Saint Pete

Possibly, but there will always be some players who feel not totally in tune with a particular manager - I expect it to be no different under Koeman. Players will generally not be so happy with a manager who is not picking them every week! In general, the spirit amongst the squad and the effort that they put in for the manager throughout last season was excellent and a major part of our success. Most of our players improved under MP and you have to give him some credit for that.

This is exactly the problem with the "It's OK, we are going to re-invest the proceeds in the squad" line that the club are taking with the player sales. You have to question whether the quality of player that we need to replace Lambert, Lallana, Shaw, Morgan, Lovren will now be up for joining us when they've just seen us let virtually ALL of our international class players leave? If we were just letting one or two go (say Lallana & Shaw) and then put down the shutters to everyone else under contract, then I think you could make a case to say the club were still looking to move forward to prospective quality players we want to bring in.

In my opinion, Ramirez has had enough chances to show what he can do for Saints, and one decent corner for Uruguay doesn't change anything. He clearly has some ability but is proof that ability alone is not enough to be a successful player at Premier league level, you need to show application, determination and work hard for your team as well, and this is where he has been lacking. It is quite telling that those who say we should keep faith with him refer back to one performance from a couple of years back, an indicator that he just hasn't done enough for us. Obviously it will be up to Koeman to decide, but I would far rather he put all his energies into trying to keep the players that HAVE performed consistently well for Saints rather than trying to re-mould the team to suit someone who hasn't performed.

The Comedy of Errors (Rupert Lowe's time in charge)

Joleon Lescott linked with Hull today, available on a free transfer :- http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/27888606 Would Saints be interested? Experienced Prem defender and good centre backs hard to come by, so could do a lot worse IMO.

Never a pen in a million years that.

Absolutely agree with this. It's all very easy to say "if they don't want to be here, let them go" without thinking of what the consequences will be for our team. Les Reed can talk about the legions of top quality players banging down our door, but actually signing them is a different matter, because players agents are probably hawking them around everywhere. If people think we will be able to let 6 or 7 of our first team leave and replace them with equivalent talents just like that, they are kidding themselves. We need to draw the line somewhere and sometimes it pays to stick to your guns and not just take the money - look at Suarez at Liverpool last season.

Maybe so, but this suggests that it's "the club" making decisions on which players to keep/sell rather than the manager? I would understand the decision to sell more if it weren't for all the uncertainty over the future of other key players. If we knew everyone else was staying, I would be more happy to see Rickie move on, but we may well lose several more, so my view is it would have been better to make an informed choice when the new manager is in place, so he could review the whole squad, not just treat Lambert as an individual case.

Not difficult to comprehend, but definitely contrary to the policy line that Reed is stating in his interview - no players to be sold without consulting the new manager. I thought it was a good interview, but the Rickie sale is the one thing that was not explained. I still think it would have been better to have taken the line that Reed has given now on transfers with the Lambert one as well, even if that had not gone down well with Rickie himself. If Liverpool really wanted him, they would have come back after the new manager was in place. It appears that Saints allowed themselves to be bullied by Liverpool into making a decision "not in the best interests of the club", but in the best interests of Lambert and Liverpool. It would have been nice to hear Reed's side of why that decision was made and how it fits with the stated policy.

Sorry, would be distinctly underwhelmed if we went for Sherwood. I think he seems to have convinced some by just being mouthy and bigging himself up all the time. Spurs had a bit of a bounce when he first took over mainly due to Adebayor coming back into the fold, but towards the end of the season, they seemed to be going backwards again and he didn't seem to have all of the players onside. Don't really see much evidence there for why he would be good for us.

We could have avoided a lot of this crap with Lallana if we had done the sensible thing and made it crystal clear that no deals would be done on internationals before World Cup - End of. He's only so ****ed off now because he's seen that Rickie's got his way. If we'd taken a solid line, everyone would have known where they stood.

This just doesn't make sense from Saints perspective. £4m is nothing when you consider we are likely to sell Shaw and Lallana for much bigger fees later in the summer, and there's no way we will get someone else who does what Rickie does for us for £4m. I just don't see why we would even be considering agreeing to this deal now when we don't have a manager and we don't know who else will be leaving yet - we just seem to be operating with no clear strategy, unless that strategy is to get relegated next season. If we want to move players on at this stage, it should be the ones we don't need - could understand if we were selling Osvaldo or Ramirez who clearly haven't fitted in.

And if that happened, I for one would say good luck Kelvin.

From BBC Sport breaking sports news page:- England striker Rickie Lambert says he is shocked Southampton parted company with two coaches who helped him become an international player. On Tuesday, Jason Dodd and Paul Williams, who held coaching roles with their under-18s, left the Saints. Lambert, 32, says: "At Bristol Rovers I first had the confidence to be a striker but it was at Southampton that my whole lifestyle changed and a lot of it has to do with Jason Dodd and Paul Williams. It was disappointing to hear the news."

Ridiculous idea from the FA - can't see how this would have any benefit for the England side, only further encouragement to the top 4/5 clubs to stockpile players who they have little or no intention of ever playing in their first teams. There is a problem with talented English youngsters joining the big teams for big wages and then not getting games, thus stifling their development, but this is approaching that problem in a completely arse about face way! They need to find ways of limiting the big clubs (e.g. Chelsea) from having these massive squads of players in the first place, so that they remain in or join clubs lower down the prem or football leagues and get games for them instead. We have a great system of depth of good size football clubs down the leagues who would love to have the young talented players turning out for them, not playing against them for 'B' teams of the rich clubs!

After last night's Newcastle result, we are now assured of 8th place (barring mathematical miracles) so there are now no sensible reasons why the club shouldn't be sitting down and discussing a contract extension with MP, and plenty of good reasons why they should. There is no good reason from our point of view to delay until the end of the season as the sole priority is now next season. It's all very well saying that he still has a year left on his contract but this is not just about MP, it's about convincing our best players to stay on in the face of the offers that will come in for them in the summer, and there's no doubt this will be easier if MP has committed to the club longer term. It will also be disruptive to our planning of signings over the summer if there is still uncertainty over the manager's plans, so the sooner this is sorted the better. This of course is all from our point of view - what we don't really know is what MP's intentions are, but if he is not prepared to sit down and discuss an improved deal now that the league position is decided, my suspicion would be that he may see his future elsewhere.

I'm slightly more worried about him going after reading this, as up til now I had assumed that the board would already have been talking to him about an extension to his contract by now?

Lovren should have been subbed shortly after the Spurs equaliser as it was pretty obvious he'd lost his head at that point. Really disappointing defeat as Spurs were there for the taking today. Our defensive frailty seemed to affect the rest of the team in the second half and we stopped doing all the good things we were doing in the first half.

For me, this was the key to the game yesterday, rather than Cork coming on for Wanyama. Once Lambert dropped deeper and started getting on the ball and pulling the strings, the rest of the forward players came alive, and there was only going to be one winner after that. So, although Cork played well second half, Lambert was MOTM for me, as he was ultimately the match winner for us.

I think it will be a case of horses for courses from now on. For me, there will still be games where Lambert is the better option due to his ability to hold the ball up and bring others into the game. (In the home game against Hull for instance, I thought he was outstanding). I still don't think that Osvaldo is combining that well with Lallana, Rodriguez, etc, but hopefully he will continue to improve now that he's got the confidence of a couple of goals behind him.

Strange decision not to start with Clyne?

Yes, you're right, he did become a bit part player at the end of last season. I think what's worrying some though is that the players who were selected instead failed to win any of our last 6 games, scoring only 3 goals in the process (1 of which was scored by Puncheon himself from the bench!)

For much of last season, I thought JP seemed more likely to produce an end product (goal, assist or sh*t!!) than either Lallana or Ramirez. He did seem to fall right out of favour towards the end of the season though, but not sure why. He didn't start any of our last 7 league games, of which we only won 1 and that was against Reading! Don't really see JWP and Davis as being players competing for the same spot as Puncheon, as they don't have the direct goal threat that he has. Puncheon provides a different option for the 2 wide positions, whereas JWP & Davis are really more central players. It seems odd, but maybe there's more going on that we don't know about yet.

Clint Dempsey apparently on the move from Spurs. CHDAJFU? 30 years old, but a proven track record as a striker in the prem.