DuncanRG

Crazy to write off Osvaldo and Lambert as a starting pair after one game. If Pochettino's ready to play them both away from home then he'll almost certainly start them both at St Marys - time will tell whether it can work or not.

Have they?

Fernandez, Telfer, Martin, Guly, Schneiderlin in his earlier days.

Note how many contracts have been terminated by mutual consent recently - the club don't have to do that just so a player can go to find a new club.

Well, okay. Why didn't Puncheon take free kicks? Anyway, this shouldn't be about whether Ramirez is better than Puncheon, it's about the fact that the two are not worlds apart in terms of contribution last season but that's not really reflected in our attitudes towards them.

To an extent, though it's rather more complicated than that. I'm not as concerned as the club over who performs best, so long as somebody does. I just wonder how different the reactions would have been had Ramirez gone out.

In short, Puncheon is English and didn't cost much money.

Bear in mind that Rodriguez is likely to be an option off the bench now. He was useful, but indeed. Doesn't start to overshadow the great work we've done in almost every other department.

I doubt Puncheon would have played too many minutes even if he'd stayed, Pochettino just doesn't seem to fancy him nearly as much as Adkins did. It may be that the manager sees Lloyd Isgrove as capable of filling his boots out wide if need be.

I got As in school but it's tough to get full marks

Put it this way - I've had more than one Arsenal-supporting friend tell me that they'd have liked all three of our signings and that they would have improved their team. Say what you like about Arsenal's transfer window but for Southampton to be buying players that would interest one of the biggest and best clubs in England is unbelievable. We'll see how the season unfolds but I'm confident that at least one of these guys is going to be an absolute superstar for us.

Any guesses? I'm going with Schneiderlin.

Any guesses? I'm going with Schneiderlin.

To use the words you used yourself ten minutes ago: 'they were low price and not first team. What about our blue chip signings?' Personally I'm not sure that's a convincing argument, but you saw it as such so that ought to win you over. They were also unnamed in the post you were responding to, which concerned itself with our numerous good signings. Still a moron, still a troll. That'll do for now.

Every single one of those players started at least 20 Premier League games last season. Yoshida didn't miss a game after his debut, Cork didn't miss a game after his return and Clyne missed four games through injury. Jay Rodriguez cost £7m. The only 'blue chip' signing (I'm guessing at your definition) who's been at the club for more than 3 games is Ramirez. Staggering to think that's what it all comes back to. I hope that's a satisfactory collection of points. You're a moron.

They count as long balls to the statisticians, and that's why we've set the early pace for long ball accuracy. Finding the man in space, even if they're far away, is a skill that's been nurtured and utilised by almost every top English side of the Premier League era and plenty in Europe as well. Ferguson's Man Utd were especially good at it, and if we continue to play accurate diagonal balls we all ought to be very happy that Saints have added it to their game. We also played some very decent aerial balls straight up the pitch on Saturday, controlled on feet and chests rather than headed down.

Good stat that. Possibly but you'd have to go quite far back I'd imagine.

Our best player with pace, and one of our fastest players overall, has been Jay Rodriguez since the minute he joined. Imagine the confusion if Mayuka and Puncheon played every week!

He's shown some moments of potential in his fleeting appearances but will need to prove himself with regular football to get into the side. Good luck to him, and I sincerely hope he can be a success for us because I like his style.

Hope Sharp can secure a move, I'd like to see him back in action again.

For the record Casillas has never been involved in a transfer, and De Gea is up there as one of the most expensive. Hope Forecast enjoys the honour.

Not for financial reasons. Like most players he'll probably do something once he retires, for wellbeing as much as anything.

Nabil Hassan: "Talks/interest re: Billy Sharp have stalled/cooled. Looking more likely to be a loan move unless breakthrough with #SaintsFC can be reached."

Agreed. We'll see how the new, unfamiliar players do at other clubs but in terms of adding quality, keeping the existing group together and moving the excess on professionally I think we've done as well as anyone.

They had some dodgy shots from behind the trees of him getting out of his car before an ad break, but he wasn't named in the report.