Lighthouse

Boufal made little impact under Puel or MoPe, then immediately failed to impress Hughes and fell out with him. He went to Spain, scored 3 goals, was often subbed off first when they were in need of a goal or simply dropped from the XI. Now (IF these stories are to be believed) Ralph seems to have little interest in him either. None of our rivals, even the newly promoted sides, seem interested in poaching him at a knock down price. What will it take to convince some people he just isn’t good enough.

Fair enough, thought that's what you might have been suggesting. There are people convinced we did that with Osvaldo for some reason.

We're hardly going to do that. Whatever deal has been struck, we must be getting something out of it.

I think he’s Joseph Minala’s older brother.

We beat three of those teams and none of them looked anything special. West Ham were decent but something of an enigma over the course of a season and only finished one win above Palace. 7th is doable. We may be competing against teams with bigger budgets but all that really seems to mean is they're paying more to land similar targets. Look at Everton, spending £90m combined on Tosun, Walcott and Richarlison.

Zlatan f**king Ibrahimovic. Of all the people to score the winner against us in a cup final. He's hardly alone in being hopelessly in love with himself and thinking he's hilarious, what I don't get is why so many fans think he's some sort of legend.

He does a belting rendition of Heaven is a Place on Earth.

I could take leaking goals, if only they weren’t always in sodding injury time. Honestly, Les and Gary from my Sunday league team could smash it into the car park for four minutes, I don’t know how we can get it so wrong.

Good lord, that's appalling. Surely it's a wind up; that sash makes them look like a rough hen party.

On the plus side - Clasie, Long, Austin and Cédric are all out of contract next summer.

I will be astonished if we sign two centre halves, even if two do leave. We have five already and need to reduce the wage bill.

Not happening. We will be lucky to get one and that is probably reliant on shifting one or two that we have already.

I would assume that there is a club out there willing to offer him a reasonable 2 year contract. If I were Saints I’d be willing to pay the difference, so Austin wouldn’t be losing anything this season. That way he’d be much better set up for the future than chancing it next summer with no leverage. Then again, in the world of footballers, agents and clubs, when has common sense ever been relevant.

Can’t see how he would be in a position to demand better wages next summer, compared to now. His current contract is his leverage, he would want a deal somewhere close to it, with Saints making up any difference for the next year. Next summer he will be a 31 year old, free agent who will have done naff all 2 seasons. If he thinks clubs will be fighting to offer him £60kpw and a massive sell on clause, he may have another thing coming.

Good luck to him. Never seen him look anything like a Premier League player, so I can’t see him being the one that got away. Should do alright at that level but won’t set it alight.

Plus there have been many other equally anonymous, low risk signings/loans. Falque, O’Halloran, Forren, Taider

It wasn’t so much pace as acceleration/deceleration over two yards. The ability to change pace and direction quickly, put a defender on his back foot and make a space in the right area for just long enough to put a decent ball in. It’s a fine skill which Moi just doesn’t have.

The problem with that being if they give Austin that wedge, everyone else in the dressing room will want it too.

People playing music, TV shows and games on their phone/iPad in public, without using headphones. No I don’t want to listen to your Spotify playlist and neither do the 10 other people sat in your vicinity.

F**king awesome! Now I just need to find somewhere in Switzerland showing the final.

I know it was only one game but the FA Cup game against Wigan, in which Carrillo was anonymous, left me wondering just how bad a player we’d spent £19m on. Adjusted for inflation, I’d say the fees we spent on Delgado and Osvaldo were as bad but at least they had one good moment apiece and against decent opposition too.

He could keep his current wage if we agreed to subsidise it for a year, that was my point. I can’t see why we wouldn’t try and do that.

If someone is out there offering him a two year deal on reduced wages, why would we not sell him and pay the difference. Pay him £70k a week, or pay him £20k and get an £8m transfer fee, seems a no brainer.

Seems odd that Man Utd would be interested and we're barely asking for what we paid for him, let alone any sort of mark up. Should be looking for at least £25m IMO.

No, we just have lives/jobs. Anyway, let's keep it on topic everyone.