MarkSFC

Even during the summer when it was Fonte, VVD and Yoshida we needed another CB better than Fonte. To be fair Toshida has had his best season for us so far but even still we needed one before Fonte left and now VVD is out for god knows how long we are simply desperate. Stephens did well against Liverpool, but was terrible v Arsenal. Gardos is just way behind and irrelevant to the equation. IF the club do not have a late announcement for us we are in a shockingly bad place. We would not even of been happy with Yoshida, Stephens and Gardos when we were in The Championship. Very poor show.....but still 35 minutes to go....

Links? Not a hugely inspiring signing but clearly experienced.

What form does this Saints knowledge you speak of take? What is the qualification you possess as proof of learning this "knowledge"? Im curious as it sounds like there may well be an oppprtunity for others who have a great level of "Saints knowledge" to potentially seek employment in this realm. Or us it as I suspect that your "knowledge" is statistical interpretation and opinion?

The club should provide every fan at Wembley with a duplicate of Markus' camera!!

I said that...... Maybe but we need a decent striker not neccessarily one that is "cheap" Very possible but thats the problem with reporters, they make comments open to interpretation!! What I hear......you can choose to ignore it if you want, I do not. What a lovely chap you are spouting from your pedestal. Want to add any context to that? I know a vast many things but if you "know" more in regard to this particular rumour, well done indeed, I will bow to your superiority, but I doubt you really do.

IF this is true and £17m is too much for Saints as in we can't afford it then where the hell has the money gone?! IF this is true in the sense that we will not spend £17m on a striker then we are going to go backwards very quickly. IF we do not rate this player at 17m then really, why are we going for him?!! We need to sign a striker of this level plus to improve on what we have? However I suspect the line is just more Sky spin to make the big clubs look bigger and the smaller ones look smaller as is their agenda.

Yes

4. Sign Sakho

Spot on

Hopefully that means Berahino is on his way to us!!

Not sure too many would agree with you there mate. Unlikely to play for us I would suggest, and if he does it would likely mean we are desperate or playing in The Championship again!

Swap Fonte for Carroll!

Its not about the total amount the club spends but the quality of player it buys. To use your number, if the club soent 150m in the summer on 4-5 £30-40m players, as opposed to 10-15, £10-15m pound players which would have the better outcome? We are in danger right now of "doing a Lowe" and filling the squad with mediocre. Boufal price tag should now be the minimum we spend on a player that needs to go straight into the team. We need a better team not a bigger squad.

That's interesting, well done. What it tells me is that Koemans two seasons in terms of line shape was pretty similar (at least to this point) and that Pochettinos "shape" was fairly similar to Koemans (or other way round given timeline!). In the case of Puebla line there is a totally different overall shape emerging which has more frequent peak and troughs, which would back up a theory that the rotation is not working (which is obvious really) but is causing more differences in performance. Keep up the good work, love stats, graphs!!

After the WBA game My mind was made up, he needed to go. Then I read the Reed interview in the Echo and the part he talked about the fact that Puel was brought in for his coaching and that the season schedule so far only allowed for rest, prepare play cycle, and not the coach, improve, prepare, play, rest cycle (as a coach myself) made me pause for thought and to be frank made me think he does deserve longer. What baffles me still though is his almost duplicate interviews and what appears to be a stubbornness to rotate because he's so ingrained in that process. He reminds me of Wenger in the stubbornness but what matters is results and (just like Wenger) they are not good enough for the squad. I understand the need to rotate but today and a few games ago he dropped JRod when it seems to me that he is really finding his way back and what he needs for his game and his confidence is a run of 5 or 6 or more games consecutively. Maybe he takes longer to recover but I'm cynical of that, but at the same time he sticks with VVD (which obviously is good!) and Redmond (even though he's not scoring what he needs to. If we do not sign a striker of noteworthiness in January then I worry for our PL season. I can't really see us sinking to a relegation battle but we've lost 4, it's possible to lose 4 more and then we could be in trouble. The fact that we are creating so many opportunities without the goals to show for it means our strikers are not good enough and or being coached well enough. Given the fact that the season is not allowing for coaching time (Les Reed) then the only option is to spend some money.....probably 15-20 if not more on a striker NOW.

Very true, thanks for the correction!

for once I agree with one of your posts, they look a really good pairing but my preference would be Gibson, as he looks much more composed and is left footed. Home boy and Chairman is his Dad so unlikely to leave unless for a "big" club though! I thought this would be his likely destination; especially when one of their CBs was linked with a move to Manure, guessing thats the hold up! I would be happy with Schlar or Sakho.

The actual number paid to players (as outrageous and scandalous it is) is simply down to market forces. Getting hung up on who gets what is pointless as is worrying about what clubs pay in transfer fees. At the end of the day it's all relative to income of clubs and their business model and in relation to competitors. Unless you are privy to all the details you can't comment on whether the "gossip price" is right or not, fair or not. The only thing that matters is that Saints remain solvent off the pitch and highly competitive on it. I don't care what numbers are involved to achieve that.

Yes he is good on the ball, left footed primarily and has a good range of pass. He does look awkward when he runs but I for one think he would be a very good acquisition.

Traditionally there are fewer goals scored in Italian football, but even still this does not sound like the best solution to our lack of goals.

The thing is it's not even classic defensive style - two lines of 4 or 5 - like a typical Pulis or Mourinho at Chelsea. We play possession football knocking it side to side up and back and back again and too slowly and predictable that it allows the opposition to press us too often and then we either launch it long or get caught out. We are on a fast slippery slope if he is left in charge.....and getting back up the slope it's taken 5 years to get up will take at least the same time again. As we slip, fewer players will come, the better ones will leave sooner and so we end up back down the bottom. When you're a club of our stature momentum is absolutely paramount and any set-backs take longer to rectify than it would at the large clubs, (like Chelsea this year compared to last). Decisive action - an acceptance by all that it just didn't work out and use these next 6 months to get someone in to halt the decline and set up for next season with two transfer windows. Fans will soon stop going and paying for the rubbish football being served up. Maybe KL is selling up and big money is coming and somehow 3-4 decent players will turn up this month.....but I doubt it and I also doubt Puel ability to make it work. Shame but sometimes people end up out of their depth or at a work place where it just doesn't work. Thanks for trying Puel but go home to France!!

So given that the style of play is so poor I will put two questions out there for curiosity. 1) IF Puel does get the push in the next week or so who should we get, and could we get right now? 2) IF he survives the season and nothing improves, who should we go for in the summer? For me; 1) Pardew for 6 months IF can't get Eddie Howe (which I would doubt very much indeed) 2) Eddie Howe!

Getting rid of Puel yesterday or today would of been tough given the game tomorrow but then we basically have 10 days until the thrashing by Liverpool and two weeks until the next Prem game. It's the start of the window too so tomorrow night, Tuesday morning will be the best time to get rid.

After yesterday's debacle of a game I'm now in the "need for a serious change" camp. This means of course that Puel (and his staff) must go. Having said that and although it couldn't happen, Puel strikes me as someone who is better suited to Development coaching, i.e. the U21s / U18s. I was quite hopeful when we appointed him but never truly convinced by what I read about him despite all the connections to some excellent players. Our football has gone from basically having one plan under Koeman and playing counter-attack football with Mane and Long, to a very slow paced, controlled and almost routine method. It's very boring. When Romeu is not at his very best then we become vulnerable and there is no one else who can do the role, we need to get back to a more 4-2-3-1 type of formation and move the ball much quicker. I'm not convince don't the Puel will do this and will rely on being in a "comfortable" league position to see the season out - very boringly. The only credit I would give him is his integration of more youngsters and the fact that even with the many changes he makes virtually every game (understandable to some extent but overall probably too many too often) has meant that the levels are very similar regardless of the team selected. But it's just not good enough. The question exists though, who to get instead and the main candidate I would like is working 35 miles down the road, the other inNewcastle. Both wouldn't leave mid-season and only Howe is realistic for us now. Les Reed as good as he has been has banged on about our succession planning......maybe now is the time for his successor to come aboard....

I would think that a train station somewhere between St Marys and the pier would make a lot of sense in the long term because of all of the planned development at the old city depot, Ocean Village, and the pier. Having another station would ease the burden on Central and the subsequent journeys from central. A station near the cruise liners also may be of benefit. Not that like to mention the place on here but its a bit like Portsmouths two.