shurlock

Jack Stephens, the next Beckenbauer, is on more than 20K, i thought.

When you're having to replace so many players on an annual basis, like we do, you'll have pay the market rate. More stable squads with players on older contracts aren't as exposed to those inflationary pressures, though they will get hit when it comes to contract renewals as Tottenham are finding out Alderweireld and others.

Forget going into the lions den of Fratton Park, the class of 2018 will probably freeze and shît its pants at home to little Bournemouth.

In the lingo, Les and the club have fallen into a value trap. Warren Buffett Les ain't.

Good lad.

I didn't put an overall figure on it. But the idea we're going to have a long list of suitors for our players, pushing up prices, allowing us to bank £20m here, £20m there is flawed.

If we go down, you're in a for a rude awakening.

None of those three were as consistent as Camara in his short stint with us.

Ar least in 2005 we had genuine match winners like Kamara and Crouch. We don't have anyone like that.

Fair number of Leslieites in the mongboard seats of power.

From the media coverage I've seen Wee Ross seems pretty good at opening the door for Uncle Les and the club's new signings.

How does Maidstone or Bladestone as the yoof call it compare?

Here you go thorpie Poor recruitment and fine margins threatening to ruin years of progress at Southampton Supposedly the best run club in the Premier League is now staring into the abyss. Southampton might remain within a win of safety but more alarming even than their dreadful recent form or Saturday’s feeble 3-0 defeat against West Ham United is surely the fixture list. Seven Premier League games remain, but standing in their way are trips to Arsenal, Leicester City, Swansea City and Everton as well as home fixtures against Chelsea, Manchester City and a neighbouring Bournemouth who would love to assert themselves as the area’s outstanding team. Ahead of such a difficult sequence, it is hard not to look back at winless home matches against Swansea City, Watford, Newcastle United, Burnley, Leicester City, Huddersfield Town, Crystal Palace, Brighton and Stoke City and wonder if the damage that was done earlier in the season under Mauricio Pellegrino is already almost irreparable. So, even allowing for a pleasing FA Cup run, what has gone wrong? Why is the model club now itself facing the prospect of a rebuild? The most obvious explanations relate to the managerial choices of Claude Puel and Pellegrino and the fine margins on which all 14 clubs outside the obvious ‘big six’ must operate. Both answers have merit. In hiring men without past Premier League experience, Southampton surely did underestimate the intangible need for a personality with a presence and authority that would connect with a dressing-room of footballers. The board might have rather liked the understated and intelligent way that both Puel and Pellegrino presented themselves but it is not difficult to see why the players themselves were rather more affected by Mauricio Pochettino and Ronald Koeman. Being swayed by your own perceptions of a managerial candidate before accurately gauging their likely influence and control over a group of impressionable and wealthy young men is a common pitfall. It is too easy, though, to simply blame Southampton’s dip on the Pellegrino decision. There are more deep-rooted issues and what was once a highly effective strategy is now also showing its weaknesses. Southampton’s transfer philosophy over these past five years had essentially rested on two main foundations. The development of outstanding young players and a scouting department that was superb at identifying relatively cheap and emerging talent before selling on to clubs in the big six at a major profit. It meant progressing on the pitch while at the same time transforming the off-field finances to the point where a net debt of £38.9 million for the financial year ending 2015-16 had become £2.9 million in cash by last year. An £11 million loan was also repaid to Katharina Liebherr ahead of her selling 80 per cent of the club last summer to the Chinese Gao family for £210 million. Nothing wrong with healthy finances but Southampton effectively also announced a subtle change to their recruitment last summer. Gone, said chairman Ralph Krueger, was any need to sell key players and the club would instead keep the core of a squad intact who, on average, had more than three years remaining on the contracts. It sounded positive – even if there should surely have been more activity in the January transfer window – but there was a flaw. For if you are just about the most celebrated ‘stepping stone’ club in European football, what profile of player might you attract? Someone personally committed to your long-term progress or someone who is most concerned by their own situation and the possibility of bridging the gap to a Champions League club? And if that does not happen because they are not quite good enough or the club themselves refuse to sell what might remain? It is a core who are rather different to the group that new manager Mark Hughes was surrounded by at Southampton in the late 1990s when their unlikely survival was as much about the character of men like Jason Dodd, Francis Benali, Claus Lundekvam, Ken Monkou, Matt Oakley, Chris Marsden and Paul Jones as Matthew Le Tissier’s genius. Much of the decline does also seem to have followed the acrimonious loss of a dressing-room figure in Jose Fonte of comparable stature. It is a delicate balance and this current board have overseen one of Southampton's best ever periods but, whether or not they do now survive, the past 18 months have underlined a need not just to review how they recruit their managers, but also the players.

Except the net spend award, though admittedly it's getting a bit boring winning that over and over again.

He attended a Seder with some Jews who happen to disagree with other Jews and yes they're quite a bit to the left. Big deal. Relax snowflake. Ignorant fûckwits jumping all over this only vindicates those who (wrongly) think this is all a massive witch hunt.

Hojbjerg? He's been woeful the last couple of months. Lucky to be playing.

Long and Tadic link up well generally.

Cack Stephens or Wesley sh1te (pmsl) - pick your poison.

West of Fareham. What's that? Zone 6 pal?

Everything that goes right at the club is despite of him; everything that goes wrong at the club is because of him. Isn't that the mantra?

Yep it does but it also suggests that MP and Puel were sound appointments in their own right, though ultimately they didn't have the 'it' factor to win over impressionable, wealthy young players (a euphemism for c**ts). Its an oddly passive-aggressive article and Wilson can't bring himself around to directly criticising the club.

Leicester copied us when they won the league.

So they were spot on in their prediction. Their football coverage is among the best.

It’s weird article. It’s main argument appears to be that we’ve basically bought players who see the club as a stepping stone so don’t have the stomach for a relegation scrap. It falls short of saying that the players are technically not good enough and there’s no mention of Les in the article.

Pretty gutsy of you at only two nil down. Even if we had little chance of mounting a comeback, don't know if i could ever leave a game that early after spending all day getting ready for the game.