John B

Yes I just realised that he was Irish and he is already an international so that is not bad

If he joins just pretend he is 25 years of age if he joins By the way one of our greatest goalkeepers Peter Shilton played for England in his early twenties and lets be positive and hope Gavin does the same

Not much I would have thought if he had to up sticks and move to the North and get paid probably less whilst he has a contract here The Club would then have to get in another GK to replace him Not a good idea I would have thought

Do not think anybody called Winks can be a decent footballer

We are Southampton F C of course I would like to see better players but our finances do not allow us that luxury I do not like fans continually complaining about players especially Stephens who does his best but he is not one of the best CBs in the PL I am a suporter so I support our players until better ones come along We have only hardly spent mega millions since we have been in the PL and without financial clout the strategy the club is adopting is the probably the only one to stay in the PL Football is all about money the more a club has the more likely it will have success but essentially it is a game and our players although not the best are pretty decent otherwise they would not be playing in the PL sometimes when everything clicks and the opposition is below par we do have some decent results. In the sixty odd years I have followed the Saints the only consistent thing about them has been their inconsistency because they do not have many outstanding players who consistently perform to high standards

I doubt he would agree with you as he has played over a 100 PL games Cost £150k so good business I would have thought

Yes you are right but the number he has scored is pretty low

So what system would work for this group of players ? Especially as we have limited top class PL players and are attacking players are not that good in fact they are the worst I have seen since I starting watching in 1962

What skills do you possess to say whether Ralph is a good or bad coach Most times we lose the other team plays better or we make stupid mistakes or the Ref makes a mistake

Yes I agree with your last comment Norwich Leeds Watford Burnley and Everton all had new managers and three went down anyway Better coaching and better players is what is needed a bit more luck and fewer errors would also help

I do not think coming to Southampton at the moment is a dream scenario for many marquee signing unfortunately In fact I am not sure I can remember the last marquee signing we made although some signings turned out to be marquee signings for other clubs

In general I thought we beat teams when they were poor and lost to teams when they played well West Ham Brentford and Everton were dreadful when we beat them and Villa Crystal Palace good when we lost to them How the opposition plays and how many individual mistakes our players make together the run of the ball affects the outcome of a game which is often out of the control of our manager. No doubt our manager like me wouuld like some better and more experienced attacking players but we do not seem to have any money or desire as a club to get them If we had Saha Ericksen and Tarowski in our team instead of Redmond Eloynousi and Stepens we would be a pretty decent team

Apparently Spurs have £150m and Chelsea £200m to spend this summer so I think the answer to the original question is Yes I have been following the club for over 60 years from when we were in Div 3 South I do not really care what league we play in as following Saints is just something to do although obviously I would like us to win more often but realise that we will be to be in the bottom half of the PL until we are eventually relegated I try not to rubbish the players and the manager too much because they are only doing a job against other teams which generally have better players especially strikers We are short of really top class players at the moment as only a couple or so of the current squad would get anywhere near to my top 50 Saints players I have seen Luckily I have been following for the same amount of time Hampshire who have some really decent players have won trophies and are competive in most competitions

A couple of really decent attacking players would make an incredible difference to the squad it is the lack of real quality and experience has caused our decline since February

I was going to say the same as my 60th season has ended very badly But on reflection up to the West Ham cup game it was pretty reasonable but the lack of decent strikers has proved to be a disaster

Especially the so called strikers who are dire Buying in young players is a very risky business Brighton have done well this year buying in experience over the last few years Our strategy has proven to be OK to just miss relegation but nothing else

I agree with what you are saying but without a lot of investment I feel we are in a bad position as the squad is pretty dire apart from a few players

I would be happy with just one decent reliable goal scorer

Thanks for explaining that, I really didn't connect the dots

and 2 PL appearances apparently Not much experience but he maybe OK I looked on Wiki and he has played 2 PL games so who knows At least with Broja he had scored international goals and Chelsea fans I know rated him highly

Theoretically I agree with you but 1 How do you know we can get rid of Stephens Redmond and Walcott as they are on contracts and may not want to leave 2 What do think the bugget would be I for one are fed up of the club getting in young players and hoping that they will improve into PL players I would like at least two proper PL players one in the Tadic mode the other an experienced CB

I do not disagree with you at all but how much will that cost and does the club have a budget for it In the 2021 summer transfer window we got in A Armstrong Peraud Tino Lynaco for about £30 m and they hardly contributed to a successful season although loaning in Broja did to some extent

These days Reading is my local team and one of my daughyer's in-laws has a season ticket there So I follow them a bit and have watched them a bit but yes like SFC they have limited investment and would have been relegated if Derby had not had points deducted. Our strategy is not working our Academy is not producing PL quality players and the young players we buy like A Armstrong Adams Dialio Salisu and Lynaco are hardly developing int top class PL players . I cannot remember where Watkin came from to go to Villa but is worth £50m now apparently so it can be done as we found out with Mane Lovren and VVD but the unless we find some cheap players to develop we will find ourselves in the same position as Reading Sheff Wed Derby and Ipswich like we did 15 years ago That relegation team was probably on a par or even better than our current one

Exactly my friends I met at Uni sixty years ago supported Sheff Wed Sunderland Ipswich Man City Carlisle Swindon and Nottm Forest I expect most would be envious of my situation

Yes I agree but I do feel that our current players apart from a few are pretty poor and it is unsurprising that we are where we are