Lallana's Left Peg

We were a little handicap with what we could do in the summer (though I maintain the signings of Juanmi and Romeu were not great). FFP rules state that we can only increase the wage bill £4m a season plus anything we gain from new commercial deals. We know our commercial revenue is awful and that is being worked on (and that is why this summer is huge for us) so basically in the summer we could only increase our wage bill by a net increase of £80k a week. So if I were to just guess: Out Schneiderlin- 40k a week Clyne - 30k a week Hooiveld - 20k a week Mayuka - 30k a week Alderweireld - 50k a week (even though he was on loan we paid his wages and they would have counted towards our cap for last season) Elia and Djurcic I am not sure about - I've left them out for now. I have not included Osvaldo as he was on loan last season and his wages would already be off the wage bill. As it turns out we paid him ~£8m to go away in the summer regardless. So basically that is a really rough guess that 170k a week in wages was free'd up and we are allowed further growth of 80k a week - giving us a wage budget of 250k a week to fill (if we wanted). It is quite normal for many players to have wage increases built into their contract - especially young players and new signings on long term deals. It is another complete guess but lets say 50k of that 200k budget is eaten up by commitments made to existing players. That leaves 200k. From that 200k you can see quite quickly how that would be eaten up by the following: Loan cover for Forster (Steklenburg - maybe 40k a week) Loan cover for Gardos (Culker - maybe 30k a week) VvD - 50k a week Clasie - 40k a week Cedric - 30k a week Romeu - 30k a week Juanmi - 30k a week That's 250k a week estimated right there leaving me well over my estimated budget of 200k a week. So I really do believe the club has spent all it can under the rules - you can debate whether or not it was done wisely but we haven't stood still. Onto this summer - we get another 80k a week to play with, Ramirez will leave (50k a week?), Stek and Culker will leave (70k a week) PLUS we get those nice new sponsorship deals (new short sponsor, new kit manufacturer, and anything else) which if they are average will give us another 80k a week to spend on wages. So that could be 280k a week to spend and that is completely independent of departures. Now the rest of the league will have more money as well of course, but they won't all have the scope we will to increase their wage bill. And that is where we can make good gains as a team and as a squad.

I haven't seen much of Imbula at all (and just online stuff last summer when we were linked with him) but one thing I really like that he can do is carry the ball forward in the middle of the park and drive past people. It opens up so much space and we really lack that in our team. However, I don't know what he is like off the ball and that is where Wanyama is really important for us.

It's going to help if we stop overhitting every second pass. It's really bad.

3-0 now. The U18's aren't very good at all this year. Time to bump Slattery up to the U21's and keep him there as games with the U18's aren't going to do him any good in my opinion. Lack of talent and I'm not too convinced by Fleming either.

It's important not to confuse form and consistency with what the players are encouraged to do within the tactical framework they are given. We've played some fantastic stuff under Koeman when the players have been on it and in good form. Even on Saturday we could have scored 5 or 6 and that was coming out of a poor run of form. We can be very fluid in the final third but the players aren't always on form. Compare that to Van Gaal's Man Utd where £30m+ players are asked to fulfil disciplined roles and can't express themselves on the ball then I think it is a world apart personally.

Saints are far more fluid and better to watch in the final third in my opinion. They do both like organisation at the back - but to be fair, what sort of Manager doesn't? I think Koeman is far more adaptable tactically.

She will definitely do that but in October our CEO said this of our latest financial results:

As a club we are in great financial health and the summer should give us lots of financial power - the inevitable Mane sale, the new TV money and the new shirt sponsorship and manufacturer deals should not only give us more cash but also more breathing room in FFP to increase the wage bill. However from an owner perspective we owe her estate £60m and the Board have made a commitment to reduce that over the years. The challenge is clear and fair from Koeman though.

I absolutely believe the club when they say that all the transfer fees received have been reinvested into the first team. I just question the approach (with the benefit of hindsight of course). The squad needed to improve but I don't think they only way that was possible was to the detriment of the first team. From memory this summer: Out: Schneiderlin (£24m) Clyne (£10m) In: VvD (£13m) Cedric (£4m) Clasie (£8m) Romeu (£5m) Juanmi (£5m) Martina (£1m) Plus the loans for Caulker and Stek to cover long term injuries. Transfer fee wise that is break even or so - and I suspect the wage bill has gone up too. My own personal preference would be to retain a good first 11 and use the Academy to fill out the squad. Reed and Stephens could do the jobs of Martina and Romeu (just my opinion - I know some like Reed and some don't). Juanmi was a peculiar signing that appeared driven off the fact he was available for just £5m rather than any need for him and him fitting into the way we play. So say that was £11m saved in transfer fees and wages there. Could we have got a better player than Clasie and Cedric? Or could we have spent that on a single player who would have made us better? It's hard to know the answer or if it was possible but for me it feels like that would have made us a better team and given us a better chance.

It's about perceived ambition though. The club have been on an upward curve the last 6 years and we're in a space now where we are probably at our normalised level and any gains will be marginal. It is also fair to say that every player we have sold since we have been back in the Premier League has been to a bigger / better club who can offer more money. No complaints there from me - that is football and we get on with it. The club is in great financial health now and this summer we have the new TV deal along with new sponsorship and shirt manufacturer. We will have the ability to offer more wages and spend more money. Say we sold Mane for £30m and signed a player for £10m to replace him. And then spent another £10m on a couple of other players. Fans are going to lose interest because it appears like we aren't trying to push on. No-one is going to say that we should have kept Mane, but why can't we sign two £10m players and improve the team? This summer we only replaced one player with immediate quality and that was Alderweireld (who wasn't even ours) with VvD and look at the difference that made. Schneiderlin and Clyne left and it appears two players have replaced them both (Romeu and Clasie, and Cedric and Yoshida) who are not good enough right now and we've paid the price for it and aren't as good this season. That sort of stuff will turn fans off because they will wonder why we are doing this when the club are reporting profits etc. Of course half the problem is that we buy and develop good players - if we settled on having an average team with the odd signing here and there then perceived ambition wouldn't be a problem but as it goes the club talks up a big game these days and whilst I have sympathy with losing players (I don't think there is much the club can do there) this summers business was a little contradictory in my opinion which leaves a disconnect with what I see in the transfer market and what I hear as what the club wants to achieve.

Where did I say I would lose interest? Bit presumptuous of you. But fans will lose interest if the club stagnate. Happens with every club.

U21's back to their usual efficient self tonight - a very good 2-0 win away at Spurs who were unbeaten in 8. Spurs the better team but Saints very organised and professional and made the most of their chances. Martin Hunter back in charge.

Nothing changes solely off the back of positive thinking. In football there are a few things you can guarantee. The biggest is that if you continue to sell high and buy low you cannot sustain progression. We are all frustrated because over the past two years we are the only football club in the Premier League who have not had a net spend on transfer fees. It is even more frustrating because we can see the team is close to being good but we just lack certain things which mean progression is unlikely. For me this summer is huge - it is the summer we have to start spending more emphatically to improve the team. More VvD's than Juanmi's. Otherwise fans will lose interest because of a perceived lack of ambition.

In a season when we depended on him making the step up because of the loss of other quality in the team he hasn't quite done it for us. Progression for young players is of course not linear, and whilst exposure to first team football is very important that also doesn't appear to be as important to JWP as it should given his vast experience for his age. He has a lot of good qualities as a footballer, but at the moment the areas he is lacking are impacting his ability to influence and play well in games. He will play to the level of the team and no better - conversely when we are struggling he is rarely the one who still puts in a good performance. He has a long way to go but we should be patient and give him that opportunity - especially as for me there is no better alternative to him right now.

Well if you were to look at it in the cold light of day we lost three important players in the summer and only really replaced one of them (with VvD). The replacements for the other two are nowhere near up to the level which is going to happen if you sell high and buy low. If that is the ethos of the club then they need to stop the talk of European football for a while because only teams that have a net spend get better in this league year after year. Others, like ourselves, will have good seasons and bad seasons.

World class players look after the ball far more and have better concentration. He's very good at certain things and very bad at others - which means he'll be a player who will suit some roles and not others. He still has a lot of potential to fulfil though as relative to his age he hasn't played much football.

Some ITK's said the club were very happy and patting themselves on the back with this signing and they considered it marquee. I am just going off that.

U21's have players on loan as they aren't good enough to make the step up (or aren't getting a chance) and U21 football will stifle their development. The better U18's then get bumped up which leaves them short but the coaching / management at U18 level has been an issue ever since Dodd and Williams left. I don't know the exact reason they left but the rumour was that they (read: Les Reed) wanted a more modern approach to the coaching. Anthony Limbrick was the U16 coach at the time and highly thought of and the club were aware that the U18's weren't going to be that good so for the sake of continuity they appointed Limbrick. However, at the end of his first season it was clear that whilst he was a good coach as a Manager he had some areas lacking, particularly around his experience of the game. Craig Fleming was brought in to help him. This summer Limbrick went back to Australia - again I don't know the reasons but Fleming now appears to have assumed the role of U18 Manager. Is he suited to it? I am not sure. However, the U18's are lacking in talent - only a few U16's got scholarships and the rest of the group who are new are made up of rejects from other Academies (from bigger clubs like Arsenal and Chelsea). The reason our intake is lacking is because these are the kids that joined us as nippers (8 - 10) during our plummet down the leagues when our scouting and set-up was not as good and other clubs could make better offers. So it will be lean for a few years but things should pick up again in 2-3 years which is effectively when intakes post-takeover will start to come through. As for the U21's I don't know why Martin Hunter wasn't at the Norwich game on Monday night so it will be interesting to see what the news is there.

A marquee signing who can only play one game a week and even then can't really deal with the physicality of the league? A bit concerning unless there is more to it.

Poor result but I thought the performance was decent - just lacking that confidence and finish in the final third. On another day we could have won by five. Stopped the rot of losses at least. I'm not as worried as I was.

And they also have third parties buying players for them!

It will of course be reinvested into the team but how we do it is restrictive. If we are to continue to fund both transfer fees AND wages from the transfer fees we receive for players then I want to know what happens to the spare wages we free up from this system. If it is a FFP thing then fair enough but this summer with the expected increase in commercial revenue coupled with the guaranteed TV revenue increase it's time to start spending more (including wages) because our competitors are and they are clearly catching us up.

Wilson says that Man Utd did bid for Mane in the summer but also ever other somewhat credible journalist said that it was just a leak to deflect from missing out on Pedro. Maybe I am reading too much into it here but if Wilson has been briefed by Saints it feels like they are positioning him for a move. As inevitable as a move may be (especially given some of the other turd we're buying for the squad) I'd rather Saints play the game a bit more and issue hands off warnings.

That by the way is nothing to do with fitness or sharpness, it's concentration and awareness, two things he isn't going to get better at all of a sudden. The only mitigating circumstance can be the silly formation and players in certain roles at that time but in general he should know to keep up with his defence at all times.

I'm not a fan of standing off too much but we did very well away from home last season by standing off and using our shape and organisation to stifle the opposition and see out games. The difference I see now is that the quality has diminished which makes standing off more of a risk plus when we break we do so less incisively as we are scared of losing the ball and giving a goal away. We're a bit stuck in that regard.