Monkou

He wont leave Liverpool for a start, so it is a total non story, but of course we would want him. Quality striker.

You have to admit, if you are not connected to saints then it´s a great story.

A million times better than the old one. About time but well done to those involved.

A good initiative that hopefully will catch on. Not sure why people are in such a tiff about this. VM are a national company with potential customers from all around the country. They will reach far more people doing this than if they only subsidised the 5,000 or so saints fans who go to away games each season (who they probably feel will already be getting benefits from them with the other initiatives). More people through the gate means more money for the club and a better atmosphere. There are no losers here.

I´d really really really like us to finish above Everton. Other than that, and to answer the question, I hope we will be fighting for a Europa league spot again but I expect us to be around 10th. The extra fixtures will take their toll on what looks a relatively thin squad. The bookies have us getting around 51-52 points, a pretty big discount to what we got last season. I dont see us getting much less than that but we could do a fair bit better so worth a long bet there.

If he goes to Man U, Porto, Benfica or Sporting then I very much doubt any fans will hold it against him.... If he were to go to Everton then it would undoubtedly leave a bad taste, but he would still have been one of our best servants in the st marys era.

The spread on our points total for this season is currently 51-52.5 Last season it was 55-56.5 so the betting market has us 4 points worse off than they had just before last season and 11 points worse than where we actually finished. To be honest, with a load of Thursday night fixtures to handle and a squad that doesn´t look especially deep, i would be reasonably happy with 51 points.

Far far too sensible/knowledgeable a post for this place.

How bad does Hart have to be to lose his place? If Forster had been in goal I really believe we would be still to concede in this tournament. 2 poor mistakes. Surely time for a change.

I would move sideways for 6 million quid a year so I do not blame him in the slightest.. nor do I blame the club for not wanting to pay that kind of money.. just one of those things. I personally think this will work out better for Saints than it does for Ron but only time will tell.

Sounds like a great trip. I live in Madrid and watch most of the saints games in a pub called the James Joyce.. hopefully catch you in there at some point next season...

Clearly he was looking for some signals from the club that they had a genuine ambition to break into the top 4 and did not see any. If he thinks Everton are prepared have a real go at it then I cannot blame him, I would do the same in my career (plus I would move for a big pay rise which he is also getting). Do I wish him well? not really as Everton will be direct rivals to saints next year. Do I hold any grudge against him to the extent of hurling abuse on a message board? No, of course not.. that is pretty stupid. All that being said, I do think he might struggle there nest season.

I´d happily sell Mané for 40m to be honest. He would be much easier to replace than Wanyama will be.

Great news that sales are going well but this is not a reason to expand the capacity. Come back when the waiting list is consistently at 5k-10k (at current prices)..

Anyone know if there is a sell on agreement with Celtic and what it is?

If the only way to fill an extra 10k is to drop prices for the whole ground then financially there is little point and it almost certainly would not be worth the debt we would have to take on for the construction. It´s a total non starter for me regardless of whether or not we could fill it. What is our waiting list for season ticket? Is there even one? When that gets to 10k perhaps it is worth reopening this conversation but I don´t see that happening any time soon. As others have pointed out ticket revenue is a smaller and smaller part of annual incomes now. The West Ham case is totally different as they are getting use of a taxpayer built stadium for a minimal outlay (12m i think and reasonable rent). They also can sell the current land at upton park which will be many times more valuable than the land at st marys to finance the deal. We can argue about the fairness of the West Ham deal all we like but it should not be used as a reason for us to get delusions of grandeur and make a huge financial error.

I wouldn't be surprised if they went for Quique Sanches Flores now he is a free agent (and has said he wants to stay in England). Think Koeman will hold out for a bigger job that Everton.

Firstly, it is not clear they will both leave at all. But anyway, I would love us to really push the boat out and go for Renato Sanches.. probably unrealistic and would not be cheap but would be quite a statement of intent.

Diego Simeone would be nice.... But being more realistic could we potentially get Eddie Howe from Bournemouth? Obviously we would have to pay a lot to persuade him to leave and probably promise a big budget but on the other hand he would not need to relocate his family which would be a big draw. A very intelligent and young manager. The other bonus would be that it would send Bournemouth fans into meltdown which would be quite amusing. The drawback i suppose is that he does not have links to players in Europe but that is true of plenty of other successful managers.

We could do a lot better as well.

As has already been said, would he really leave us for a job that was not Holland or Barca? Neither of those roles are likely to be open until the start of 18/19 season in my opinion. If Wenger leaves at the end of the season (not sure he will) then I suppose he might go to them but I would be surprised if he did.

Think Nigeria might be winning.... http://www.theguardian.com/football/2016/mar/25/diaster-avoided-nigeria-egypt

I am sure the government would put in place exemptions to ensure the premier league can recruit the best players.. it is a big money spinner for the treasury. We will of course still be in Uefa so I really do not seeing it having much negative affect on football (or anything else for that matter).

But the sky money does not make the rich clubs richer, if anything it acts as a leveller, unlike in Spain for example where the big 2 negotiate their own TV deals and as such the rest are on a totally different playing field. We are now in a situation where Bournemouth have more spending power than AC Millan, where Palace can buy Cabaye, Stoke can buy Shaqiri etc etc. That is good for the league. But if it is entertainment, rather than quality you are after, there is always the option of supporting a local non league side. Most of the leagues are very competitive, games are close and high scoring, you are supporting the game and will be a hell of a lot better off at the end of the season.

Not technically as good!!? It was technically awful. Do we really want to go back to that? I´d rather have my team playing in the 2nd best league in the world, seeing world class players and suffer the inconvenience of the odd kickoff change than watch a league on a par with the French league.