nta786

this is the attacking football that we've all been crying out for that we've done in the past 5 minutes. good overlapping full backs (Cedric still cannot cross for sh*t though), but a willingness to try and beat a man over passing it back... yes there have been no goals but i'm feeling confident at this stage. come on Saints!

yep. plus if chelsea win all their games (including one versus liverpool), means they both finish on same number of points. so hopefully chelsea will go for it against huddersfield and swansea! and providing we drag brighton back into it, then liverpool vs brighton will have an incentive for both teams.

McCarthy Maya Hoedt Bednarek Cedric Lemina Romeu Bertrand Redmond Tadic Austin so 3 at the back it is. meh. I would have played JWP and PEH over Lemina with a back 4 but who cares, just need a fu**ing win

i've just done this! put 50 on each!* I do hope to lose a £100 today, yes.

interesting article- will dissect a few things though! I'll begin by thanking you OP for uploading this due that paywall! there has been a growing divide between the club’s British and foreign contingents interesting that- guess it is a sign of the PL mercenaries coming in. Five players are understood to have made their feelings known to the board about Puel’s tactical rigidity well they certainly didn't help their causes when we played Leicester at home- bloke beat us 4-1. with Pellegrino losing the backing of many of his players as long ago as November crazy to think we beat Everton 4-1 then. The increasing absences of Steven Davis through injury have not helped well if he really is a motivator could he not have visited our training sessions? particularly his reluctance to consider fielding two strikers when the team were so short of goals well the WHU game summed why it doesn't happen. they have not handicapped themselves further by inserting small release clauses into several players’ contracts, so Southampton will at least be able to negotiate any sales from a position of relative strength, while those players who do remain will face wage cuts of between 25 and 50 per cent I am so so glad to hear that... Les Reed well done.

I find this worse than him being sacked so late tbh. I would rather have spent £19m and another 7/8m more on getting Promes in.... Put on a relegation wage clause and a relegation buyout clause of say £20m If he doesn’t perform well then someone can take him for £20m, and if he performed so bad that no one would pay £20m, then he can play in the Championship at a reduced wage. I guess all this is easier said than done

my guess is we just never thought relegation would be on the cards- not after finishing 8th, 7th, 6th then 8th. and okay yes last season we finished on 46 points, but it still meant that there was 12 teams worse than us! so yeah could argue we thought we were too good to go down... ofc this is all my guesses, but I just don't think we did put relegation clauses in- hope I'm wrong. It really surprises me that no one talks about our plight! A lot of media focus on Arsenal but their decline has been slowly coming- with us the drop truly is incredible, and should serve as example as to what can happen when recruitment goes wrong.

I just don't think we can- we just have to beat Everton and Bournemouth- and say we do because they are comfortably midtable (and I apply that assumption to teams below!)....We have to beat Swansea- moves us to 38. 3 wins in a row doesn't seem likely anyway... but if the above somehow still happens, I still think that Swansea will beat Bournemouth and Stoke at home (moves them to 39), Huddersfield beat Everton at home, and gain a point to Arsenal (moves them to 39), West Ham beat Everton at home and draw to Leicester (39). That would mean Brighton is our best chance... we really need the points on board to put pressure on... but for the life of me cannot see it happening.

don't disagree with it, but it just is not relevant. the fact of the matter is he is releasing a book and he has been with us for 6 seasons. that sentence is a fact. what you're doing is almost Les Reed-esque in putting a negative spin, the same way he does when our players want to leave- ironic really.

I hope he isn’t here next year- not with those ridiculously reported £90k a week. I also think the club really *****ed it and NOT put in relegation wage clauses.

yeah yeah exactly the point I am basically making! all the other clubs like Ajax, Dortmund, Sevilla, Athletico etc etc are all massive clubs in their countries that can buy talent from the smaller clubs in their leagues... hence why they have basically no risk of relegation as they are buying players proven for their leagues already. Impossible for us. we on the other hand attempt risky business with these foreign imports and ultimately at some point if it is not consistently right will bite you...

well those clubs you have mentioned are still top 6! they will obviously be affected less!!!!! only example I can give would be Dortmund in Germany theyve lost Lewandowski, Gundogan, Gotze, Mkhitaryan, Blasckoyski, Hummels,Sahin, Kagawa, Hummels, Aubameyang, Ousmane Dembele in the past 5 years.. however the reason they can do it because germany is not as competitive and with the money they rake it they can buy the bigger stars from the lesser clubs in Germany. we however could not go and buy Zaha from Palace or Shaqiri from Stoke, as an example. however malaga has been relegated this season, and they too have lost a lot of stars in last 5 years. ultimately, its all a football food chain.

gonna attempt to reply to each of your responses... Lallana: well we could have said no, but that would mean missing out on the £18m we received for him... players have all the power and him being disgruntled would have meant less money to spend... Pelle: did replace in Austin- we also bought Gabbiadini, had Long, and then bought Carrillo. however blame the sh*t scouting for that. Mane: yeah we should have held out for more, but remember Salah only cost £38m in 2017, but we could not have let him stay one more year because then he would have only had 1 year left on his contract (meaning we make next to no money)- and when it gets to that stage of making a player see out his contract a lot of players stop playing properly so they don't get injured when they look for their new club + their heart is not in it... see Sanchez at Arsenal as one example. so we sold because we'd rather bank the cash and probably had to... again, replacements poor in boufal. (I still maintain that Redmond was bought to replace Juanmi) Chambers: the only one we were right to sell, £16m- Arsenal bought potential for that money and he has not fulfilled it. no we did not have to sell but we had clyne to give us an extra year anyway... So you say we didn't have to sell- but unfortunately a lot of our 2015 and 2016 sales we did due to contract lengths (see Clyne, Mane and Wanyama as examples)... and we've seen whats happened when we offered all our current players bumper 5 year contracts- it looks like they lose all motivation to go further themselves... unfortunately players have too much power and it is a true shame that some of them can straight up refuse to play.

the guy reminds me of Ben Arfa. my guess is he'll forge an above average career in France for rest of his career. will ply his trade somewhere like Lyon/Marseille and do decent... as long as we can get £12m-£14m at least I'd take that now.

the FA cup is one factor, but also for him through defensive football- we lost very narrowly to Man City away, which gave him an extra fortnight... then we gained a point against Arsenal, and then we should have sacked him either after Leicester or Spurs but let him to go to mastermind a park the bus draw at Old Trafford, and as we won an FA Cup tie and lost unfairly to Watford away and then drew against Spurs at home, the board clearly thought the tide had turned with him... then those wins at WBA bought him another couple of weeks.... the fact is we never lost 3 in a row with him, and gained some lucky points...

probably because we refused to sell that year- he had 3 years left- gives us power to say no- and he knew that so he knuckled down. hence why he doesn't get booed despite only giving us 2 years.

this is the crucial question to ask- les reed earns his commission.

I actually hate how much power players have- if all this is true bet the tw_t is still being paid his handsome wage Let me try and do the same thing to my boss- refuse to do my job- everyone knows what would happen next. football just so out of touch with the common man.

second this.

@OriolRomeu Despite what has happened so far, there is for 4 games left and we need to keep the faith. Must remain together at the good and the bad times! ���� --------------------------------------------------------------------- fu_ck right off, 'remain together in the bad times' you say Oriol? we'll see how many of these players stay with us in the Championship then

he just isn't cut out to be a PL centreback- give me thugs like burnley/brighton centrebacks who are physical over the rubbish we have now.

not sure where to write about this but probably best here- anyone else notice that Malaga were relegated this season from La Liga this season! they at their highest had reached the CL quarter finals back in 2013 and finished around top 10 for 5 seasons in a row, including a season in fourth and sixth. however, selling of all their stars on a regular basis hit them hard and now they are finally down.

this is the problem- one that we even had in Pochettino's season. as soon as we concede we seem to drop in confidence and faith and never have a belief in turning it around. absolutely ridiculous that we have let this game turn into a must win, but it is what it is.

https://southamptonfc.com/news/2017-03-28/southampton-2017-18-season-ticket-prices-announcement last season they announced prices on the 28th of March! this season they know we are deep in the mire- the club would be stupid if they don't reduce season ticket prices- who cares if it is an extra 3 home games, it is a lower quality of football and midweek games are a write off for me anyway.

not if they get promoted.