Bewildered

At the start of last season our defensive midfield was far from outstanding as Cork's injury meant we had to play Davis or JWP in the role and teams just played right through us because Cork's backup was not suited to playing there and often would not close down. Once we had the Cork (A proper DM) in there with Morgan in there we conceded far fewer goals.

From a tuttomercatoweb editorial written by Alfredo Pedulla, the guy who last night wrote that we were back in for Osvaldo. The translation is exceptionally poor, even for google/bing translator though so it's hard to decipher what he's saying. Hopefully an italian speaker can come along and give a better interpretation. http://www.tuttomercatoweb.com/editoriale/osvaldo-inter-sabatini-non-fa-autogol-zuniga-se-il-napoli-e-diventata-una-barahonda-eto-o-tra-nostalgia-e-ragione-follie-per-halilovic-salviamo-il-sol-473674 And more from his own personal website http://translate.google.co.uk/translate?hl=en&sl=it&u=http://www.alfredopedulla.com/articoli/26878-esclusiva_osvaldo_il_southampton_ha_fretta&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dhttp://www.alfredopedulla.com/articoli/26878-esclusiva_osvaldo_il_southampton_ha_fretta%26safe%3Dactive%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26hs%3DH1I%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:official

Don't know about 2 weeks, but if the club is in a position where Fox has to start for 6 or more matches, it could mean trouble for us. He's that bad and opposing managers know it.

http://audioboo.fm/boos/1542824 MP's reaction. At the end they ask him if he is whether we are working to get new players in before WBA or just working to sign players before the window closes then the interview cuts out just as MP is about to answer.

Never heard of the journalist reporting it, hopefully giordano can shed some light on how reliable Alfredo Pedulla is

http://translate.google.co.uk/translate?client=firefox-a&hl=en&ie=UTF8&oe=UTF8&u=http://www.gianlucadimarzio.com/calciomercato/osvaldo-sondaggio-del-wolfsburg/ Wolfsburg now interested apparently.

#ENG squad: Foster Hart Ruddy; Baines Cahill Cole Jagielka Johnson Jones Smalling Walker; Carrick Cleverley Gerrard Lampard Milner Oxlade-Chamberlain Walcott Wilshere Young Zaha; Defoe Lambert Rooney Welbeck

Saints twitter

well done rickie

To offer some comfort and allow the forum to the "he's **** anyway" phase of rejection, here are some quotes from Fernando Duarte a Brazillian football writer who contributes to the Guardian's football section. a few more quotes from him about Dmiao Let's just say he is not a fan.

Lacina Traore Imagine Peter Crouch (in his Saints days when he was good) but with pace.

Heerenveen signed him on 16th of August 2012

According to that sportsdirect article we made inquiries to Heerenveen about Finnbogason last summer... seems a bit unlikely.

I didn't think he had a fair crack at Chelsea, but I his ability to play at LM and LB would be useful. Doesn't matter though, paying 10m for a 29 year sold would be a bad idea and I doubt their owner will be selling on the cheap as there doesn't appear to be any financial trouble, the owner is just ****ed off with it all. As for Willian, I'm not sure he's lived up to the price tag for Anzhi. TBH sounds like very few of these expensive signings have lived up to their billing seeing as they have not won anything or even qualified for the CL.

http://football.sport-express.ru/premier/news/604991/ Looks like Anzhi's ridiculously rich owner has grown fed up of all the egos/got bored of spending money and not winning anything and sacked their dutch coach and plans to sell all the stars including Samba, who they only re-signed a few weeks ago. Any on there you'd take, prices for the players are taken from transfermarkt.de and are not valuations by the club? I'd have Zhirkov in a heartbeat and Lacina Traore too.

In terms of strikers linked, now Damiao is a definite non-starter and Osvaldo seems like a similar situation we have been linked with include: Gonzalo Bergessio (Catania, 29 yo, 13 goals in 32 league games last season) Moussa Sow (27, Fenerbahce, 15 in 31 games last season) Kennedy Igbonanike (24, AIK Stockholm, 9 goals in 18 games so far this season)

That goalscoring record suggests 20m plus would be a pretty large overpayment.

Didn't Fenerbahce get banned from CL & EL for match fixing? edit: ignore this apparently the CAS overturned the ban

Moussa Sow would be a good signing, which journo is saying it? edit: nvm found the source https://twitter.com/Joe_Batchelor I think this guy works for Saintsweb favourite Alex Crook's news agency.

This squad as it is now will see us finish 12th/13th, if we get a decent striker in we could go a few places higher, but I feel the team as it is now will throw away too many points against teams that sit back to finish any better than lower mid table.

Alan Nixon, who is close friends with Owen Coyle, has reported the same thing.

Damiao scores

http://www.usagoals.me/live/516809-gremio-vs-internacional/watch/stream/online/free/feed/p2p/en/vivo/tv/gratis/ stream for those who want to watch him play

It is evident going by the end of last season and this pre-season that we need a proper goalscorer. The good thing is that, with Lovren and Wanyama in and looking like they can make a difference defensively, if we get a good striker in we'll end up between 8th and 10th IMO If it doesn't happen I think we'll end up 12th/13th thanks to the improvement defensively, but the lack of a goalscorer will stop us breaking into the top half.

http://translate.google.co.uk/translate?client=firefox-a&hl=en&ie=UTF8&oe=UTF8&u=http://www.tuttomercatoweb.com/serie-a/esclusiva-tmw-nuova-idea-tottenham-baldini-segue-bergessio-471670 Gonzalo Bergessio, who we were linked with a few weeks ago and according to this we are still looking at, is now interesting Spurs according to this report. Can't say I've ever seen him play, but 13 in 32 last season isn't bad and being 29 he probably wouldn't cost nearly as much as Damiao.