SaintJackoInHurworth

So - if that gives an idea of actual timescale and the medical is due to start at 3pm, then we should be looking at the medical completing by 8pm this evening, paving the way for an announcement this evening from 8.30pm onwards (if all other process is complete) or tomorrow.

That's amazing! Great news. I also notice a load more tweets on it now - including one or two by you: @jordansibley: An exciting announcement will be made at 11.30pm tonight. I think some of you can guess what it will be! @TurkishSaint: Ha - I don't believe for a minute we have signed Ramirez. If so I will strip naked and spend an evening at the @BlueOyster gay bar in the nude. @BlueOyster: You would be more than welcome to do that. @CypriotSaint: @TurkishSaint I dare you to do it if it really happens. @TurkishSaint: @CypriotSaint I have no hesitation in making this promise cos it isn't gonna happen! @reluctantnicko: The deal is done! El Banko Nacionale di Bologna has approved a loan for Bologna and the transfer will be completed within the hour. @SimonPeach: The news #Southampton fans have been waiting for should be announced VERY soon! Ramirez is 100% coming to Saints! @CypriotSaint: @TurkishSaint Mate, you know that promise you made about the @BlueOyster...? @BlueOyster: @TurkishSaint We are looking forward to welcoming you! @TurkishSaint: @CypriotSaint It's a lie and I'm never going to believe it - not even if it is on the OS.

Alan Nixon on Twitter says this is no change from a couple of hours ago: Looks to me as if Simon Peach has tweeted using the '#saintsfc' and the result has been that @backpage have truncated the quote to become: Then Sky have produced their story from that. If I understand it all correctly, we are just waiting on Bologna to tie up a deal with a financial institution to be able to accelerate the second part of the money that we will be paying them next year. Ramirez's agent and Saints are putting pressure on Bologna to hurry this process along. What I don't understand is how putting on this pressure can help - surely it is a case of Bologna being subject to however long it takes whatever financial institution they are using to accelerate the debt in this way to agree to do so. All I can guess is that by putting pressure on Bologna they put pressure on the finance provider to move quickly if they want the benefits of loaning this money themselves. However, in the current financial climate I wonder if that is appropriate.

FichajesEuropeos ‏@Europa_Fichajes El Southampton está cerca de cerrar el fichaje de Gaston Ramirez en £ 18M Translation: The Southampton is close to close the signing of Gaston Ramirez at £ 18M

I think that is 'unfortunately' for Bologna - not for Saints! I think the bit that has been translated 'the transfers risks unfortunately of to go in port.' means 'the chances are that the transfer will unfortunately move forwards.'

I am not sure about the Bloodzeed connection, but according to the Wiziwig page the resolution for 'RUS NTV+ Uefa' is higher resolution - 2500 Kbps rather than the 2200 Kbps offered by Bloodzeed. You might therefore be better trying that one. On the other hand if your computer's memory is limited the resolution offered by both of those may be too high for you, so try going for a connection with a lower bitrate, such as the 'Spanish Football' stream which is at 1500 kbps. Hope this helps!

I don't know if they have improved since being launched but I am having NO difficulty in viewing those pages and they look quite good! The Posh one has the boring outdated 'Home Page' on the page tab, but the Stoke City one says 'Stoke City FC Official Website'. As to the suggestion that the Coventry City one looks good, I personally think it has too much content on the one page and I prefer the other ones! Looking at the Man City website it doesn't look all that different to the other ones except that it doesn't have the annoying 'Enable cookies' page at launch and has a video instead. I would go as far as to suggest that it looks as though it has been created by the same company! I am looking forward to seeing what the new Saints website will look like. I'm not sure about black as the background colour, but at least it's not blue!!

http://www.clubcall.com/le-championnat/kana-biyik-flattered-by-interest-1448701.html - a bit more detail (but not much!). He doesn't sound that interested and is contracted until 2015 so this one looks a bit of a non-starter.

I think Saints will finish somewhere in mid table obscurity, which I will be quite happy with. Our top priority is to avoid relegation, but having achieved that I would hope we could push on to finish at least 15th! Overall, I think the Premier League will finish something like this: 1. Man Utd – They will be better this year and their experience will see them through. 2. Man City – It’s hard to win it two seasons in a row, but they will push United all the way. 3. Chelsea – better manger than last season but a big gap to catch up with the Manchester clubs. 4. Arsenal – look set to lose Van Persie but will always grind out enough results to finish in the top 5. 5. Everton – They have got to have a season when they finally start well – maybe this season will be it! 6. Fulham – Good manager with a club that are improving year-on-year. 7. Spurs – dodgy manager losing his best players! If he doesn’t get sacked by February I can’t see them being much higher than this, despite their talented squad! 8. Liverpool – Good new manager but not impressed with how he has dealt with Carroll; nor with his transfer dealings. Their squad will probably be quite depleted at the start of the season or else a number of their players will be quite tired by mid-season and prone to injuries. 9. Newcastle – I still think Pardew got a raw deal with how he was treated by Saints. He is a good manager with some good players and has made some astute purchases. However, they will not quite hit the highs of last season. 10. Sunderland – Good manager and should be able to get them to push on to a higher finish this season. 11. Southampton – I think we will surprise a few people. We have been steadily strengthening the squad in the transfer market and (as long as we can purchase an extra central defender?) we should be able to do ok. The bookies have us odds on to finish in the top half, but that may be tight. However, I would hope we can finish in at least 14th. 12. Aston Villa – great manager, but a lot to change with not very much money! 13. Reading – Good manager trying to make astute transfer purchases, but hasn’t got the same sort of budget as Saints. 14. QPR – I don’t rate Mark Hughes as a manager and I think they could struggle again. However, he has made some excellent acquisitions so far, so this should help them to stay up or do even better. 15. Stoke City – They continue to surprise everyone, but have had to release a load of players and have only brought in one youngster from Rangers so far. On paper they shouldn’t finish this high up, but somehow they keep surprising everyone! 16. Swansea – The loss of Rogers could be bad news for them. Laudrup has a good record but he seems to ready to let some of their better players leave. Nevertheless, I still think he will keep them up. 17. West Brom – I’m not sure that Steve Clarke can emulate what Hodgson did with West Brom and they may struggle this year. However, they have some good players and the purchase of Foster from Brum is not a bad one. 18. West Ham – They could finish higher than this, but if they get on a bad run Big Sam seems clueless as to how to change things. I used to like him as a manager, but now I am not so sure. Apart from Maigi (perhaps, who knows?!) their purchases seem to be distinctly average so far and they have released, sold or lost a lot of good players. The loss of Robert Green is a big disaster for them. 19. Wigan – I think this will be the season that they finally lose their fight against relegation. They were already a weak squad and have just lost Rodallega. Martinez is not a great manager either! 20. Norwich – The loss of Paul Lambert is a massive disaster for the club. Their squad is lightweight and only Lambert could achieve what he did with such a squad.

I think that now we have signed a couple more and things have changed a bit, it might be worth looking at this again... So, what is the situation now with our squad bearing in mind the purchases of Rodriguez, Davis, Clyne and Gazzanigga? Who will be in the 25 and who won't make it? Or with the number of youngsters we have got who don't need to count in the 25, will this make no difference to our squad? Taking the list previously listed, I think we now have a squad of 24 over-21-year olds plus 9 who are under 21: Goalkeepers Kelvin Davis Paolo Gazzanigga (Non Home Grown) (U21) Right Backs Nathaniel Clyne (U21) Frazer Richardson Danny Butterfield Jack Stephens (U21) Centre Backs Jose Fonte (Non Home-grown) Jos Hooiveld (Non Home-Grown) Dan Seaborne Left Backs Daniel Fox Luke Shaw (U21) Dan Harding Ryan Dickson Central Midfield Morgan Schneiderlin Dean Hammond Richard Chaplow Jack Cork Steve Davis James Ward-Prowse (U21) Corby Moore (U21) Attacking Midfield/Wingers Guly do Prado (Non Home-Grown) Adam Lallana Steve de Ridder (Non Home-Grown) Jason Puncheon Callum Chambers RW (U21) Ben Reeves LW (U21) Strikers Rickie Lambert Tadanari Lee (Non Home-Grown) Jay Rodriguez Billy Sharp Lee Barnard Jonathan Forte Sam Hoskins (U21) So, what next? Who will be leaving? Who will be staying? Who will get one of the 25 places for over-21s? Players In Clearly we remain weak in central defence so we must surely be on the lookout for someone in that area, though strangely I don't recall much in the way of strong rumours for this position. I would personally anticipate at least one signing in this area, though I was surprised that it was Martin and not Seaborne that was sent out on loan. We are also rumoured to be looking to sign Lens, a winger. Clearly, De Ridder has not yet delivered and Puncheon's ego will probably prevent him ever living up to his full potential. I hadn't noticed before, but I can see now that we are quite weak in the area of wide/attacking midfielders, notwithstanding the fact that Rodriguez can play on the wing. Lallana would clearly be a leading light in this area followed by Do Prado who I have placed in this position as I can't see him getting a striker role now. Finally we were previously rumoured to be in the market to buy a right back, but this has now seemingly faded into nothing, so we shall have to watch and see if anything happens in this area or whether Shaw steps up to a bigger role. Players Out Dickson? Forte? - There is probably little chance of them getting into the 25 now. There have certainly been rumours that Dickson is unhappy. Barnard? Puncheon? De Ridder? - It may depend on how many more players we sign who are over 25. Barnard has been rumoured to be leaving. I could imagine Puncheon and De Ridder hanging around in the hope of first team football but finding themselves being little more than bit part players if they manage to get a squad number even. Finally, what about Seaborne, Harding and Butterfield? Perhaps there is still a role for these three, though as I have already stated I don't quite get how we have kept Seaborne but let Martin go out on loan, unless the thinking is that it is now too late for Seaborne to go on loan and develop in any beneficial way, whereas Martin still has time and the right attitude to benefit from a loan. I can see Harding's role becoming less and he could leave in January.

I felt he was playing within himself too, but that may reflect the role he was asked to play. It looked to me as if he had been encouraged to sit back and not push forward. I also felt that the way that Pearce had the side set up meant that the players were too close to each other meaning that Cork did not have much more to do than some short passes. That having been said he made a couple of telling passes including one out wide which nearly led to a goal.

The difference is that he has now shown he cuts the mustard against a team of real undisputed quality. That will increase his value no question.

Seems realistic - but it would leave 6 gaps in the squad. Would we really buy 6 more players or would we not fill our quota of 25? While they may leave as I previously mentioned, I could see Puncheon, Seaborne and Barnard staying (or a couple of them at least). This would give us (at least) three squad places to fill - probably with a keeper and two centre backs.

I was going to start a new thread on this topic but then remembered this one from a few weeks back. So, what is the situation now with our squad bearing in mind the purchases of Rodriguez and Davis and the expected completion of the Buttner deal? Who will be in the 25 and who won't make it? Or with the number of youngsters we have got who don't need to count in the 25, will this make no difference to our squad? Taking the list previously listed we now have a squad of exactly 25 over-21-year olds plus 7 who are under 21: Goalkeepers Kelvin Davis Tommy Forecast Right Backs Frazer Richardson Danny Butterfield Centre Backs Jose Fonte (Non Home-grown) Jos Hooiveld (Non Home-Grown) Dan Seaborne Left Backs Daniel Fox Dan Harding Ryan Dickson (rumoured to want to leave) Alexander Buttner Central Midfield Morgan Schneiderlin Dean Hammond Richard Chaplow Jack Cork Attacking Midfield/Wingers Guly do Prado (Non Home-Grown) Adam Lallana Steve de Ridder (Non Home-Grown) Jason Puncheon Strikers Rickie Lambert Tadanari Lee (Non Home-Grown) Jay Rodriguez Billy Sharp Lee Barnard Jonathan Forte Under 21 yr-olds RB Jack Stephens LB Luke Shaw CMF Corby Moore, James Ward-Prowse RW Callum Chambers LW Ben Reeves Str Sam Hoskins So, some questions: * Is this our final squad? (I don't think so personally) * If we sign some more players over 21 years old, who will drop out of the 25? I would expect Dickson and Forecast to drop out plus possibly Forte. There may also be question marks over Lee Barnard, Jason Puncheon, Steve De Ridder(??), Dan Seaborne, Dan Harding and Danny Butterfield. * So how many more will we purchase? I can't see us signing 9 more players, so some of these players will probably get a place in the squad IMO. What do you think?

Sorry - I meant to say that was in reference to the main poster with the diamond of hundreds of players, etc.

I haven't quite worked out what picture you are talking about unless it's one on Saints Player to which I do not subscribe. However, I am slightly concerned at the appearance of John Hartson in a Saints kit on the left hand side, over Guly's right shoulder!!

So pleased I bought last season's kit in the sale - I will wear that with pride next season happy to be wearing a proper Saints kit rather than this rubbish! I'm not a Liverpool fan and don't wish us to play in Liverpool colours thank you very much!!!

That looks like you have put as many foreign players as you can remember and assumed that Le Tissier is the best English player we have ever had. Let me put forward a few suggestions per country rather than per position (just as a start not an exhaustive list!): England: Le Tissier, Shearer, Keegan, Shilton, Channon, Payne, Osgood, Ball, Case Wales: Bale, R. Davies, Rodrigues, Paul Jones France: Fernandes, Colleter, Schneiderlin, Bernard Republic of Ireland: Kenna, Connolly Sweden: M.Svensson, A.Svensson, Norway: Lundekvam, Tessem, Ostenstad Yugoslavia (Croatia): Golac, Katalinic Latvia: Pahars Brazil: Guly Trinidad & Tobago: Kenwyne Jones N.Ireland: Nicholl, Baird, Clarke, Dowie, Magilton Poland: Rasiak, Saganowski, Andruszewski Senegal: Waigo Japan: Lee Romania: Petrescu Ecuador: Delgado, Chala Portugal: Fonte Holland: Hooiveld, Monkou Finland: Niemi Czechoslovakia/Czech Republic: Rudi Skacel Scotland: McCalliog, MacDougall Nigeria: Agboola Denmark: Ekelund Morocco: Kachloul I particularly want to highlight the English players. My heart says Le Tissier as well, but many people would argue that you cannot put him ahead of Keegan, Ball, etc.

I was going to suggest something along these lines.

I was in the Saints shop today and they said they have not heard anything about a new shirt yet and they normally hear 3 or 4 weeks before it is released so I wouldn't hold your breath over this one people!!

I think there are some pretty ridiculous comments from some on this thread. I agree that whether or not we go up it is important that we strengthen - if we go up then we need to strengthen in order to compete in the Premier League, just as when we were promoted last year we strengthened to be able to compete in The Championship. If we somehow fail to go up, then we need to strengthen to make sure we don't make the same mistakes last time! However, to make wholesale changes would be foolish. We must maintain our team identity, so any changes need to be gradual and targetted. I would suggest that there are areas we need to strengthen and there are areas that are strong enough to hold their own in the Prem. Personally, I think our biggest problem weaknesses remain as: 1. Disciplined defending 2. Converting possession into clear-cut chances. For this reason, I would say we need to strengthen at right full back, centre back and right midfield: Left back: Fraser Richardson could yet be a revelation in the Prem, but Butterfield may not cut the mustard - certainly if he performs anything like he did on saturday against Boro. A quality left back would be a good investment. Centre back: Secondly, I hate to say this, but I think Fonte may struggle in the Prem. He struggled on Saturday and was done for pace when he conceded the free-kick that led to their goal. He has been great for us the past couple of seasons and would not want to see him leave as he would be great defensive cover in the event of an injury, but I just think being a regular in the Prem may be a step too far for him. Right Midfield: This has been a concern for a few years and I still don't think we have got it right. Chaplow did well on Saturday before getting injured, but he is more suitable when we need a player who will work hard for the team and pressure the opposition high up the field. He is not a right winger who can take players on, get to the byline and knock in a great cross or score a wonder goal from a wide position and I think we need a player of that sort. Unfortunately, the last one of those we had has had a great season in the Prem playing for Swansea. De Ridder looked like he was going to be that player, but it hasn't worked out. Puncheon has never had the consistency and is too lazy. Personally, I would go for Junior Hoilet, if we can afford him and if he would come to Saints. Realistically though I suspect he will get a move to a team already established in the higher reaches of the Prem. Pederson is also a good suggestion and would be quite an ironic signing as it was his brilliance against Blackburn in 2005 that did for us in the relegation season and destroyed our confidence. However, I actually think he is a bit too old to be signing - he is 31.

Sorry - I don't think I do - not by name anyway. I don't know a huge number of people in the village and it's quite a large village. Most of the people I know either live on the same street or have kids in the primary school and/or nursery that my daughters attend. Is he a Saints fan? If so, tell him to join Northern Saints (http://www.northernsaints.co.uk). They get block booking of tickets through the club and we all meet up before games, etc. It's well worth it for getting to know fellow Saints fans and it can save a bit of money in terms of booking fees, etc. which are divided between all who book tickets. Sometimes theer is a small subscription fee for the season, though they didn't charge anything this season as there was plenty of money in the pot! There are a couple of us in Darlington!

I have been looking forward to this match all season as I do a lot of work in Middlesbrough and have a lot of Boro supporting friends. A few weeks ago I realised that it could potentially be the match in which we are promoted. Unbelievably, that still looks a huge possibility!! Also, I am taking my daughter along and it will be her first ever 'proper' game (she's been previously to a pre-season friendly). I am absolutely buzzing about being at this match!!!!! :) :) :) Incidentally, with Reading already promoted and with them facing Brum in their last match, we could still go on to be champions if we win our last two!!! COYR!!!

A goal from Doncaster with none from M'bro would be great too!!

Apologies if this has been highlighted before, but with such a lot of poor results yesterday, it has really felt like everything and everyone is against us. I think this is an appropriate moment to highlight the lyrics of a song on Coldplay's current album. The song is 'Us Against the World' and it has the classic line 'I just wanna be there when the lightning strikes and the saints go marching in'. - 'The Saints Go Marching in...' bit is just after the 1 minute point, but about 10 seconds after it there is some weird TV advert flash thing on the screen which wrecks it, so you may prefer this other version: - This has a longer intro, so the 'Saints Go Marching In..' bit is at about 1min 50. Enjoy!! PS For those that are getting a little over-stressed by the whole run-in and declaring gloom and doom, etc., the message of the song is also a good one: 'Slow it down!!!'. We all need to just catch our breath, chill a bit and just wait and see what happens! COYR!!