Baird of the land

At this point we don't need a new centre back. It's ridiculous imo to suggest a centre back who was instrumental in winning to euros and who has been by and large excellent for us in the Prem suddenly isn't good enough to play for us. If fonte stays he will be first choice and we have other decent cover options. Only if fonte leaves in Jan will we need to think about whether we need to splash out on chasing another centre back imo.

Yeah our managerial appointment and the formation he is committed to displaying despite it looking unsuited to the players currently is my big worry. Happy with all the signings and with Jrod not going anywhere. Think the defence is fine. Slight worry upfront with Austin and whether he can adapt as a sole attacker or as one of puel's 2 mobile attackers in diamond.

Getting rid of a proven premier league goalscorer that finally fit and gifting him to a premier league rival whilst at best Saints will be gambling on some unproven last minute addition lilke Haller to take his place.

Would be utter disgrace if we get rid of him.

Hopefully an opportunity for the likes of Stephens, Reed and Hesketh to impress. Wonder if any of fringe first team squad not on international duty be involved or will it in effect be the u23's.

I'm relatively happy with transfer activity even if we don't buy anyone else. The club seems to be buying talented players an approach that has worked previously. Equally i fully accept players will go if they don't sign new contracts(Mane etc) Difference to Koeman last year is he had built up a years worth of trust via the performances the previous season. A more apt comparison would be to Koeman's first season where we lost to Liverpool and endured an awful draw with WBA. We then won 4 in a row. The problem is that we now an extra game in with no sign of that upturn. If he wins 3/4 in a row people's nerves will settle. I disagree with the sentiment that performances have not been bad. We were atrocious first half against watford. We were somewhat better second half but then rather toothless against 10 men. We then followed that up with an atrocious capitulation to a strong united team, which easily could have been a cricket score. That game showed a manager more akin in approach to Martinez rather than the pragmatism of Koeman which is a definite worry to me. That embarrassment was followed up by a limp lucky escape against Sunderland. I think it's quite reasonable for people to have worries about the radically different tactical approach of this new manager. I'm looking for signs of improvement, for signs of pragmatism/adaptability/incisiveness from the manager and not seeing it so far. I hope we have picked well but there's nothing wrong with people expressing their unhappiness and fears based on the poor performances this far.

Hope it works out better than Osvaldo deal. Get a bit nervous buying injured players after Delgado debacle too. Also with him being injured he isn't going to have any influence on turning round our diabolically bad start.

Very worried now. We didn't keep to exactly the same system under poch and Koeman but there was a progression not a jarring jump. The signings have been ok but the complete failure of the formation implementation or adaptability leaves me very jittery. Listening to van dijk's interview didn't make it sound like a happy camp either. Wasn't enamoured by decision to wait till 70th minute when failing utterly against an atrocious Sunderland side to make a change. I'd like a manager who you feel makes incisive effective changes and the jury is rather out on puel in that regard. This start has been atrocious, rolling over meekly to Utd with 4 points dropped at home to bottom half teams either side. If the performances were there and not the results you'd be less worried. As things stand we now need to go from a standstill to top 10 form, which is hard(though we did it last year). Perhaps international break has come at the right time for once, though puel will have little to work with as most will be away.

Throwing extra players isn't necessarily the solution imo. Turning in hugely disappointing displays against 2 weak sides at home with a pitiful naive display against a strong United side in between is gravely worrying when he's got a squad easily good enough to be in the top 10 at least. The issue is surely about the ability of the coach to adapt tactics to players and situation to get positive performances and results from them. So if puel can't Adapt a new coach rather than new players may be should be the cure. As for playing personnel we need quality additions not panic buying extra numbers for the sake of it. Another pacy top quality attacking player would be ideal. If that's boufal great. not loaning out one of our existing good players in Jrod would be a pretty basic requirement too.

Pretty atrocious result against a very weak team. Pretty worried about results, performances, formation, the length of time took coach to actually try and change things. Not completely turned on management but massive improvement required to show the basic level of performance required. Positives, we got a point, Jrod scored which should stop this nonsense of him being kicked out on loan.

Not sure I see the particular value in this over having a youngster cover as third choice. Hopefully he'll never get an opportunity and it's a short-term stop gap whilst young keeper develops.

Personally it has to be a mixture. Hesketh, reed, Stephens etc alongside some first team players. Throwing youngsters to the wolves like Harry did would be criminal imo.

Really disappointed to see Jrod being got rid of. If he does well I doubt he'll be interested in coming back to saints after they shipped him off.

I can see why palace might be desperate enough to throw that sort of money at Benteke considering their striking options consist of Connor Wickham currently. Article i read said Benteke was on 140k a week at Liverpool. I can't imagine he's taking a pay cut, so are palace funding it all or Liverpool partially? I'd assume there may be some internal strife at Palace if he's earning massively than other first teamers. So personally i'm not convinced it's a great move.

No I don't think we are thin at centre back. Both yoshi and gardos are capable backups and we've also got England u21 Stephens. We definitely one quality attacking addition and I'd be pretty content if that turned out to be all we get.

The sums being mentioned are rather a joke. Personally i think we should keep hold of him as he's a good player.

I don't think Cedric should have been on Deeney. If We'd had Fonte organising the defence i'd hope him or Van Dijk would have been challenging for that header.

I don't necessarily feel the diamond is completely unsuited to our personnel even if it's not my personal preference to how i'd like to see us line up. Koeman didn't stick to Poch's approach anymore than Puel is sticking to Koeman's. We clearly have decided Puel is going to be an important figure so it is worth setting a new preferred formation down the age groups to accomodate him. Personally think Austin is probably better suited to diamond formation than 4-2-3-1 or 4-3-3 we've previously played. As to personnel we clearly have invested and hopefully will invest more. Austin came in January in advance of Pelle's departure, Redmond, hojberg, Pied and Mccarthy came in this summer.

Yeah does seem odd i assume suggesting Redmond/Hojberg are bargain basement whilst suggesting spending the same amount on 3 new players who apparently wouldn't be. I'd be amazed if we signed 3 players as that would leave us with a rather bloated squad.

One more quality signing if we don't lose anyone is fine. At the weekend we had a strong bench(Mccarthy, Pied, Fonte, Clasie, Hojberg, Austin, Jrod), that's with the likes of Bertrand/Gardos out injured and ignoring the academy prospects. Signing players just to clutter the place up seems nutty imo. Sustainability is obviously a dirty word to you. Most of our buys i wouldn't consider cheap(10+m). Because we invest in talented young players, we're left in a position where when some of those players don't want to sign contract extensions after they've proved themselves and are being targetted by much bigger clubs. There's not really much the club can do but get the best fee possible before their contracts wind down and we get nothing. There are plenty who have signed new contracts this summer who we haven't sold who no doubt we could if the club was pursuing the agenda you claim. You seem to have a distorted view of our owners financial capabilities imo.

Good news as far as i'm concerned. See no point in bloating the squad further with multiple signings. If we can focus on getting one good attacking player in to the club that should leave the squad in a pretty good condition.

Odd i personally thought Redmond's second half display was a definite positive. Scored one, was just offside timing his run when he scored a 2nd, had a decent effort late on just wide. I may not be a huge fan of the diamond formation currently but Redmond showed he definitely had promise to play in the striker role in that formation.

Like most i'd like to see Hojberg in for JWP. We need to keep Long in as his pace will be vital if we are going to get anything there. The other 2 contentious areas are centre back and right back. Given how poor cedric was i'd be tempted to start Martina or Pied. Despite how much difference fonte's leadership would make, i'm rather dubious he'll be fit enough if Cedric's performance is any indicator. Other thing i'd like to see is the team reverting to 4-2-3-1, though once again this is probably unlikely.

First half we were utterly terrible. Nobody wanted the ball. Goal was poor, blame all round, felt one of the centre backs should have been with deeney and then romeu was too slow to the 2nd ball. 2nd half much better. It was good to see Redmond looking dangerous after an anonymous first half. Long worked really hard but air shot really summed up his day. Hojberg looked good and composed. I'm with others in thinking our team is much better suited to a 4-2-3-1 than this diamond we were trying to play but maybe it settle down better. Would have preferred to see Davis or Romeu taken off to bring on Austin. Felt a bit of a safe move against 10 men. Tadic was mom for me. Feel a bit sorry for Martina. While he's a limited player he did a good job at end of season and is only right back to have full pre-season, yet instead unfit Cedric got the nod and played horribly.

I can see why Puel might want to ease Hojberg into the Premiership. I think the midfield and attack looks fine. It's the defence that gives me jitters, we really need Van Dijk to show some leadership in the absence of Bertrand and Fonte.