Lallana's Left Peg

I agree. He's he referring to Wanyama being at Southampton in that case. That is how it reads.

The Sports Science and Medicine chaps are a separate entity to the First Team Coaching Staff and report to Les Reed. The only people that left with Pochettino were his immediate coaching team.

Interesting thread. I don't really know names of players I'd sign but I'll attribute a value against how much I would spend on each position. I've also assumed I can sell. GK - I'd hold off, we have Boruc for another year. LB - sign a new one for £7m CB - I like the Fonte and Lovren partnership and I would keep it. I would however sign a promising CB for £5m+ to be third choice. RB - like what we've got CM - like what we've got AM - would sign an attacking midfielder who is direct and has pace for £15m to replace Lallana Winger - would sign a promising winger for £5m but with the understanding he is a situational player Striker - sign two strikers - one a starter for £10m+ and the other a prospect for £5m. Total outlay: £47m. I would offset this with Osvaldo leaving. Wage bill also increase quite a lot which is a risk. Would promote Matt Targett to be backup left-back (although Clyne would be second in the depth chart). Assuming one of Maya and Hooiveld would not accept being 5th choice for CB one of them would move on and be replaced by Jordan Turnbull or Jack Stephens. No other prospects are ready in my opinion. Not yet. Harry Reed is already a part of the first team squad.

There will be other friendlies announced.

Why on earth would we want Luis Alberto?

I doubt it, but I imagine the dawning realisation that Shaw and Lallana won't be moving for at least a month has pushed them into writing something different.

Well I suppose at least next time Mr Krueger is asked about team matters we'll know what he'll be talking about instead.

Pleased to see question marks raised over Reed. I think stronger Governance is needed at a football level than him making the decisions. If we do spend lots this summer it could be disastrous if the wrong decisions are made.

I agree with that but I worry about the amount of change that will happen in just one summer: 1. Losing your Manager and coaching staff (no continuity at First Team level at all) 2. The first transfer window for the new Board (and Les Reed) to get stuck into 3. Losing a few of your best players It's 50/50 whether or not we come out the other side of it in half decent shape. We have a chance to, but I do worry about Les Reed.

What really worries me is not that players leave, it's whether the Board is in a fit enough state to buy decent replacements and spend the money wisely. That I do worry about.

Lallana needs to be careful here. There are ways to get what you want and he is not going about it in a particularly productive way for himself.

Say Koeman did join and the squad remained intact. How would we slot our players into his reported 3-5-2 formation? Would certainly be very different than what we're familiar with seeing. Would be excited to see Clyne / Chambers / Shaw as wing-backs with less defensive responsibility. Not sure how the other players fit in though.

It's a fair statement but I am a little concerned by the onus they are placing on a new Manager being in place before we want to do any business. I mean, is a new Manager going to change the decision of Lallana and Shaw to leave? I could understand incoming transfers being influenced by the new Manager but if we get a new Manager and then the aforementioned leave doesn't the statement leave it open to interpretation that a little responsibility for that would be on him?

He never really had a natural position in Pochettino's formation, it will be interesting to see how the new Manager plays and where JWP will fit in.

They don't but they often get a loyalty basis based on the number of years left on their contract. Sometimes this is waived depending on how desperate the player is to leave. It's a shame Lallana's camp chose to leak this as well.

He has struck some awful penalties in his time. Never really looks convincing.

I doubt the Board have any football plan beyond allowing Les Reed to do what he wants. There are two sides to the Lambert transfer. The first is that he is on the turn a little, getting a bit old to be first choice and lead our line, and the opportunity to get £4m+ for him and £40k a week off the books to reinvest can in isolation appear a half decent deal. However, any logic when assessing the deal is completely shot when you have no confidence in the current set-up that he will be adequately replaced - indeed that he will even be sold just a few days after our Chairman said no-one would before we had a new Manager.

I have been quite critical of the Board the last week or so however whilst they shouldn't be ignoring the efforts of their best player and Captain to contact them Lallana should know that unless Liverpool meet the asking price the Board will not (and should not) budge just because he wants to leave. If he is that desperate to move the answer is simple - get in touch with Liverpool and ask that they raise their bid to the asking price and state that the difference can be taken from his wages over the duration of his contract. Liverpool get their way as it doesn't cost them any more, Saints get their way because they get their asking price, and he gets his move. He just doesn't earn as much, but if it is all about Champions League football and not money then he shouldn't be bothered...

Andrei Kanchelskis

Comes across as quite bitter to me. He had another opportunity and he took it. We're going to hate him for it now?

Trying to look at this pragmatically: Last season we lost £7m operationally. Last season included Premier League payments of £44m. Although some of the new contracts were signed before the end of last season the full brunt of them wouldn't be felt until this season. Since last season (and the £7m loss with Premier League income of £44m) the following has happened: Rickie Lambert signed a new deal Kelvin Davis signed a new deal Adam Lallana signed a new deal Morgan Schneiderlin signed a new deal Luke Shaw signed a new deal Calum Chambers signed a new deal I will suggest that Lallana, Schneiderlin, and Shaw received significant pay rises. The others less so. We also spent £32m on three players and it would be fair to assume their wages aren't cheap either. The wage bill will be very big for a club of our size. This season we received an extra £40m in Premier League payments (up to around £84m). We also know that £22m of transfer fees are owed in the summer. That would leave £18m for other costs. I can comfortably see most of that gobbled up by the increased wage bill. We trimmed some fringe players in January but I do not see that having a significant impact. I would suggest we will not be making a profit whatsoever for this season. That doesn't stop us buying players of course, however if a spend of £30m on transfer fees each summer (which most of the transfer fee paid in subsequent years) leaves us without a profit each year then exactly how does spending £50m become possible?

Ok - so £22m owed this summer. Do you think we'll spend another £50m this summer (fees owed over several years etc.) even if Lallana and Shaw stayed? My guess is the Lallana and Shaw deals cover the £22m this summer and allow some money to be spent on new players. I can't see any 'new' money being spent beyond that. Of course, I'd be delighted to be proven wrong as long as we're spending money we have...

I do, with £27m owed this summer for players already at the club.

If the club wish to detach Krueger from the football matters then how about we stop wheeling him out to talk about football matters?