Wes Tender

It wasn't a surprise unless you believed the lying cheating Argie giving the impression that he would renew his contract at the end of the Summer, some time after Cortese had gone. And the reason he left, was exactly the same as that which caused those players to leave. The supposed personal glory from playing for a bigger club and the increased loadsamoney pay packets involved.

With any Skate supporters of my acquaintance, most of the ones I know are clients of my business, so I have to be a bit more diplomatic with them. The crocodile tear routine is the right approach. I tell them how sorry I am to witness their fall from the dizzy heights of the top half of the PL into the deepest recessed depths of the fourth division in such a short space of time. I mention the probability that there is little likelihood of us playing each other on equal terms for many, many years to come, and bemoan the lack of friendly rivalry between our two clubs, now that Bournemouth have usurped them as our number one local rivals. Naturally I try and muster as much sincerity into my voice as I can. Currently, I can also wish them success in their Cup replay against Aldershot and express the opinion that the Shots really must have raised their game, because of how big a scalp you represented to them, a mini Cup final for them, wasn't it?

Don't you? I thought that the next two or three places below fourth went into the other European Competition.

You really do need to brush up on your comprehension of English. Learn the meaning of the word "could" for a start. It implies the possibility of something occurring. As such, unless it is something that has only a miniscule chance fo happening, then it is a reasonable opinion. As for your assertion that it was being told that we could finish top 4 last year that pushed the players out when it looked as if our ambitions were finished with the departures of Cortese and Pochettino, it wasn't. Those players left because they had a chance of playing for glory teams on substantially more dosh than they were getting from us.

It was a tough first half and all credit to a well organised Leicester side which kept it's discipline in defence and did their best against our midfield. But it is a testament to our team that despite losing Davis to injury, we can bring on a player like Cork to keep our midfield pressing forward, maintaining patient and relentless pressure until we can turn it into a telling advantage. But we lacked a cutting edge up front until Long came on and began running against a tiring defence. Tadic can usually be relied upon to put in the defence splitting balls, but he was strangely quiet today. Perhaps he has been more effective ahead of Bertrand and the combination with Mane ahead of Bertrand didn't seem to be as fruitful. Bertrand though had a cracking game, but needed somebody ahead of him to carry on the threat produced by his effective runs out wide. Clyne showed some good threat up the other wing as usual, but also one or two uncharacteristically sloppy touches. But together with Fonte and Alderweireld, the defence was once again rock solid and Forster had very little to worry him all afternoon. Wanyama had a very good game alongside Schneiderlin and the entire midfield and some of their bench replacement options look pretty well as good as any in the division. Up front, there were some good touches from Pelle, whose hold up play and deft little flicks and touches were excellent, but he was off target with his shooting boots today. But such is our team and squad and the tactical nous of Koeman, that we can change the game with a player like Long. Although his scoring record thus far has not been great, he is an intelligent and hard-working player and has ability. Today was the day it all clicked into place and I'm delighted for him. He could have had a hat trick with his last shot, which looked a fantastic goal from my angle, but had hit the side-netting. Two great assists, from Pelle and Wanyama, two great goals from Long, into the International break on the back of a win, still second, a further 2 points ahead of City and a further 3 points ahead of Scousehampton. Were the tongues only slightly in the cheeks of the Northam when they sang "We're going to win the League"? If we're still in this position coming into January, then the belief will intensify, but we have some hard fixtures to come. But apart from Chelsea, do we really fear City, Utd, Arsenal, Spurs, Everton?

So it's pronounced Dushan - got it.

Koeman denies that we were ever interested in Dybala. Personally I'm inclined to believe what Ronald says over some Italian journos, who have similar form over things like this to our own Red Tops. The player being Argentinian, I think it's possible that they got confused with Pochettino and haven't yet caught up with the fact that he is no longer here.

There were obviously extenuating circumstances last season, but the way that it acted through proves that we were capable of bringing around the situation not only back to what it was, but to an improved level. Of course it's not our plan to do this routine every year. But I hope that having been proven wrong regarding the outcome and the club having demonstrated a canny knack of rising to the challenge with the utmost panache, that you will think twice about going off the deep end the next time that one or two key players wants to move on. Please don't make any comparisons with the Lowe era, as there are none. And also please accept that even when Cortese was here after Markus' death, it was always Katharina's money. Strange for you to have felt more optimistic about our future this time last year than you do now, but then it takes all types. We have cleansed the club of a few players and a manager who thought that they were too good for us and replaced them with people who appreciate us for what we are and moreover what we can become if they all pull together in the same direction.

Agreed, It smacks of a pathetic desperation. But apparently Lovren's statistics in defence are better than those for Toby Alderweireld and Fonte in terms of the number of tackles, interceptions, clearances he made, according to some stats I read. But read between the lines and try and explain them away and what we all know is true becomes clear. He has to make more clearances, tackles, interceptions, etc, for the simple reason that his fellow defenders and the defensive midfield in front of him at Liverpool is nowhere near as good as ours. That is why he looked good for Southampton and crap for Scousehampton.

What would be amateurish? Haven't you learned anything about this board and the meticulous way that they plan for every enventuality? You seem to have come up with quite a random list of names of personnel that you believe will leave us next Summer and are prepared to make projections of where we will end that ensuing season, before we are a little more than a quarter of the way through this one. At the moment, we're second without Rodrigez having kicked a ball. Presumably we would be top logically if he was playing, as you feel that not having him next season would make us weaker. But a precedent has been set that we had lost our manager and five top players and yet had replaced them with their equals or improvements. Assuming that if those players you listed did actually leave, there is no reason to presume that we could not extract massively over-inflated fees for them and that we could not find suitable replacements at a profit. As we are talking hypothetical situations, what makes you believe that we couldn't do it all again, apart from your natural pessimism?

Excellent report, Connor. Looking at the OS report, I was wondering what goes on in the Dinning Room. Can you explain? Do they all make as much of a din as they can for some reason? But what impresses me is the attention to the minutest detail. I am left wondering whether that was all down to Cortese, or does it originate from those experts in Sports Science that are at the club? From the players having their own mattresses in the overnight hotels before a match, to the personalised mood lighting and choice of music in the massage room, to the oxygen pumped into the washing machines, these are mind-boggling details. Even if there are fractions of a percentage improvement due to each single thing, overall and taken together it might result in the difference of margin that adds up to a few more points at the end of the season. I like that sort of thoroughness and the club's management are to be commended for it.

This guy's attitude is spot on. He seems to be the consumate professional. He responds to the questions openly, intelligently and fluently. He is almost certainly correct that Koeman will find himself managing one of the top European clubs (or Holland) in the future, but I also suspect that Dusan Tadic is also destined for the very top too.

These PR videos are really very good and put across a very professional image of the Club. I'm enjoying them immensely, particularly the insights that are given into the internal workings, via the videos on a matchday, or the duties of the kitman.

What would you have said? The Club that we have now is very largely down to him initially and to his daughter since his sad demise. When one stops to consider the precarious situation that we were in when he arrived and bought us and then imagine the alternative scenario that might have unfolded otherwise, I don't think that it is inappropriate to say that he saved the club.

Aryton? Is that a Redknapp £100?

We bunged on a price of £20/£25 million for players proven in the Premier League and even the kid of our bunch, Shaw, only commanded £30 million. All they had to do, was to say that he was not for sale at any price if they wanted to keep him. Quoting a price at that level just makes their club president look like a moronic idiot.

Why is there the need to turn this thread into a debate on racism? Have some of you got bored about discussing the actual topic of the thread and don't have anything pertinent to add to it?

It depends on how one describes a rabble. Certainly Spurs are a team of individual star players who cannot gel together so far, despite the majority of them having been together long enough since they were bought in for massively inflated prices with the Bale money. Koeman inherited a team shorn of its best players and had to integrate them and their replacements into a cohesive unit, which he has done very effectively in less time than Pochettino had. Maybe it can be argued that Pochettino is also over-hyped beyond his capabilities. So Spurs beat us a WHL and Liverpool beat us at Anfield. For those wins to have any real meaning, they have to beat us down here. Anybody considering that the top 7 was the exclusive preserve of Chelsea, Man Utd, Man City, Arsenal, Liverpool, Spurs and Everton, will not have seen so many of them having such shaky starts to a season ever before. I can see us finishing above those last three and maybe United too.

This is typical of the way that Italian clubs market their players in the Italian Media, who swallow it hook, line and sinker, or who are bribed by the clubs to print such rubbish, or in the case of the top club in Sicily, threatened by the Mafia to do so. So this kid, who hasn't yet played for the Argentinian National team, is valued by the Palermo club president at 42 million euros and he says that it would take an Oil Billionaire Arab to buy him. Yes, somebody with far more money than sense, I think he means.I presume he arrives at this valuation based on his scintillating scoring record, a massive 11 goals in 63 appearances, over three years at Palermo. The young scamp is setting Italian football alight with his three goals so far this season, two of them coming in one match. Well, Mr President, Southampton has three players with three goals in 10 matches and they are all midfielders, (Schneiderlin, Wanyama and Cork, albeit one of Cork's goals was in the League Cup) Are they therefore worth 42 million Euros too? But of course, this kid isn't worth anything like that, is he? Call him the new Aguero, or indeed the new any other top player, suggest that he will only be sold for a vastly inflated price and see if there are any suckers out there with more money than sense. Even if somebody offers half of that, it is still more than double what he is worth. Chelski might take a punt on him and then farm him out to a lesser club for a few seasons to see what becomes of him. Otherwise, he would have been a good fit at Spurs with their Argentinian manager, but a year to late, now the Bale money has gone. Liverpool are a club prepared to pay way over the odds for mediocrity, so had Palermo suggested that he was the next Suarez, they might have been tempted. But quite how the Italian media thought for one moment that Southampton might consider blowing such a large sum on a largely unproven kid, is quite beyond me, especially as we had hardly had any success with Ramirez or Osvaldo from Italian clubs and they cost us a fraction of this kid's price.

Rodriguez won't go to Spurs. He doesn't like small pitches and so wouldn't excel there.

I have the perfectly logical solution for Pochettino. Get in smaller players, and the pitch will seem bigger to them.

Thank God for that. Events since have moved on over the horizon.

Squirming like a worm on a hook. It isn't as if this was the only thread that has exposed your shortcomings in the patience and forebearance departments either.

A Pretty good summary as I see it. I thought that we could get Boruc back if Forster is injured. Somebody says not, but The9 confirms what I would have expected, that we would be stupid to let a GK as good as Boruc go out on loan without a recall clause allowing us to get him back if Forster is injured. In my opinion we would have achieved 6th last season if not for the key injuries to Boruc, Wanyama, Lovren and Rodriguez. We are doing pretty well without Rodriguez currently and he is a bonus when he returns. We have an abundance of talent in the central midfield and could potentially weather a period of absence of one, even two from Davies, Cork, Wanyama, Schneiderlin, although Schneiderlin would be the biggest loss. Ditto Tadic would be hard to replace for what he brings us. If we had the equivalent loss of Lovren this season, that would be relatively easy to cover now. But just as we have a couple of key players like Schneiderlin and Tadic, the other top teams also have their equivalents, who will be just as prone to injury, maybe more so, given their increased fixture burden.

If Forster gets injured, don't we have the ability to recall Boruc? Spurs and Liverpool are in Europe and playing more matches as a result. Their depth of squad is because of that. We have a much deeper squad than last season and generally could replace injured/suspended players with quality alternatives. Also worth remembering that we played Liverpool as the first match and the team ran them very close but weren't fully integrated. We would probably beat them playing them now. We also deserved a point at least against Tottenham. Worth noting too that both of them have lost matches to teams below us, if you're going to use that as part of your argument.