Lighthouse

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

There is an element of truth to it though. We all know Morgan is a far better player than Gaston but a friendly against Club America wont be the toughest game of his life. It's certainly too early to be calling him a bargain, after all we did get £25m for him. Some people talk as if it's loose change but players like Nasri, Fellaini, Bony, David Silva, Adebayor, Oscar and Lukaku have gone for a similar figures recently.

So sad. RIP Jules

Biarritz to Lille but that would also involve a couple of hours driving on each end.

Ryanair fly from Girona to Eindhoven and Weeze if that's any good.

Home to Vitesse first then.

Charleroi is a sh*t hole. Just putting it out there.

Maybe leave Tadic at home for that one.

He was never ours and he wanted to stay. Infact as I recall he was openly in the Dutch media shouting come and get me in 2009 but we didn't. Shame, with players like Neal Trotman and Chris Perry in the team, it's not as if we moved on to better things. Would have been nice to hang on to him. Surman and Skacel too, although the latter was long since disillusioned with life at Saints. A midfield with those two, Morgan and Lallana might well have taken us into the playoffs. Back to the OP. I'd say things will probably work out for Shaw and Lallana eventually. The other 3 from last summer I'm not so sure about. Chambers I can see ending up as a journeyman, he caught the first wave to hit the shore and broke to early, instead of waiting for the bigger waves behind it. Beattie was having a poor season anyway, it's doubtful he'd have done any better for us than he did at Everton. When the goals of Camera, Crouch and Phillips couldn't paper over the cracks (read gaping chasms) in our defence, I think we'd still have gone down with him.

Can't say it bothers me in the slightest but I guess it's down to personal taste.

Good to see he can fill the naff tats void left by Danny Fox.