Saint Fan CaM

Billow doesn’t fill me with much more confidence than McCarthy to be honest. If he didn’t have such a poor fitness/injury record it would be a different matter. Think I’d prefer Steele, but that’s not saying much!

Who is Rodrigues?!?

Good luck Mara…Hope you find your mojo cos’ you certainly didn’t have it here.

Difficult to say - you’ve got to be on the pitch to score, so the question is from the 4 possibles who gets the nod to start games? All of them are unknowns in the EPL under Russball and playing high possession has not historically provided us with big goal numbers. You could point to improvements in midfield - Suga, Fernandes, Lesley - which hopefully will mean service will be better. If I was forced to make a prediction I would say AA who has shown he score a hatful with the right conditions albeit in the Championship and this squad is shaping up to be a better one than our last EPL season. He is more likely to be a starter unless he gets injured (rare) so should get the chances. To be fair though it matters not who scores the goals - we just need to be more creative and put oppo keepers under more pressure!

Well if he’s a loan and without understanding the possible financials, I suspect there’s a chance his wages will be shared.

You may be right, but the ‘proof of the pudding’ as they say. My feeling is we’ve improved on a key weakness from the last few seasons and that’s the ability of our forwards to move fluidly in the box…anticipate passes, plus also improve the supply to them which will be what Matheus will bring. The only slight unknown is whether RM persists with a back 5 or he changes things for certain games e.g, goes 433 or 442.

I doubt we were desperate to sign any of those players. Whether there’s a need to sign another CF is debatable - depends on whether Ross S has had enough recuperation time to mend fully and stay fit. If he can then with AA, Archer and BBD we might have enough if attacking midfield quality is upgraded significantly and that appears to be the intent with Matheus signing and hopefully KWP staying.

Think we’re all excited by this signing, but losing your load is a bit extreme don’t you think?!? 🤣🤣🤣

I know the answer to this. LLSS. Thank me later.

Must say, if Patricio was to come to us via Goztepe it would be the best bit of business SR have ever pulled off for us. Huge upgrade on what we have in goal now and it’s hard to imagine him playing for Goztepe. Fingers crossed.

If you throw enough mud at a wall, some of it will stick. Pointless activity, but fun anyway.😉

Hugely tenuous and risky position, but I guess they’ve got the funds to operate in that way. Assuming they’re allowed to continue by the games authorities that is.

Maybe if the scouting network was sound at that time - suspect this was not part of the usual proper tests and reviews. There was promise, but not in any form of the type of football the club wants to employ.

You mean like that? 🤣

Yeah, my feeling is it’s more like… Fernandes/Aribo - Downes/Smallbone - Ugochukwu/Lallana (who has said his role was different while at Brighton…more like Downes/JWP with less attacking moves, probably due to not having the legs anymore).

No he was not agitating to move - he didn’t need to as the club obviously had to make some financial adjustments. KWP and McCarthy stayed and I bet their salary was not far off JWP’s. He has admitted that he left to get in contention for an England call, which in itself doesn’t show good judgement - he Captained one of the worst performing EPL sides ever that got relegated in an awful season…hardly a good resume for a player hoping to play at International level.

Well it’s all ifs and buts I guess. Just think we’ve got enough about us, plus there’s good competition now for places, all of which makes me think we’ll do the business.

Yes my thoughts entirely, so for me the whole back story stinks of BS. JWP didn’t want to lose his EPL status and so jumped thinking Saints wouldn’t be back in one season. He abandoned the club that gave so much to him at the first sign of trouble, didn’t take responsibility for the shitshow he helped serve up that season and was Captain too all of which leaves a bad taste in the mouth. If it weren’t for his excellent free-kick ability I’d rather see Downes or Smallbone in our central midfield…he moved on, we’ve moved on…it’s a no from me.

Looking forward to seeing the difference the Northam ‘wall’ makes - hopefully very noticeable. In terms of the football, if we’re on it we should win providing there are no cock-ups at the back thanks to playing keep ball. They will setup to not press high I suspect or at least drop back after 15 minutes, so ensuing we don’t fall for the trap of getting caught on the break (e.g. from our own won corners) we should be OK - even with McCarthy in goal. I would like to see Les come in, but it might too early for him. Go 2 up and that might be a good time for him. 2-1 Saints

I was thinking Les as the DM enforcer with Downes and Mateus ahead of him with the job of feeding the wing backs or unlocking defences through the middle. Certainly Mateus is not a DM as opposed to a box to box midfielder who is capable of winning the ball back throughout the pitch. He could be a big upgrade on Charley.

Think Fernandes is a box to box midfielder so different to this guy, but it can only be a good thing if there’s competition for places and they develop into £50m+ saleable assets. The past strategy of ours that everyone is saying Brighton have copied and are excelling at.

https://www.givemesport.com/southampton-mandela-keita-transfer-news-rumours/ And another…

With Brighton reportedly going in for O’Riley (and with the big bucks to do it), you’d have to imagine we’re out the running which is why we’ve opted for different midfield targets - Fernandez looks like our alternative and a good one at that.

I’m excited by this signing - just hope he gets the chance to show his creativity at Saints.

Think this guy could be similar to Schneiderlin - a real dynamic box to box CM with fantastic physique. We needed someone to open up stubborn defences in the final third and equally have the balls to fight and re-gain possession in our half - this is that man by all accounts. Does that mean the end of O’Riley - not according to the CoT thread?!