa Brentford and Brighton did well last season and will do well this season if they add players of JWP to their squads And we would have done the same if we had bought some decent PL players of the last five or so years

Fulham finished 10th in the PL last season seems to be a reasonable club for somebody like JWP

I would have thought that players like Ballard would want to develop in a PL academy rather than playing regularly in the Championship where their workload would have to be managed

Why would you be shocked Our top first team layers are likely to leave so why would our top youngsters want to stay

I do not think that is actually case According to A Swansea Fan I know Russeli's contract says he can move to a PL club if the Club involved pays say £2500K or £125K if the club is a Championship Club. So we have been waiting until we are Championship Club before we pay the release clause. The Swansea Fan also said Grimes was the real deal and would do well if he came to SFC

I do not think he was utter wank if he had played with better players he may have produced better results but lets see what happens for him in the future

The reason it has taken so long is because Russell's release clause is less if he goes to a Championship Club rather than a PL Club And now we are a Championship Club

I would have thought grossly overrated the prices I doubt any decent club would pay much for for perraud/ diallo/orsic/ Aribo/S Armstrong

A bit of arrogant bullshit does not convince me that they know much about running a PL Football Club Most on here would have done better than SR have done in the last 18 months last season was pure incompetence. I would be surprised if a new team can be built to challenge for promotion if we lose most of our better players it just takes time it took Ted Bates longer than he thought even with Paine Chivers and Sydenham

Seems bizarre as no one knows what kind of squad we will have in August

As I am 77 years of age I hope this is not my last Saints PL game but I am looking forward to seeing them in the Championship again

I think it was Ray

I think it is much easier to recruit for Newcastle than it is for Southampton what do we really have to offer? We are hardly a top team that is why SR decided to go for good younger players but they overdid iit and combined what players were hear when they came here it is hardly surprising we were relegated. If we lose JWP KWP Lavia Alcaraz Livramento ABK we are not going to have a squad capable of staying in the PL in the forseable future

I am not certain how these changes will affect the ability to attract the right type of players to the club Getting rid of Semmens because he kept Ralph on too long seems a particularly poor positive because I feel it was mainly the lack of decent PL standard players led to our demise.

George Lawrence Tony Godfrey Jimmy Gabriel Norman Dean Roy Patrick Joe Jordan Frank Saul Ray Wallace Danny Wallace the other Wallace

Martin was born in Southampton and must be one of the best players to be born in the City to play top class football Who else would you suggest who was better

I doubt we would have gone down with Martin Chivers at CF

Be interested to know how many of the Saints Fans are still alive it is over sixty years ago It was the first time I had seen a game away from the Dell and the atmosphere was terrific and the view of the game was so much better than being cramped under the East Stand in Southampton. In the first replay it was the only time I ever watched a game under the East Stand as there were so many people milling around that it was impossible to get to the Milton Road End that we went into the nearest turnstile on our route from Stag Gates. I still can see Burnside's left foot equalizer going in at the Milton Road End

Yes two great games which I went to played with the 11 same players Reynolds Williams Knapp Huxford Traynor Wimshust Burnside Paine O'Brien Kirby and Sydenham

Although I agree with much said on this thread the main reason we have been relegated is that the squad we have is pretty poor and the results have proved that fact. The PL is so competitive,clubs like Everton Leeds and Leicester with better overall records better than us in the mix with us to be in the Championship next season. Most teams have large squads with many players opting to go to these clubs where they are unlikely to play regularly. Consequently there are just not that many decent players who want to play for SFC like there were when squad sizes were smaller and we pay over the odds for players with no real ability to perform in the PL. Our recruitment has been dreadful over the last few seasons with only KWP being a significant addition to the squad like Window Cleaner says Suleymana and Tall Paul for 40 million or so is plain stupid. We have needed better strikers for sometime now but where they will materialise from is anybody's guess . Football is very much a team game and the plan to sign a dozen or so players was bound to fail . The ones we brought in in the last few windows were not good enough either so I just feel this relegation was inevitable and a return to the PL may take sometime