Lighthouse

Private jet just landed at Eastleigh from Slovenia. Begin wild and meaningless speculation based on f**k all.

With you now. I thought you were suggesting we hadn't lost a knockout game since Italia 90, when we played Brasil in '02.

Am I misunderstanding your post, we lost to Germany and Argentina in '96 and '98?

https://www.theguardian.com/football/2018/apr/26/sofiane-boufal-southampton-mark-hughes-bust-up Depends how much you believe what you read and if these quotes are accurate. Of course the club aren't going to say anything, much like they didn't with the whole Osvaldo incident.

Never really settled here, must have been pining for the fjords.

No but he did get 5 goals once, a feat Boufal has never gotten close to.

Some people are saying sell Boufal and don't replace him. With Tadic gone, who else does that leave.

Yes but our only creative option off the bench? Really?! Redmond and Sims our only creative players if Mo El picks up a knock?

Apparently Delgado scored on 8th June against Mexico and Anders scored against the Argies on the 12th. I was thinking maybe a Rasiak, Stern John or Kenwyne more recently but apparently not.

We will have to agree to disagree on that. I remember people saying similar things about McGoldrick, Griffit, Joseph Mills, Lloyd James, Gillett and a few others. I think he has potential and I’d like to see him involved in the squad but we need some vast improvement up front, not selling off the limited talent we have got and hoping 1 player from the Swiss League is the answer. Suppose we’re 1-0 down to Wolves or Huddersfield and not creating anything, Mo and Redmond are on the pitch and Austin isn’t getting a sniff up front, what would you do to change it? Send on Sims and hope that’s going to turn it around?

Boufal is hardly Pied or Gardos, he really should be a first team regular. He isn’t backup, he plays in a position where you need quality options. The fact that he isn’t one is a significant prt of why we have struggled. Put it another way - think of how poor we’ve been in the final third for the last 2 years. Now take away every contribution from Tadic and Boufal. THAT will be our attacking force should Mo fail to make an impact or pick up an injury.

Some of you sound like these idiot girls who date bad boy love rats because they think they're the ones who can change him. Boufal is not about to suddenly turn into a productive team player because Hughes is here, if anything I think he will react worse. Puel and MoPe were a bit of a soft touch IMO and I don't think Sophie-Anne is the type to respond well to the hairdryer treatment. I think if he goaded Hughes like he did MoPe after the West Brom goal, Hughes would have put him in hospital.

I was being sarcastic, personally. There are some big names on the left but I'd take winning and confidence over an easy draw on paper any day.

I don't, we'll f**k it up and win 4-0.

Just goes to show that even if the club doesn't necessarily want to sell a player, he can still leave on good terms without acting like an absolute helmet.

Yes. It's exactly the same as Stephens replacing Fonte and the rock solid defence we've had ever since. We've badly struggled for goals over the last 2 years, it's part managerial and partly the players. However you try and dress it up, you want to replace Boufal with a player who was behind him in the pecking order under 3 successive regimes. We need someone who is BETTER than Boufal. Much better. Replacing him with one of the kids, so we can all just sit here with an academy boner like we did under Poortvleit is stupid.

I don’t care how old he is, the fact is he can’t be relied upon YET in the first team. What you’re saying is you’re confident we will get enough creativity from Redmond and the unknown Elayoussi to give Sims time to develop.

I’m not saying they haven’t, what I’m saying is the add ons will eventually take us to somewhere in the middle of that €11.9m and the £18m we were asking for.

We’ll just have to agree to disagree on that one. With our attacking play being as bad as it has been over the last 2 years, it’s not as if he didn’t have chance to make an impresssion but a succession of managers and coaches preferred the likes of Redmond and Boufal.

That's what Ajax say and it's the initial fee, there will be other add ons spread over a period of time. Our usual mouth pieces in the media say we wanted £18m. The truth will be somewhere in the middle.

Farewell and good luck Dusan. A quick reminder of his finest hour at Saints. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPgOSX9FFzY&start_radio=1&list=RDcPgOSX9FFzY

You'd hope we're after a decent replacement for Boufal too.

Only in the Glasgow fantasy land where Saints sell everybody for the lowest rumoured fee.

I always saw Davis as the link in the front 4, between the rest of the team and Lambert/Lallana/J Rod or Pelle/Tadic/Mané. Hopefully he can fill that role and provide some purpose to our attacking play.

Paid gardening leave? Where have you read that?