Soulful Odin

Great series of articles looking back at the greats of the game, the latest being about our Le God http://www.football365.com/news/portrait-of-an-icon-matthew-le-tissier

A very well written piece on the beauty of football. We have probably seen our playing style change more than most teams over the last few years, from the high press to our more rigid counter attacking side with koeman https://thesefootballtimes.co/2016/05/01/what-is-good-football-the-role-of-aesthetics-in-the-modern-game/

Forster Coleman Fonte VVD Bertrand Wanyama McCarthy Mane Tadic Long Lukaku I make it three .....

Interesting article looking at our stats this season, seems to be pretty much representative of the mood on here. *Caution Contains Metrics* http://statsbomb.com/2016/04/can-southampton-become-a-force-in-the-premier-league/

Hope he knuckles down and signs an extension, on his day one of the, if not the, best in the league at what he does

Seen Alan Nixon link Zach Clough with a surprise club. Absolutely no evidence but a gut feeling it could be us. Almost certainly wrong! http://the72.co.uk/44430/zach-clough-left-out-of-bolton-squad-as-club-see-big-offer-for-player/

I saw this table and thought it was quite interesting. We don't obviously let the opposition have a lot of shots on goal, but Maarten doesn't exactly save a lot of those that we do let the opposition have. Is that down to weak ability, the fact that the shots that do get through are liable to be better chances, that from a smaller sample size every goal conceded is more significant? Interested to hear your thoughts... (Feel sorry for Bournemouth fans looking at it as well, seems arturs regressed a lot)

One look at QPRs wage bill should be enough to show you higher wages does not necessarily guarantee you better players. Cabaye is 29 so a 4 year deal will see them straddled with a 32/33 year old earning 100k a week with no resale value and little incentive to move on

Buy a season ticket and then all the matches cost the same ....

Trippier , Clasie , Austin all sound good. If derby don't go up I'd throw some money at them for Will Hughes, If RoKo is dead set on a big CF that scores 1 in 3 Benteke if Villa goes down . James Milner would be amazing but probably would want too much money.

We would only need 4 that have been at saints from before they were 18 and 4 more that are homegrown from any club which would be targett JWP reed plus a token player for the squad (gape , seager, hesketh) with forster , J rod , bertrand, kelvin , steven davis. Really easy for a club like us to fulfill really as its 8/25 so 17 can be foreign mercs. Only a struggle for teams that produce literally none of their own player (City, Chelsea etc) who end up getting mediocre back up keepers to make up the quota

Anyone else fancy Adebayor on loan ? Provided we dont pay all his wages and dont buy him in the summer, he always has a good start at a club and offers something slightly similar to Pelle. Admittedly hes a bit of a tosser , but I dont think hes Osvaldo level tosser. Maybe worth seeing if we can convince Poch he can save ossie at Spurs !!

Personally I like "Girls don't like boys , Girls like cars and mane"

Seems all hope of Cortese coming back and buying the club has finally been extinguished now his supposed backer has gone elsewhere. Anyone seen Paul Allens yacht? #meltdown http://www.espnfc.com/atletico-madrid/story/2252769/atletico-madrid-to-sell-20-percent-stake-chinese-billionaire-wang-jianlin-reports

I'd have thought by now you would realise something special is happening at Southampton. It shouldn't be possible to do what we've done since minus ten, but we have. Any of us that remember Poortvliett and Wotte should know what a truly remarkable journey we have been on from the depths we sank too. Who would have thought back then that in 2015 we would sit third in the Premier League on merit? No team has outclassed us, every game has been competitive and there is no team I wouldn't back us to beat in a one off match at the moment. Fully fit with the solidity, confidence and swagger we play with we, why not second? We can only win each game as it comes. I would hazard a guess that the only remaining games we wont be favourites at the bookies for will be Chelsea at the Bridge and City at the Etihad and we could have it rapped up by then. At the very least allow yourself to dream, this is the best its been too be a saints fan in my lifetime so if you cant enjoy it now you need to have look at yourself. I have no doubt that this is something that is built to last. Keep the faith

Without Lambert we probably would still be fighting for the Play offs in the Championship. Any other answer is ludicrous IMO, he had team mates of course but he pretty much pulled us up through the divisions and won us a cup. Yes the other transfers are better players now , have made/ will make more profit but without Rickie we wouldn't be anywhere near where we are now

Arsenal twice , United Twice , Chelsea , City , Burnley Everton , Palace , Newcastle, Ipswich Considering our style away from home favours the pacy players getting in behind, the difficulty of these games and our general lack of goals in general in these games, I wouldn't worry too much about Pelles recent form. Definitely need a back up though, the commentators kept banging on that Newcastle had no focal point which we wouldn't have without Pelle

Winning those 6 in a row would be title form... 14 points Drawing with WBA and Liverpool

Going to break the rules slightly and say 3rd place. It would be a once a generation thing to win the fa cup, equally to get the chance to see saints play in the Nou camp, Bernabeu or San siro would be once in a generation too. Ive seen us win a cup at wembley (Paintpot) but Ive never seen us play in the proper european cup (Bucharest doesnt count). We could never improve on the 76 story either so would forever be the lesser of the hypothetical two cup wins

Also they have changed the guidelines so the winner of the europa league gets that country and additional place • Performances in domestic leagues will be rewarded. If a national cup winner has booked a UEFA Champions League spot, the highest-ranked club in their domestic league not already qualified for the UEFA Europa League will qualify for the competition; national cup runners-up no longer qualify. • The maximum number of clubs from one association that can qualify for the UEFA Champions League is increased to five.

4th placed in the PL plays a qualifying round, two legs against fairly strong opposition based on uefa coefficient. We would likely be unseeded ( definitely tbh) Last year these were the qualifiers Seeded England Arsenal Portugal Porto Russia Zenit Saint Petersburg[†] Germany Bayer Leverkusen Italy Napoli Unseeded Spain Athletic Bilbao France Lille[†] Denmark Copenhagen[†] Belgium Standard Liège[†] Turkey Beşiktaş[†]

Though the article seems to have no mention of where they earnt these nominations, yet more good news for our academy graduates http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/england-pair-raheem-sterling-calum-4523237

Davis Toby yoshida Gardos Targett Wanyama JWP Reed Long Mayuka Rodriguez With the exception of Toby filling in at RB, none of these started at the weekend. Sure the GK/ST looks dodgy but I would personally be happy with any of those players filling in for a couple of games and theres a certain amount of flexibility eg Long could cover up top, S.Davis on a wing. Barring an Arsenal style fitness meltdown, we would have to be quite unfortunate to lose enough players to seriously dent our teams quality. If we keep the squad healthy til January I have confidence that we can have a good go of finishing in the top 4. Our worst result of the season has been the West Brom game, we can afford to lose away at the traditional big teams if we don't drop silly points against the lesser ones. To be frank, it shows how far we have come that we are disappointed at dropping points to our rivals at Anfield and White Hart Lane

My understanding of the various snippets about the osvaldo deal is that Inter Milan are fairly limited financially and cannot afford to pay all of Osvaldo's wages, so we are taking more than one player off of them to cover it e.g taider + schelotto = Osvaldos wages ish. They probably said they would take him off our hands and wanted to pay say 60% (conjecture) of osvaldo's wages or send players of sufficient value to us to cover the short fall

Anyone who doubts JWP's England credentials didn't watch the toulon tournament where he captained the U20s. Standout England player by a mile, so much more composed and mature in possession than the rest of the team. Fully expect this to be his proper breakout year, love him to sign his new bumper contract. Hope Reed gets a chance for saints this year too, future england international (couple of years away). Can see why he gets compared to scholes as, like JWP, he has maturity beyond his years in possession.