Lallana's Left Peg

That is a good example. Stoke baulk at spending £10m on him because of the threat of a degenerative knee disease that will end his career. West Ham take a punt in desperation despite the failed medical, he does well enough for Newcastle to take him on a free transfer (again despite the knee issue), and then Chelsea don't think twice about spending £8m on him despite the chance that his knee could end his career tomorrow. There is a remote chance that a player could fail a medical because an existing injury isn't clearing up well and return to the deal a bit further down the line, but that is rare. Stuart Downing once signed for Aston Villa while he had a broken leg. To fail a medical these days usually means there is a heart problem, a blood problem, or something like that. Pretty serious stuff.

It takes something pretty serious to fail a medical these days. I doubt Reading would have criteria for passing a medical that would be much different to Saints. So that would mean the player in question has developed something (or shown signs of something) since he signed for us, whomever he may be. Given medicals are more around the general health of a player rather than his injury status, I imagine it may well have been a big shock to the player as well.

Hmm, so Fenerbache reportedly interested on Saints' Jose Fonte, and Saints reportedly monitoring Fenerbache's Miroslav Stoch...

Banega is a very clever player. Not much of a goal threat but he is awesome at being able to move the ball forward into the final third and get it to players in space who can do some damage. Creative but without creating goalscoring chances for others, however he will start loads of moves in moving the ball forward in transition. I can see why we'd be after him.

Quite a big fee for a defender who has fallen out of favour with his current club. Hope he proves his detractors wrong though. Would be great if he can defend well (I like the way he described himself as "aggressive" in his interview!) but I'd give an arm and a leg for a central defender who can nod the ball down to his midfielders when dealing with long balls and also pass it well out of the back to start attacks. I hope Lovern can.

Well without descending into an illegible rant, here are my main issues: 1. The 'cost per point' only recognises transfer fees, which are quite clearly only one aspect of a cost of a player (wages the other). So a player signed for £5m earning 30k a week is going to cost less in his first season than a player signed for £2m but earning 100k a week - but that isn't reflected in the table. 2. Transfer fees are guessed as many clubs don't disclose them - so immediately the data is guess work. 3. The stupid *****s have the club who paid the 'most per point' at the top of the table - shouldn't they be at the bottom or is the objective to spend the most money for least return? 4. And the most stupid thing of all is that pathetic table which shows apparent difference in value of players in the squad vs. the amount of money spent. How on earth can people who came up with this nonsense attribute a figure to what a player is worth? It is completely subjective and means nothing.

The whole idea behind how they've interpreted the data and the conclusions they have made is like a 14 year old has done something for their homework.

I would expect us to have a nibble at that price - unless Lens has slipped down the target list in the last year.

http://www.talksport.co.uk/sports-news/football/premier-league/transfer-rumours/130123/new-southampton-boss-mauricio-pochettino-rules-out-signing-a That was said in January. But, of course, attitudes can change.

I think he is a good player but I am not so sure the club would like him announcing he is joining us rather than them doing it all in the usual way. Unless he just confirms he is leaving Espanyol tomorrow without saying where he is going. Then there is the small matter of Pochettino apparently saying he wouldn't sign any player from Espanyol. Appreciate he'd be leaving on a Free Transfer but still, the sentiment is the same.

I saw the guy that e-mailed me this story last night and I managed to get something a bit more solid out of him. There were three people in the meeting - the suspected player, the translator, and a guy from Southampton (not the FA). No-one else - no agents, other club officials, family or anything like that. The was lots of cordial chat and he 100% remembers the Saints guy telling the player (through the translator) that whatever papers he signed at that meeting would be registered with the FA first thing the following day. He is pretty sure the Spanish guy is a player as he looked far too young to be a coach or anything like that. That is all he said - he lost interest in my questions after that. So it just gets a bit more confusing. I would find it surprising that anything would be signed in public like that if it was a player, especially if his agent wasn't present. It is perhaps more likely it could be an agent instead of a player there, or maybe even someone else joining the club in a non-playing role (another coach or something) but the guy I spoke with seemed sure it was a player, which seems far fetched to me. So nothing really conclusive (or even interesting) there but perhaps clears up a few things. Maybe.

Mate saw Saints speaking with a Spanish player in De Vere Grand Harbour last week and a translator and member of the FA was also there. I have no idea if this is true or not but this guy doesn't support Saints and spends a lot of time in the hotel as he uses it as his base when he goes on cruises etc. And yes, I found it strange that there would need to be a member of the FA there too but who knows what goes on these days. He said the translator was a fit female. Treat with suspicion and as a rumour but he thinks the guy he saw looked like Victor Ruiz after a quick google. There you go, a messy rumour.

I think we're just making sure we're informed of all movements in the market. A large part of our scouting and recruitment is our network - not just paid employees but also contacts around the world who will inform us of what is going on. Long gone are the days of only having one target to fill a need, I suspect we're keeping tabs on hundreds of players and in every single position no matter whether we've got a perceived need in some positions more than others. It's clear we're both very active scouting players and also making sure we've got an interest enough in players to be informed of what is happening with them. It makes it both easy for the media to misinterpret and fans alike around our intentions. It's just a big game these days.

It's the 10th June. The season has been finished for three weeks. The perceived lack of information around transfers and kit is consistent with how the club have done things the past few years. I can't see where any level of valid criticism can be levelled by anyone other than someone who is negative and is looking for a moan about absolutely nothing.

Away to Villa.

It was a bit chaotic at times but considering our opposition play 20 times a season and that was our first game since WorldNet last July I think we battled well. It was good to have a run out and I may head to Watford later to pick up the 50% of the skin my legs lost during the game. Good to see people again and looking forward to WorldNet.

According to Google translation:

Unless this table is wrong or I've interpreted it incorrectly (both are possible!) then I don't believe the 90min rule is completely abolished at all for all age groups therefore we still gain an advantage by having the Academy there: http://www.footballacademytalk.com/football-league-youth-development-rules-2013/ Particularly for kids in the 'Foundation Phase' where they can only travel for 1hr.

It was stupid for the FA to allow us to have it in the first place. Going to be quite hard for them to take it away from us now as the reasons for giving to us will never change barring a quite literal massive natural disaster that changes the geography of this country.

QPR have every right to want to shift the high earners before Redknapp burdens them with more crap. And lets not forget Redknapp also signed a left back in January that he hasn't played once. I can only think Redknapp is desperately trying to create a situation where it looks like he is forced to leave QPR but everyone can see through his tired routine. Class A ***** whose managerial career is slowly dying in the most satisfying fashion.

He was, but to be fair Baines and Pienaar were in awesome form and our 4-diamond-2 was ripped to shreds by Everton. Particularly as it appeared Jay Rod and Lambert spent most of their time running after Coleman and Baines as JWP and Lallana (in front of Davis and behind Ramirez) were always sucked infield.

Good luck on the fourth point Nige. Reading have some of the worst fans in football. Somehow they have a majority fanbase that appear to me as though they attend games and then have a look on their face like they expected to see a different sport or something and then just sit there in silent bemusement win lose or draw.

Is that because all young players improve, Turkish? Have you just fallen into the very trap you take great joy in using on others?

I demand the festival of football that was the game against D&R.

Is there anything we need to bring other than boots and shinpads?