SaintJackoInHurworth

No-one seems to have made this point, but apologies if I have missed it... Many people are talking about our 'first choice' left back and left midfielder, team, etc., but I don't think that is the way that Adkins sees things or does things. Clearly his team choices vary depending upon the opposition, whether we are at home or away and on which set of tactics he decides to play. I think you will find that in some matches Adkins will prefer Fox, in other matches he will prefer Harding and in some matches he will prefer Dickson. Having said that I think Dickson will be used more on the wing. I suspect we will sometimes see a combination of two of them playing together and that this will occasionally be to give Lallana a rest or because Lallana is played in the middle. The key thing I think is that Adkins is looking for flexibility in his tactics.

I will wait to see it when it happens rather than believing some Twitter comment from someone I have never heard of! If he stays, that's great and it will be good to see his development into a great professional footballer. If he goes then it will be sad to see his demise into a Premiership reserve, but more fool him and long may he reflect upon his regrets for making such a foolish move! IMO, he would be best to stay and help us get promotion to the Premiership. If he goes to Arsenal his development will probably suffer by about two years, as it did for Theo. If he wants to go the Premiership, there are far better clubs for developing young talent and giving him the chance to shine, although few of them could afford the fee we have slapped on him. Also, I am not sure if he leaves it will be a huge loss for Saints. De Ridder look like he could be a much better player for us than Chamberlain anyway and I suspect Oxo could spend much of the season on the bench. I am not convinced we need to sign anyone else up-front. I believe defence is a bigger concern - both left central defence and left back. As for the money, it doesn't seem to me that we need it, but I am sure the Liebherr family will be delighted to see a return for their investment if it doesn't affect our future prospects.

There seems to be a lot of conjecture on here based on very little evidence! It seems that people are jumping to conclusions and stating some very strong opinions which they may later regret. This is particularly true with regard to the potential signing of Jemal. So far we have had 1. Some reports saying that he has signed, but his visa has held up the conclusion of the transfer. 2. Another report with almost identical wording apart from the final few words which states that he was about to sign, but did not do so because of a disagreement with SFC. This second one came with an audio interview which one person has alleged states that the problem was that Jemal was concerned about a fee payable to his small hometown club, but that Cortese was not prepared to reveal information that Jemal's agent would already have known! This translation of the audio interview has not ben confirmed as yet by any other person. As far as I am concerned I would not like to pin my colours to the mast quite so quickly that Jemal is a hot-head making unreasonable requests - there does not seem to be any evidence for this! I would like someone to produce a proper transcript of the interview and an explanation of why Jemal's agent would not know the transfer fee, because at present this does not square up at all.

I don't know if this has been posted before: http://www.letelegramme.com/sports/clubs-football/stade-brestois/ligue-1-stade-brestois-brest-attend-encore-deux-defenseurs-01-08-2011-1387522.php It suggests that Southampton have signed Jemal on a 3 year contract, but this is suspended for the moment while he attempts to obtain his visa. Brest are trying therefore to obtain his services to cover for their long defensive injury list.

"After the injury of Ferradj (6 months), youngster Trip Makonda newly arrived from PSG appeared to be sole player on the left-hand side. Brest is however set to find another player for this position. After several weeks, the Tunisian from Young Buys of Bern, Ammar Jemal, could be newly approached. The player was engaged with Southampton (English Div 2) but obviously has been unable to obtain his visa; the player may therefore respond to Brest especially as Guyot has announced this afternoon in Ouest-France [a newspaper] that a new defender may sign this afternoon or tomorrow." HTH

If we sign a player today does that mean they will be able to play on Saturday (pending selection of course!)? Or would they have had to sign by lunchtime or something?

We clearly had a defence that in relative terms was great last season. However, it was far from perfect and will find the Championship a tougher proposition. I would be interested to see statistics relating to previous teams that have been promoted from L1 to the Championship and did not change their defence. How many more/less goals did they concede? I am also interested to know the comparative statistics for home and away from last season. As one poster stated, teams attacked us more away from home than they did at home. I suspect that Championship teams will attack us a lot more than L1 teams did. This is where players need to be assessed. My only matches last season were away matches and I am afraid that Seaborne was quite poor. In particular he was unable to deal with high bouncing balls. Nevertheless, he is still young, so hopefully this is an area in which he will improve. I have not seen Martin play, but I do not recall many fans making many critical remarks about his performances. At full-back, our right backs seem to perhaps be better going forward than sitting deep to defend, but I have no particular problem with them. At left back, Dan Harding has always been fairly dependable, but he made a few errors in matches towards the end of the season, which concerned me a little.

That was an excellent read! Thank you. A very good and positive analysis. If we do sign a decent centre back and another good striker, I would agree with you. Even without them I am hopeful we will not be struggling at the wrong end of the table. However, I do have some reservations about our defence in particular if we don't manage to sign anyone. On a related note, if we do sign any players I wonder how prepared they will be. You only have to look at the lack of match practice for Puncheon and others to realise that wantaway players may not be that well prepared for the new season.

One concern I have with our pre-season is whether the players have had enough match practice to get match fit. I think this was dealt with for some players with yesterdays Yeovil match, but that still leaves a significant number of players without a full 90 minutes under their belts since last season. I was quite surprised that De Ridder didn't make more of an appearance than he did but maybe that is because he has already reached a high level of match fitness and other players need the match practice more. I am concerned about Barnard and Chamberlain though as their injuries will have prevented them getting up to that level of fitness you would want.

It is interesting to read about what other clubs have been doing for pre-season: I notice that Leicester have a big match against Real Madrid tomorrow. While this sounds a real glamour tie and great for the fans (and the ticket office sales!) I wonder if it is asking for trouble so close to the new season. I wonder if the players could be a little TOO comitted and end up getting injuries. I also see the possibility of them getting a real beating and having their confidence damaged. Similarly, Middlesbrough have had a big fixture against PSV Eindhoven this evening, with the same possibilities, though not on the same scale as a fixture against Madrid! More amusingly, P*mpey had a fixture arranged against Real Betis tomorrow, but have had to cancel it as they are stranded in America!! Havant & Waterlooville are playing the match instead! LOL What do people think of our pre-season? Do you think we have had enough fixtures and have they been of sufficient quality? Have the fixtures been well-structured, etc.? Personally, I think there has been a good number to give the squad sufficient match practice without so many that the players risk getting injured. Hopefully the final game on Saturday will be a chance for some players to get a full 90 minutes. I like the fact that it is a winnable game but made tougher by the fact that it is away from home. In theory it should be a good game to build up some realistic match practice while building the team's confidence ready to face Leeds.

And AOC injured so he can stay to warm Saints bench instead of Arsenal's youth team bench.

1. I think Jemal will have signed. 2. I think Arsenal will have signed another winger and not AOC. AOC will come out an declare his undying support for Saints in the realisation that no-one is going to buy him until January. 3. Puncheon will be gone or going. 4. Another left-field signing will have been made - they may or may not play on the left of the field!!! More likely they will be a full-back or striker 5. Rumours will abound that Fish is about to leave to join another club.... or he may have kissed and made-up with Adkins and declared his undying support for the Saints' cause. 6. Saints will have unveiled some new project - e.g. next stage of redevelopment of the training facilities, etc. 7. Saints will have demolished a laclustre West Brom. 8. Saints will completely annihilate Yeovil. 9. A significant player will have been injured - either in training or during one of the matches. He will miss the start of the season. 10. Saints will announce the forthcoming release of their third kit (but the actually release will not happen until the last week of pre-season!)

I know there are still a few weeks to go until the new season during which many more transfers will probably be made, but... ...how do people think the Championship will turn out this season? Where in particular will Saints finish? Also, what about other clubs? Who will finish top/2nd? Who will make the play-offs? Who will be relegated? Where will P*mpey, Brighton and Reading finish? Anyone want to hazard a guess for the whole table?! I think Saints will finish just inside the play-offs, together with Cardiff, Brighton and Leeds. The top two will be Leicester and West Ham. The bottom three will be Crystal Palace, Barnsley and either Peterborough or Burnley. P*mpey will finish 13th, Reading 9th.

I agree entirely with the OP that the main transfer rumours thread doesn't work, except for a small number of people. I also agree with ohwhenthesaints that the best way of doing this would be to create a sub-forum for transfer rumours. One thing that used to happen on the rumour thread and/or the hcdajfu thread was that an admin would keep the original post updated so that it kept an up-to-date record of suggestions. To return to doing that would be the only way that I could see any sense in maintaining the current format.

So far the Twitter conversation is as follows: @Hilton89 Chris Hlton @Lukeyjuke #comehomejuke @Lukeyjuke Lukas Jutkiewicz @Hilton89 haha oh dear has it started?! @Hilton89 Chris Hlton @Lukeyjuke I started them mate, miss you too much after the summer! @Lukeyjuke Lukas Jutkiewicz @Hilton89 same here my friend, visit due very soon! @Annawaldron1 Anna Waldron @Lukeyjuke So..are the rumours true.. Are you gonna come play for the saints? @Lukeyjuke Lukas Jutkiewicz @Annawaldron1 not heard anything, news to me! So... pretty inconclusive I would say! 'Not heard anything' doesn't sound like any bid has yet been made.

I believe he is better than Seaborne and would not want him to go on loan for that reason. IMO, he needs to start the season as cover for Jaidi, gradually replacing him at centre back and becoming our regular CB alongside Fonte by the end of the season.

Correct!!

Any takers? If it is not answered this evening I will try to get on and post the answer at some stage.

It has been more than 15 minutes, so can I suggest an easy question: On 19th January 1980, Saints played Man City at the Dell and won 4-1 with goals from Channon, Ball, Watson. Who scored Saints' fourth goal with his first touch in league football? (I was there! )

I am absolutely staggered at the amount of stuff some people on here actually do outside of following Saints and contributing to this forum. I can spend hours just reading this forum without more than an occasional comment, yet some of you seem to contribute loads to the forum and then do all the stuff that you have listed! Unbelievable! Personally, I love my job, working for a Christian charity supporting/encouraging churches/Christians in their work with/for children, young people and families (e.g. running holiday clubs and events, etc.) I spend much of my spare time with my family (wife and 2 girls aged 2 and 5) and after kids have gone to bed generally settle down to doss on the net (Facebook, this forum, etc.), spend time with the wife or go to activities related to the church of which I am a member. This includes heading up a group which is seeking to have a positive impact upon the community in which the church is located by running community activities, etc. - I guess this is quite similar to my job but kit is separate from it. I would love to get back into doing some sort of fitness activity - either playing football regularly or running. I need to get myself sorted for this!

Mate - can I suggest a simple solution... ...instead of taking her out for a boring meal on the evening of 14th Feb, paying well over the odds to do so in most places and being distracted anyway, why not talk to her and suggest that instead of celebrating that evening, you celebrate over the course of the whole of the preceding weekend and/or during the day instead. So... on Friday 10th you have a slap up meal at home followed by a night of passion. On the Saturday, you take her to her favourite retail park in the morning and then drop her off for an afternoon of pampering while you go to the Burnley match. On Saturday evening, you book a night in a nice hotel and have a great time there. On the Sunday you take her out for a romantic drive in the country, stopping off at a cafe for tea. You then return home to watch a DVD at home in the evening, followed by another night of passion. On Valentines day itself, you could take the day off work and take her out for a nice meal at lunchtime following another morning shopping spree and either an afternoon of passion or a nice drive in the country or similar. For the evening, you arrange one or more of the following while you head off to enjoy the footie: * Some girlie mates around - either single friends or friends whose husbands/boyfriends are also going to the match. * A romantic video (with friends). * A pampering session. * An evening watching Diversity, Take That or similar in concert with some friends. If you do something like this, she will be delighted and will only want to encourage you to have a great time at the footie!!

Everyone is going on about how Lambert should or shouldn't be in the list, but I think the bigger issue is whether AOC should be in the list. If this is a list of the ten best players outside the Prem based on current ability then AOC and a number of these players should definitely not be in the list. They have huge potential and may well be class Prem players in years to come, but they are not that yet! This list looks more like a list of the players in the Championship believed to have the biggest potential for the future.

I don't know about the Peterboro game as I wasn't there, but I was at the away game at Huddersfield and imo Seabourne was dreadful in that game - several times the ball bounced over him because of his inability in the air and in particular his poor timing. He was responsible for at least one if not both of the Huddersfield goals. If he is to remain at Saints and hold down a regular spot in the side then he will need to improve in these areas and some of the others that have been noted by others. Adkins and the coaching staff will need to make the call as to whether they think Seabourne can make the step up to regular first team football in the CCC or whether we need to invest in another CB. Personally I rate Martin more highly - but what do I know?!

Manners? He has only played 8 times for Bloxham FC this season scoring 2 goals. Surely signing a player of Barrie's quality is aiming a bit low? How do you know he is on a free anyway?!!!!!!!! http://www.pitchero.com/clubs/bloxhamfc/s/players-coaches-9006.html&player_id=205653

If Bompey score another will that put them in the driving seat on the away goals rule? Or does the away goals rule not apply?