Lallana's Left Peg

The Cork replacement. Plays like him in exactly the same way as far as I can see.

Only if he picks up an injury that has the potential to affect his body long-term after recovery. Medicals are 95% nothing to do with injury status.

Last time I lumped on a transfer was when we signed Osvaldo - if I did the same here will I be a happy man?

He got injured in the U21's. It's a ligaments in his knee from the looks of it as a player rolled into his standing leg and his foot stayed planted and his knee twisted a little. Think back to Lallana against Reading at home in our first season back in the Premier League.

Hard to tell one way or another given that his statement was nothing to do with the unfortunate injury. And if he was injured, why would be admitted it on Twitter?

It's delicate. The transfer of VvD to any team depends on how Celtic get on in CL qualification, and even then there will likely be players other than Saints so absolutely no need for any comments on the matter to come out of the club. We've already had Koeman publicly state things about Alderweireld and other incomings that haven't turned out to be a good look for us so best to keep it quiet. The club sound like they are active.

We're nothing but victims of our own success. Had players left for sideways moves then we could question things. Slightly disappointed that all our signings have their wages covered by incoming transfer fees as well, but I am not sure if that is club policy now or something we have to do because of FFP and / or lack of commercial income.

He probably (and quite fairly) expected his keeper to come and claim for a cross that was so high it touched the moon and landed 4 yards from goal.

Man City player went down and collided into Clasie. Clasie was standing as the player rolled into him and it was his planted leg that got caught and his foot remained planted and his leg buckled a bit. It's a ligament type injury but could just have been a stretch / tweak. Alternatively it is the sort of injury like Lallana had in our first season back in the Premier League that had him out for weeks. Clasie is still on the bench so I would assume he is ok (I hope).

The question is whether or not fewer appearances than in previous seasons is significant enough for all to see if he will progress to the potential people think he has.

From that video, I like the way he looks to attack the moment he wins the ball, rather than dump it off somewhere.

Had Clasie been fit you would have seen a different set-up, with Davis further forward and Jay Rod or Tadic dropping to the bench. My theory is that with a weakened defence, instead of trying to give them more protection and taking away strengths we have elsewhere Koeman decided to go 'all out' and see what happened. It nearly worked I suppose, though I don't really like it when Saints don't have control of the ball as the balance of the team is off.

It's our passing that is off, we're just not on it for whatever reason. However, very happy that we can grind out results during off days, especially considering the personnel we had available and that we played on Thursday.

Good point in the circumstances. Could have gone very wrong but the players stuck at it. Won't analyse individual performances but I will say our passing has been poor for the second game in a row.

I don't think it has ever worked with Tadic in the middle. Combine that with the loss of Schneiderlin and not replacing Toby yet, whilst also bedding in a right-back who is looking all over the place and it's not a good look!

Not against anyone with pace or power, he isn't. Sissoko running at him will be

Looking forward to seeing what we can do in the final third in this one but defensively (in midfield and in defence) it's a big worry. Score draw for me,

Chris Sutton also said VvD was worth £25m during commentary on Wednesday.

Spurs seem worse than last year. I'll give them a free pass after their insane pre-season friendly tournament 3 days ago though.

So how come Cardiff got relegated a few years ago despite spending £60m+ How come QPR have gone down twice after spending more than most teams in the bottom half of the table? How come teams in the Championship with the biggest budgets routinely finish well below where they should and below teams with much smaller budgets? Spending money does not mean you are more successful. It gives you a better chance in general, as the presumption is that it means you have better players - but we know it doesn't work like that. Having the better players means you are more successful.

Yes, but you didn't say the best players cost the most and the best clubs can only afford the best players. You said that the more teams spend the more successful they are. And we know that isn't true.

No, because they have the better players.

No. The better players you have, the more successful you are. Not the more you spend.

You don't need the black box to see he's a very good player. And you don't need the black box to know that his wages coupled with his age would be a commitment that Saints don't really like to make. And it appears a lot of clubs around the world who are better than Crystal Palace think the same.

I'll leave it up to the forum statisticians to research further but in 2012/13 Nottingham Forest had Dan Harding, Simon Gilett, David McGoldrick, Billy Sharp, and Dexter Blackstock all on their books. No idea if they were all on the field together at the same time, probably not given the last three are strikers. Then in 2013/14 take out Sharp and put in Fox!