Lallana's Left Peg

We shouldn't be too surprised. Hard for us to justify paying him his worth for him not to be a starter, and he can start for several other teams in this league. Would explain the Taider signing I suppose...

I understand that different types of players can start wide and come inside. I just question whether a striker who has made it his staple to start in the centre and run into channels is the right sort of player to start out wide and then do whatever Koeman wants the guy occupying that role to do. If indeed our width is to continue to come from the full-backs then I am even more confused as to why we've been chasing wingers all summer. But if there has been a change of heart and Long is to be the man to start out there it'll be interesting to see how well he can adapt to this new role. Would be a £12m gamble for me - buy a proven Premier League striker and then play him in a completely alien role to him.

I remember 3 months ago when we had Pochettino as Manager and £100m+ worth of five extra players in the squad

It's not. I've asked this question several times and aside from ideas like playing him in the number 10 role (!) people are shoving him on the left. He has different characteristics to the rest of our strikers and I get that but our formation just does not make sense for him.

No way. I'm confused by this signing however if you were to line up McCormack (£11m), Long (£12m), and Deeney (£10m) and ask me which is best value and who I'd prefer at Saints out of that lot it would be Long all day.

HOOIVELD TO ARSENAL FOR £15M!!!!!!

Good luck to him. Deserves a clean break and fresh start.

Everton managed to sustain their league position while absorbing the loss of one or two individuals a year. I doubt we'll sustain 8th and we have lost far more than a few individuals. I still think we will finish 15th or so as regardless of the quality you buy this amount of change is hard to accommodate without performances being impacted. I suspect we'll never know the full story behind what has happened since May and I continue to be concerned that Les Reed is our DoF however I suppose there will be a sense of familiarity with how this season is about to pan out. Back to the 'same old same old'.

Not too bad then.

Do we know how much Mayuka signed for? I've heard anything between £4.5m - £7.5m

Yoshida plays himself into form, he's been poor coming in and out of the team so I can have some sympathy for him in that respect. However, he definitely gets mugged off by strikers far too often and was turned inside out at the World Cup too many times. I don't know how much he cost us - he's done a job and he hasn't been a bad signing but no-one seems bothered he is out of contract at the end of the season, do they? I imagine he and Hooiveld will move on come next summer.

According to Wikipedia he earns £6.7m a year. A cool £125k a week!

Completely ignoring the fee, which either can or cannot be justified based on your disposition, how do people see him fitting in? I see his qualities but don't know how he works with anything other than two strikers on the pitch, which we've not done in two seasons now. I really do not see him as a Jay Rod 'outside left' type of player. If he is Pelle's backup then I am concerned as he is not a target man. Is he 'just an option' for when we need two up front?

He has a 1 in 5 record in the Premier League as a striker. If he played all 38 games for us his record suggests he'll get 8 goals for us. Not sure what impact playing on the left will have on him. In fact of the things you've listed the only thing he has is pace.

That's where he runs into, not where he starts. He is a striker who plays central and moves into either channel chasing things. The fee is one thing, the player is another. I don't see where he fits into things as it stands. We've been linked with wingers all summer for that left-side berth and now we're going to shunt a striker out there? Weird.

No, because Jay Rod had been touted to play out on the left when he joined and also played their previously for Burnley. Whereas Shane Long is a 27 year old striker who has never played on the left and only ever had his best patches of form when he played with another striker up front, which we haven't done since our return in the Premier League and Koeman hasn't done in pre-season friendlies.

He's only ever performed well when he has had a strike partner and not in either role mentioned above though. Unless we're changing our system I don't know.

Where is he going to play though? On the left!?! Strange.

If there is one thing that pressures a club into selling their player and taking your offer its when you bid more for another player on another team #LesReedFootballGenius.

I would suggest Koeman is involved of course but it just makes no sense to me. Rather worryingly is the way we've been pumping long balls forward at times pre-season - anyone who was at the WBA and Hull away games would have seen how Long performs in this conditions. For every five long balls pumped forward he'll jump into the defender once giving a free kick away, not bother with two, and for the two that go over the defenders head he'll chase full pelt even though the ball is clearly going behind for a goal kick. I just do not understand what we are trying to do with the balance in the squad. This isn't a striker who fits into a possession based strategy.

£10m on a player who moved for nearly half that 6 months ago. £10m on a player who clearly can't play with his back to goal or as a target man and basically runs down channels and blind alleys chasing things like a dog in a park. £10m on a striker who isn't going to 'fit' into Koeman's system based on his pre-season 4-3-3 effort. What the **** is going on.

It depends how bad he thinks the bottom three will be. Burnley are down, surely? That leaves two spaces left - if he thinks there will be two other very bad teams then 45 points could be 10 more points than the bottom three could muster and would be comfortably safe. Right now I don't think anything to do with our season will be comfortable but I sure hope it is.

Yes but Forster will be afforded that starting role - it is his to lose rather than to earn. Boruc is starting from a disadvantaged position in that respect.

At Boruc's age he may think he can secure himself a two year contract at a club right now rather than a two or one year deal in the summer. He's too good to be a backup at a club of our size in my opinion and I don't think he is the sort of keeper who will just sit on the bench for a long time either. Time will tell but I think we'll see some movement here.

Has a team ever lost its Manager and five+ starters and done even as remotely as well the following season?