Lallana's Left Peg

I'll be there. Blackburn have lost some of their better players to their first team squad (as have we) but it's free to get in so no reason not to fight through the rush hour traffic from Manchester to get up there.

I think we're good enough now to have a proper finisher / poacher in the team for certain games. Whilst we don't have the creative talents that make teams sitting back against us think twice we also don't have a clinical finisher which makes it a very easy decision to teams to sit back against us at the moment. As for Austin I wouldn't mind him but I wonder if we could do better.

After the game he said he slipped I think he mispronounced 'hurled myself towards my opponent feet first five foot in the air'.

Some quality printing there. It looks really good.

Wasn't he linked with us last summer? It would have sent him over the edge!

He needs to stay. He is out of form in front of goal and prone to making silly decisions with his first time layoffs but at ~£6m he's been amazing value and as a striker has an important role with us. What we can't do it rely on him to be our only striker. He needs to be a part of a stable of strikers that are selected based on form and how we want to play / the opposition, especially with potentially a dozen more games next season in Europe. It's a miracle he hasn't been injured and / or collapsed from exhaustion.

Vic is a strange one. There are things he does brilliantly, and there are things he needs a lot of work on. He is still developing and didn't play much football as a kid. But when you look at what he does brilliantly, is it something that a top team is going to want? Are they things that a top team needs considering 80% of their games are against inferior opposition and they need their midfielders to contribute attacking more than defending? A Spurs, a Liverpool, probably. A team currently in the Top 4? I don't think so at the moment.

Yep but the number of games left this season decreases and the relative impact of any gap becomes far bigger.

Whilst you cannot mathematically dismiss our Top 4 chances, we have to catch 3 teams and bridge an 8pt gap over the next 7 games. It's highly unlikely and to be honest Swansea are closer to us in 7th than we are to 4th. That said, and presuming we qualify for the Europa League, what would people's preferred approach to it be? Under the view that there isn't much money in the Europa League so we can't go bloating the squad with loads of nice new shiny players the club has a decision to make. 1. Play the kids / fringe players in the Europa - focus on the league and ensure we finish as high up as possible to support the stated long-term progression 2. Play a mix of kids / fringe players in Europa with first team players and accept that a somewhat half-baked approach to both the Premier League and Europa may not be great but it's the best way to manage the squad in the circumstance 3. Give the Europa a good go and accept our League position will suffer considerably. You can claim the above options are not exhaustive and it would be possible to compete on all fronts - I personally doubt that in the circumstance and what history tells us so for the purposes of this exercise, what would you prefer the club to do?

Thanks for the information.

The fact it is on Sky will harm attendance. First leg is at Ewood Park and not on Sky. I'm heading to that. Pitch doesn't look great though...

That article references an increase for Europa but doesn't give too many details. I'll remain sceptical that the Europa League becomes in any way financially lucrative.

To be fair isn't there already a thread on summer incomings and a separate one on outgoings?

Bidding war is the best we can do here, and sounds like one is building nicely.

I am not aware of any changes coming up but this is two seasons ago: http://www.uefa.com/uefaeuropaleague/news/newsid=2146866.html This seasons structure: http://www.uefa.com/uefaeuropaleague/news/newsid=2146866.html I suppose you need to add matchday revenue on top of that (32k tickets at £20 a pop is £640k minus expenses) but really it's not that much money and it could even be more lucrative to finish 8th instead of 12th in the Premier League.

But here is the challenge - Europa League football is not financially lucrative. So why would Saints spend all that extra money on wages if finishing 5h - 10th doesn't have that much of a financial benefit to them? I think we should go the extra mile if we're sure of a player being Top 4 quality.

I am more annoyed with our inability to get some support in for Pelle in January than I am Pelle's form. It isn't for lack of effort so we just deal with the limitations of the player (and the circumstance of him being shattered and it his first season etc.). But criminal we didn't strengthen in January.

This thread reminds me of:

Final is a week today at Ewood Park, and on the 20th at St Marys (also on Sky Sports) http://www.rovers.co.uk/news/article/under-21-premier-league-cup-blackburn-rovers-southampton-2382845.aspx

No way - I want an Arsenal vs. Liverpool final on Gerrard's Birthday and an Arsenal win.

It's that time of year when 2nd Year Scholars who haven't yet been offered Professional Terms are either offered a contract or released. Likewise youth players coming to the end of their deals are worried, and U16's learn if they are going to be offered a scholarship or not. Does anyone have any news on this? Someone said in another thread that only a couple of U16's were offered scholarships for next season and the Academy was looking outside the country for prospects.

Yep, but I am pretty sure that Sheffield United could do with him as well but they don't see fit to play him. I don't know much about the player but when I look on the face of I can't work out why he wouldn't be of a suitable standard yet to play for Sheffield United.

Just checked out his Wikipedia. There is a severe disconnect between the clubs he is being linked to and the clubs he has spent playing time with - he's not even getting games for his parent club.

I agree with the first bit but on here it appears you can only be at the extreme ends of either scale at times. Next season will be (relatively) very tough as we are likely to have a Europa League campaign to support which will negatively impact league form and also two / three of our best players will leave and it'll be 50/50 (as it always is) whether we can effectively replace them or not.