Lallana's Left Peg

If you believe you have strong scouting and recruitment, there is no need to pay huge fees for players. I have no doubt that the £27m+ we get for Schneiderlin will be reinvested in the club, but that may be across a few players in different positions and / or in infrastructure. Of course we will need to invest in a quality replacement as we need to find someone as effective as Schneiderlin (or make the team as effective) but the reason the top clubs pay the premiums is that they can't afford to develop players via playing time and we are a club who can. Given that Jay Rod is back and we signed Juanmi we are already stronger in the final third, together with Pelle, Tadic, Mane, and Long all settled at the club. I would expect us to be a better force in the final third this season. That relieves some pressure on the back four and the defensive midfield positions, where it will be a tough ask to be as good given the turnover of personnel. I think the team will evolve slightly in that respect.

It's an issue I've highlighted. If Clasie was the Schneiderlin replacement then that leaves the central midfield spots to be occupied of two from Wanyama, Clasie, Davis, Reed, and JWP. Whilst height isn't everything and you can certainly be short and physical, that is not an imposing midfield for the Premier League. It could get over-run and in the air it is VERY vulnerable.

That is a literal fact ffs

Hard to really to take too much from that game, but for what it is worth: 1. Great to see Jay Rod back 2. Soares looks like a really nice player 3. I'd back Stevie Wonder to successfully navigate an oil tanker through our defence

Awful goal to concede. Nice equaliser though!

5pm, and no. Potential stream here: http://www.gofeed2all.eu/watch/355283/1/watch-rb-leipzig-vs-southampton.html

I bet there are some U16 midfields with a higher average height Reed: 5'6" Gape: 5'6" Juanmi: 5'7" Ramirez: 6'0" Isgrove: 5'8" Small!

TEAM:

Don't know for sure but could well be Josh Debayo.

Bottled it.

Interesting. Someone on here who had links to the Academy said that his appointment (made off the back of the firing of Dodd and Williams) was because he was a great coach and coached most of the group in the U16's. Clearly, whilst U18 results have been mixed, this years intake has been poor so I wouldn't read too much into that. Fleming's appointment was made to give the U18's more of a 'been there' nous. This hasn't worked out for whatever reason so it will be interesting to see what direction we go in here.

Is a link to a Daily Star article with no quotes a valid challenge (or, indeed, undeniable proof in its own right)? If Manchester United, a club who pay more in wages and play Champions League football, were after Clyne I'd have thought he would join them. As it was, I'm more inclined to believe his form in the second half of the season saw him miss out on elite European football either with Saints or another club.

Imagine if we miss out on Clasie!

This guy

Forget about Man Utd, they aren't a competitor with us. Liverpool weren't either last summer, but now, hilariously, they are. Clyne wouldn't sign a new deal and Liverpool were the only team in the market for him. So our hands were tied there. We can't decide what club Toby signs for if he isn't ours, though I still feel we messed up somewhere there along the line. Cork we should have kept and it was a mistake to only offer him a new deal with 6 months left on his. We should have kept him.

Yes I'm fully aware of that, but as I said, he is one of their best players and plays in central midfield. Clyne is a full-back and was not one of our best players.

Wow, just £7m. He's one of their best players as well. Makes you respect the fees we get for our players.

Sunday League

He's never been one for deft of touch though, I'll be more interested to see how he mentally copes with contact and how fast he really is when he gets that big stride of his going. Les Reed said that Jay Rod has turned into a helluva athlete through his rehabilitation, so all eyes on Jay.

I don't think so, but I posted a link to a potential stream earlier in the thread.

Yeah I think he was a left back by trade until a few appearances at centre half this season and then he quickly got promoted to the U21's. He looks quite good.

But then what about all this legal action stuff? Was it press fabrication or did we think we had a legal right to something we had no legal right for?

Lets hope he is, because on the face of it we could have had one for £10m

I don't think we'll replace Elia, and I still think we also need to replace Cork. We need three defensive midfielders (with Reed coming through).

That we didn't play it right, that we dallied, and that we created a situation that allowed Spurs to get the player. Of course, that could just be speculation and easy for them to say after the event. But it felt really easy for Spurs to get this deal done. Too easy.