Jump to content

andoru

Members
  • Posts

    408
  • Joined

Posts posted by andoru

  1. Our reserve team got beaten by Sheffield Utd last year, we can't just assume the job is done and put out a reserve team. One or two changes maybe but largely the same team as the home team.

     

    This, we aren't good enough yet to start messing about in Europe.

     

    Generally agree, but a three-goal lead is very comfortable. No away goal to worry about either. I can't see Vitesse scoring four, even with a number of changes, so I think we can afford to drop some. Or else, start with a strong team and aim for an early away goal to properly kill the tie, then bring on the subs.

  2. I thought we checked that box when we acquired Caulker on loan.

     

    I don't see any other PremLeague experienced CBs out there for the taking to be our starting CB.

     

    Yep. Van Dijk doesn't have Prem experience either and people have been clamoring to get him. Italian football is known for being defensive, so I don't have too many reservations about signing defenders from Serie A. Strikers on the other hand ...

  3. Wherever he goes, I hope he hurries up because I need to free up a space in my ex-Saints fantasy football squad. There are four at Liverpool now, but I can only have three. I need Lambert because we only have him and Crouch representing the strikers, so I've got to cut either Clyne, Lovren or Lallana. If Ricky leaves, problem solved. :)

  4. I did this last season with all the defectors. Came bottom of my league of 20. :lol:

     

    The only position I couldn't fill last year was goalkeeper, but this year there's Artur to fill the role. Will have to drop one of the Liverpool one's this season as you only get three players per team, although if Ricky moves on I can keep them all.

     

    Boruc

    Clyne

    Lovren

    Chambers

    Shaw

    Cork

    Schneiderlin

    Lallana

    Walcott

    Oxlade-Chamberlain

    Lambert

     

    Subs: Crouch, Dyer, Puncheon, Hammond

  5. All clubs sell even L'pool lost Sterling when they vowed to keep him and they lost Suarez; Arsenal have lost players to their rivals, Man U lost Ronaldo to Real and so it goes on---our advantage is we have a scheme, home grown and from abroad, to replace them with younger and cheaper and hopefully in the long term they will also be as good or better.

     

    All clubs sell of course, but that's not what "selling club" really means. A selling club is one that bases its business model on the sale of players. The transfer fees form a major part of its revenue. Utd, Arsenal etc don't rely on selling the likes of Ronaldo and Van Persie, so they are not selling clubs.

  6. I'm worried about Left back!

     

    Yeah, I was saying the same to the guy in front of me. With Bertrand out we are pretty vulnerable in that position going into Europa. Coco Martini, or whatever his name is, looks like he has no pace and he moves like Carlton Palmer.

  7. Flying in tomorrow. Probably head to the stadium about midday to get tickets then retire to town for a few beers

     

    Augustinerbrau. Good traditional beer hall on the northern end of the hill that's on the west side of the river.

  8. Anyone heading to Red Bull Arena tomorrow, I'm informed you need either bus 1 from stop C outside Salzburg station, or you can take an S-Bahn train. The stop is called Taxham Europark.

     

    The Valencia boys are out and about in town right now. Hard to miss in their bright orange kit.

  9. Anyone else in Salzburg for the Audi Quattro Cup? I just got here today. I've worked out where the stadium is, just need to figure out how to get there. Saints kick off just after five, with the first game at four. Presumably I'll be able to get tickets on the gate?

  10. I think you're wrong here - my understanding is that most of the kids that we saw in yesterday's video will drop back to U21 and not travel to Austria. Only some will get selected. I might have misunderstood of course. I think that the 'internationals' will travel and be involved in the training camp, but do I remember hearing that they will not play a part in the RB Leipzig game? Anyway - this is a distraction - my underlying interest is in which of the academy kids are likely to step up and make an impact. Isgrove, Targett, Reed, Gallagher, McCarthy seem likely. McQueen, Turnbull, Stephens perhaps. Any others?

     

    Koeman: We start to play a friendly on that Wednesday, that’s too early for
 the international players but we will use that friendly game with the
 people who started today. After that we have the two 45 minute games,
 the first one against Valencia and normally the international players
 will play 45 minutes. That’s the second week, but for them the first
 week and we have to grow in all aspects of football, in a physical
 way, how we like to play football. Most of the players they know that.

     

    The "normally" is a bit ambiguous, but it sounds like the first-teamers will play in the mini-tournament in Salzburg, but not the first game. Hope that's right, because the Salzburg games are the ones I'm half-planning to see. If it's just the kids I think I'll give it a miss, since the travel schedule is already pretty packed and it is, technically, my honeymoon.

  11. I'm expecting Wanyama and Mane to be next summer's Clyne and Schneiderlin to be honest. Vic has allegedly already spoken of wanting to play CL, and although Mane comes across a lot more sensible than his some of his compatriots (i.e. El Hadji Diouf and Aliou Cisse – one obnoxious and the other an ex-Portsmouth player), he has no real connection to Saints and I can't see him staying if a richer club come in for him, which they will if he puts in another good season. We can and should be offering both long-term contracts, but I wouldn't bank on keeping either of them. Having a five-year deal didn't stop Lallana leaving, did it? I think the best we can do is to protect their value.

  12. The £12.5m doesn't seem to compare well with the £11m being bandied about as the fee to Toby. If it works out we get £12.5m for Clyne and get Toby for £11m, that would be good business in my book.

     

    Apparently we have to give Crystal Palace 25% of the profit from the deal because of a sell-on clause. £2.5m then, as £10m of the fee is profit on the £2.5m we paid CP ourselves.

  13. You are undoubtedly a beautiful person and I love you already. Ignorance is indeed bliss. Let us go forth in peace.

     

    Ignorance? What's ignorant about my accurate understanding of what 'net worth' actually means? Most people think the likes of Bill Gates have giant bank vaults full of coins, like in Duck Tales, but it's all perception. Same as the stock markets. When the financial crisis hit, money didn't disappear, value did. They are quite different.

  14. There is an old saying "much always wants more" - you're a good person or at the very least not a greedy one, however, for many among us the more they get, the more they want. Bill Gates and his mates have what some 400 billion between them? And of course they never slow up . . . . . .I only single 'him' out as one prime example, there an are so many others. It is estimated the "top" 200 or so richest people in the world have more money, assets, own more land etc etc then the "bottom" two and a half billion. That's why of course the likes of Maxwell, a billionaire, still stole and plundered the Mirror pension fund. Hence such rampant hegemonic greed explains the total mess that surrounds us on a global level, constant deprivation, starvation and UNTOLD suffering. And so to return to your point that's why even super rich footballers, like so many others, will follow the larger and larger salaries; no matter how much they already posses. One of the rationales for Beckham's departure from Real Madrid rumoured at the time was that on the strength of his "shirt sales" [rather apt we suppose] he wanted to 'renegotiate' his contract to £700,000 per week. "True" education is fundamental to such wanton greed but don't hold your breath. "Much always wants more" then, which brings us to the NEW idiomatic war cry to endorse and sustain this outlandish, wilful and thus painful inequality, "greed is good".

     

    Bill Gates wealth just accumulates – he's not really pursuing it, in fact he gives tons of it away. His net worth isn't real money after all, it's just value in stocks, property, personal branding, etc. That can easily disappear – ask Brazil's former richest man Eike Batista, who went from being worth 30b to 200m in one year. Once you start getting into the billions we aren't talking about real zeros on bank balances anymore, but perceived value in whatever the person owns.

  15. So love coming back as a neutral and seeing how bitter and deluded some of you are as fans and don't see it from the footballer's side of things, I was always taught if I could better myself go for it, as some have said on here your just grieving get over it

     

    Lallana has certainly bettered himself financially – that can't be argued – but not really professionally. He's not playing better football or with better players, and enjoyed only a brief sojourn with the Champions League. I wonder if one day he might look back and regret the move up north. You see, if he'd stayed at Saints he'd retire a legend, and people in Southampton would still be talking about him twenty years later, the way Liverpool will talk about Gerrard for years to come. We'd hold testimonials for him, and when he dies there'd be a minute's applause in his memory. Sure, there might never be any trophies or Champions League football with us, but he'd be remembered. When he retires from Liverpool however, he'll be forgotten very quickly, because he's just another of countless players to have filled a squad place there for a few seasons. Few from Liverpool will remember him even just two or three years after he leaves, which he will. He's not going to end his career at Liverpool. Eventually he'll move on (or be moved on more likely) to play his twilight years at the likes of Sheffield Wednesday or Nottingham Forest, before slipping into footballing obscurity. It's not an original story. I just hope the extra money was worth it, though I'm not sure what he can buy that he couldn't with the wages he could get at Southampton – he wasn't exactly living like a pauper, was he?

  16. Wow, you guys love your 'arguments from authority', eh? "Koeman knows best," "Koeman knows what he's doing," "Koeman knows more about football than us" ... etc. Sure he does, but then so do Mark Lawrenson/Garth Crooks/Robbie Savage/any football pundit or manager or commentator or coach or ex-player who has spent their life in the game. Doesn't stop people dismissing what they say. Even the mighty Alex Ferguson made mistakes, like releasing Pogba or signing Veron. Big Ron is not infallible, and I think Elia isn't worth it. Okay, he might cost just a couple of million, but a) doesn't that tell us something about how he is rated? and b) I'd rather put that towards wages for someone who has more to offer, like Toby. Yes, we need a bigger squad for Europe, but Elia is not the way forward for me. Bar the Newcastle game, he was little more than a body on the pitch last season.

  17. What was Cortese's original timeline for Saints to make it to the Champions League? I know it's changed now, but I'm still curious. I ask because the likes of Clyne, Schneiderlin and Lallana signed for or stayed at Saints because they bought into the long-term ambition to get Saints there. But surely none of them stayed (or will stay) long enough for the club to achieve that? It was obviously impossible while we were still in League One and The Championship, and I can't believe any of them expected Saints to get there in our first season (or even two) back in the PL. It was really only last season when we came close to competing at that level for any sustained length of time. I know there was a five year plan to get back in the PL, which we smashed by two seasons, but what about the CL?

×
×
  • Create New...