Lallana's Left Peg

The fact they are unwilling to go to print with it means they must have doubts about it themselves.

He will earn more money at Liverpool. He will play for a bigger club at Liverpool. He will have a better chance for trophies at Liverpool. But that doesn't mean he'll seriously contend for any trophies at Liverpool nor play in the Champions League for the duration of his first contract. If anything, Liverpool made such a mess of this season they feel further away from the Champions League than they have done for the seasons before the one they finished second. The money thing is enough justification for him to want to move, and I wouldn't blame him. But as a club, Liverpool are as screwed as they ever have been.

Am I going mad or did JWP not have a decent season for us? I think he's developing nicely, he just needs more of an identity as a player.

Slattery has been known about for a while - has even made an appearance for the U21's. He looks very good. There have been posts on here by people who have said that only a couple of players from this seasons U16's were offered scholarships, so how we're supplementing the rest of them I don't know but if it's anything like the last two seasons we've been taking talent off other teams - some as a better offer than they had at their current club, and others released by bigger clubs (Arsenal, Chelsea etc.).

We have to accept our fair share of the blame: We sold a kid who never played above League 1 level for £12m.

I don't know the correct way to pronounce it, but the official Saints video when he signed had the narrator say 'Suarez'.

Koeman has said he is 'on the list' if Schneiderlin leaves, and the Dutch media constantly say we're interested. It's fair to presume that should Schneiderlin leave we'll make a move for him if he is still available.

We'll see - this years scholars were heavily laden with rejects from other clubs, and from other threads it appears only two lads from the U16's were offered scholarships for next season which means we'll be doing the same to supplement next seasons scholars.

Lots of valid points - one other thing to consider, the next few years of prospects probably won't be as good as they were first brought to the club in the period we were in a downward turn and the scouting would have suffered. If we were to assume that most kids join at the age of 8ish, and they are first year scholars at 16, then this years intake joined in around 2007. The 2008 and 2009 intake may not be great either. Things should pick up in 2017 again.

He'll get on with Beavis Mugabi if his translated name in the caption of his photo is correct.

I'm not advocating signing a centre-back, but the media haven't been linking us with too many considering two clubs bigger and better than us are also reported to be interested in Alderweireld. Schneiderlin and Clyne are still our players and yet we've been linked with plenty of central midfielders and right-backs, but hardly any centre-backs despite Toby not even being our player. Seems strange to me.

Bit concerned by the lack of quality / numbers of centre backs we're being linked with. I know we want Alderweireld but Fonte, Gardos, and Yoshida are our only senior central defenders at the moment and that doesn't feel good enough for the number of games or part of the table we want to consistently be in.

Mail claiming we're sticking to our £15m valuation of Clyne, and would spend £6m of that on Charlton defender (not midfielder) Joe Gomez (also a target for Liverpool): http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-3128301/Southampton-stand-firm-15m-Nathaniel-Clyne-price-beat-Stoke-signing-Sporting-Lisbon-defender-Cedric-Soares.html?ITO=1490&ns_mchannel=rss&ns_campaign=1490&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter So charge Liverpool more for Clyne so we can beat them to a signing they also want to make. I know they're stupid, but lets see how stupid Liverpool really are.

Undisclosed has been the Southampton standard for transfers since the takeover to be fair.

Ah yes - the game wasn't in Italy. Italy lost the game which meant they won't be seeded for the World Cup Qualifiers

Same player!

Flown in from Italy yes?

I think Jenkinson has some awful games and is prone to collapses in concentration where some bad mistakes are made and I know nothing about Byram. At this stage I think Cedric, if signed, would be first choice if Clyne leaves and his understudy would be a work in progress. Basically swap Clyne for two players. Which is what I think we'll do with Schneiderlin as well.

I conclude Cedric is a value signing we're making regardless of Clyne and Clyne's future then dictates other moves like Jenkinson, Byram etc.

Would a 100min YouTube video of him struggling to play the lone striker role for Spain do?

A good point I hadn't considered.

One thing to note (you may even already know it) - the star rating system in FM is relative to the existing ability of your squad. Thus the rating that Juanmi would have got is in comparison to the existing strikers that Man Utd have - not that he is only a 1.5-2 star rating player.

If Southampton progress through to the Europa League group stages, the following fixtures will be played on a Sunday or Monday (more likely Sunday): Newcastle (away) - Sunday 9th or Monday 10th August (this is guaranteed to be moved) Watford (away) - Sunday 23rd or Monday 24th August Norwich (home) - Sunday 30th or Monday 31st August Manchester United (home) - Sunday 20th or Monday 21st September Chelsea (away) - Sunday 4th or Monday 5th October Liverpool (away) - Sunday 25th or Monday 26th October Sunderland (away) - Sunday 8th or Monday 9th November Man City (away) - Sunday 29th or Monday 30th November Crystal Palace (away) - Sunday 13th or Monday 14th December

He's decent but has a horrible attitude and questionable disciplinary record. I think we can do better.

Well the goal poacher still exists but usually those sort of finishers contribute little else to the team. Great finishers who also contribute to the team will play for far better teams than us. So I guess we're taking the route of ensuring we have depth and options, which seems sensible to cover injuries, form, and fatigue.