Lighthouse

MLG you are literally alpine's wet dream.

To me 17 will always be Saphir Taider.

I think with Gaston it's a case of might as well give him a number because if he doesn't leave we will just look stupid. I'm still expecting him to depart at some point.

£15 for our first European game in 12 years. You'd think so. FWIW I booked my ticket today and there was limited availability in the Northam. Only about 3 seats in block 42 when I looked.

Got all of them. Forgot Chaplow, Lloyd James, Darren Powell and Safri from recent years, although Safri is down as DF for some reason. Almost missed about 10 from the 90s.

Having those two, Mané and a fully fit Tadic all in the same team would be quite something. I'm quite excited to see Clasie, Soares and Juanmi next Thursday too.

Can someone send a video of this to the England cricket team please.

Don't think of it as an easy game. More of a tough training session ahead of the Feyenoord game.

Didn't realise we were playing Villa.

If we hadn't bought Osvaldo and his non-existent contribution to our success, we'd have gone from newly promoted to top 7 in 3 years and made a profit from transfers in doing so. That's quite some achievement.

Forster's injury was a much bigger problem defensively. We put in several excellent performances when Toby or Morgan were injured. Anyway, I don't get what your point is. You're saying we would have been better spending £40m on cover for 3 defensive players, whilst acknowledging that it isn't feasible. Bringing in one decent attacking player would have been feasible. I gave those 4 games as examples but in reality it could have been any from Everton, WBA, Liverpool, Swansea, Stoke, Sunderland or West Ham in the second half of the season. You can't just say a goal against Everton for e.g. would have meant a 1-1 draw. If we score first, maybe we then keep a clean sheet, or score again as they chase the game.

Our problems were never really in our defensive set up. Toby and Wanyama in front of Fonte and Yoshi was never a problem. Someone who could have provided the first goal/assist against Everton, Swansea, West Brom and West Ham for example could have given us another 11 points right there. Finely balanced games in which we just couldn't score.

What you're suggesting would probably have cost £40m going by the prices of those three players. Could we not have found someone of similar quality and price to Mane, Pelle or Tadic? £10m in January to push us into the Champions League, I'd have thought that was worth a punt, given a healthy surplus from the summer. We were only 10 points off in the end. 1 goal in any of those games I mentioned could have swung it.

Unless I'm missing something, that's only about £20k a week. He isn't great but it sounds reasonable to me.

Well it was when we lost to Everton, West Brom, Swansea, Sunderland, Stoke, Leicester, Burnley, Spurs, Liverpool and Sheff Utd. Plus those draws against Villa, West Ham and West Brom.

You're the boring statistician, surely you've heard of outliers? Apart from those two games we scored 40 goals in 36, barely over a goal a game. Knocking 6 and 8 past a bunch of no-hopers isn't representative our attacking prowess, which is where our problems lay last season.

We were 1 goal away from having the best defence in the League and only finished 7th. I think the criticism of our attacking players was legitimate. If you take out the Villa and Sunderland games our GF tally would have been solidly in the bottom half.

I didn't realise Long and Elia constituted 'so many players'. To answer your question, we could have made the top 4 with just a little more firepower in the second half of the season.

No, we still need Anatoli Todorov, Tonton Moukoko and that 'keeper from Belarus.

1. No I don't think Long has been a success. I think he has been average a best, scoring very few goals at home to poor opposition. 2. My point was more regarding Koeman and his apparently magical ability to improve everyone who plays for us. Has he really turned Long into something special, putting in performances Hull and WBA fans could only dream of under the stewardship of Bruce and Clarke? I mean, if we paid £20m and Koeman got the best out of him, surely we should be fighting off bids of £15m-20m.

He's made very little impact here or at Hull in 3 years at England. I don't buy the 'Koeman will get the best out of him' line either. His belief didn't really do much for Long, Djuricic or Mayuka last year.

Neither Gaston nor Elia is good enough for a team serious about the League, or qualifying for it again next year. I'd be disappointed if we did sign him as to me phrases like 'squad player' are just clichés for not being good enough to be in the team. There are much better players out there and if we can't afford any of them something really doesn't make sense.

No, you just said a load of Daily Mail, fear mongering nonsense about 'ooh we're not allowed to offend the Muslims'.

I'd go with exactly the same in the League except with Saints 8th. Also slightly less optimistic on the Cups.

A few of the younger players will probably get lower numbers. 13, 14, 17, 18 and 22 are up for grabs as well as the new guys you've mentioned. Could be something like Reed 14, Targett 13, Gallagher 17, McQueen 18, Stephens 22