SaintJackoInHurworth

A couple of other things I forgot to say... * Connolly had a poor game today and gave away the ball too many times. I'm not sure it was his fault - I think Burnley crowded him out well. Like has been said elsewhere, I'm surprised that De Ridder did not come on to replace him towards the end. * Chaplow had a mixed performance after coming on. He wasn't really the hard working, in your face Chaplow that can make such a difference. He helped to give the side more balance when he was eventually moved out wide, but he gave the ball away far too often. I think Guly did more for us in the first half than Chaplow did in the second. * As has been said elsewhere, apart from the goal (which he couldn't do anything about), Davis did not have much to do, but I was very disappointed with his distribution from the back. Kelvin never used to play the short pass like that - he has only done that since Adkins has been in charge, so I think Adkins has instructed him to do this. Yet I don't think it is something that Kelvin is good at. I think Adkins has got this tactics wrong in this area - he needs to play to his players strengths. * I didn't quite get why Lambert became a winger in the second half - surely he is better in the middle?! Again this is another reason why De Ridder should have replaced Connolly. Alternatively, if he was going to move one of them out wide, I would say Connolly is better out wide than Lambert. Of course it may have been that Lambert was the one who opted to move out wide having found the middle crowded when Lallana was moved inside. Whatever the reason it didn't work and just left our best goal scorer out of position where he could not score the goals that he is capable of.

I haven't read the whole of this thread, but having been at the game, I thought it would be worth giving my perspective of the game... Firstly, I disagree with a number of things that Adkins says about the game, but agree that we could have won it. In fact it could have gone either way, but we had the best chances, including the Lambert header that bounced up and hit the bar. I do not agree, however, that we started the second half brightly and that Adkins half time change did the trick. That sounds to me like Adkins putting a gloss on a change which he made, which did not work. But before I come to that, let's start at the beginning... We started the game brightly and Cork looked like he was going to boss the game in the early exchanges, but then Burnley somehow managed to turn it around and they had a good spell. Then we tried to come back into it more again, but Burnley managed to crowd us out in midfield and most of the rest of the first half was a relative stalemate. What was clear, however, was that they had done their homework and worked out how to nullify our midfield threat. Key to this was their man of the match, Bartley, who was first to every ball and was quick to turn defence into attack and lead them out on the counter-attack. Nevertheless, they carried little attacking threat of their own in the final third, despite some threatening counter-attacks being built. In that first half Cork had been by far our best player, with just occasional flashes of brilliance by Lallana and some good runs up the wing by both full backs especially Richardson. Defensively we had never looked all that confident though (though Hooiveld did ok) and Hammond seemed to be totally out of the game - I certainly don't recall him doing anything. Do Prado meanwhile was in and out of the game - doing some good stuff, but giving the ball away too much on other occasions. Lambert and Connolly meanwhile were mostly feeding off scraps. Adkins clearly realised that something had to be done, but rather than do this with just a tactical adjustment he decided to take off Do Prado for Chaplow. At the time it struck me as a bold move and potentially the right one bearing in mind the way Burnley had bossed the midfield at times. I was less sure, though, whether taking Do Prado off was the right option. And so it proved... contrary to Adkins report on the match, Saints were all over the place at the start of the 2nd half and Burnley were all over us. We had completely lost our shpae following the changes, with no width and Lallana, Chaplow and Hammond all trying to occupy the same space in the middle. It was no surprise then when Burnley took the lead that their pressure deserved. Fortunately, that served to wake up the Saints players and we started to put on some pressure and, after ten minutes, Adkins acted to sort out the midfield by replacing Hammond with Schneiderlin. That gave us more stability at the back and provided a platform for Cork to move the ball forwards. Chaplow meanwhile appeared to move out wider, helping to restore some balance to the side. There were some signs that our confidence at the back was not good and we were losing far too many balls in the midfield with Bartley continuing to dominate for Burnley. But then, with ten minutes to go the goal came - a scrappy affair if truth be told - and from then on until the end we looked comfortable and if anyone was going to win it was us. Credit for the draw must go to Cork, Lallana and Schneiderlin. Fonte and Hammond on the other hand had poor games, while others failed to really ever display the quality that has come to be expected this season. All in all, I would say a strange match, in which a draw is a fair result, but it could also have been so much more if either Lambert's chance or one of those that Lallana had, had gone in.

* I know it's an unfair comparison, but on a direct comparison of form in competitive matches over the past 11 months, ours is as good as Man Utd. Take a period of time less than eleven months and our form is better - except if you compare only form this season. * In our last 15 matches, we have won 14 and lost one. * Since the beginning of April we have played 19 games, won 17 and lost just two. * Since losing to Walsall at the beginning of March, we have won 21 of the 24 subsequent games, drawing one and losing two. * Since losing to Man Utd at the end of February, we have played 30 games of which we have won 25, drawn two and lost just three. * Since last Christmas we have played 38 games, winning 30, drawing 3 and losing 5. * Since losing to Huddersfield on the 16 October 2010, we have played 47 games, winning 36, drawing 4 and losing 7. * Since one year ago, we have played 52 games, winning 39, drawing 5 and losing 8. * At home we have 14 (not 13!) straight home wins in all competitions (excluding pre-season) - we have 13 straight home LEAGUE wins. * Since losing to Brentford at home on 11th December, we have had 16 straight home LEAGUE games without defeat. Over the same period we have lost only one home game in 19 home matches - the defeat against Man Utd in the cup. During this period of time we drew one home match (the game against Notts County) and won 17. * Over the past year (actually since the beginning of October as we didn't have any home games for the last couple of weeks in October lst year) we have played 28 home games in all tournaments (excluding pre-season friendlies). Our record in those games reads as follows: P.....W.....D.....L.....F.....A 28...24.....2.....2....66....16

I think we will finish somewhere in the top half and have the potential to finish in the automatic places if we can remain largely injury-free, especially if Hooiveld turns out to be a class signing or Aaron Martin develops another notch and forms a great relationship with Fonte. However, should Fonte get injured we could struggle defensively. I think, however, that we will continue to create and score a lot of goals and cannot see that being a problem. So, even if Fonte gets injured we could always do a 'Peterborough' by outscoring our opponents! Consequently I have voted 'play-offs'.

I think Hines is a good signing by Howe. Seems a bit like the sort of signing Adkins makes tbh and would have been quite happy if we had signed him, as he has potential. I think he could do well for them.

I'm sorry - but as someone else mentioned above, he was rubbish when we played Leeds a couple of years ago. From what I have seen of him (especially in that match at Eland Road), he is just a goal-hanger. While that may get him a fair few goals, he misses shed-loads of opportunities too. That was the opinion of Leeds fans I spoke to at the time too. Nigel's approach seems to be to encourage players to work for the team and I don't think goal-hanging really fits with that system. Lambert, Connolly and Barnard are all better strikers IMO. We need to be looking at players who are either better or have the potential to be better strikers in the next couple of years.

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! )