Saxon

A beer in addition to the ticket price I should just make clear!

I would also love a ticket to Watford if there is one going. I bought the membership but missed the sodding presale! A beer on me to anyone who has one!

Haha. Who the hell thought this would be a great song to get the crowd going before a Southampton FC match?

 

Scary.

Agreed. Our pre-match music is dreadful.

I think it's great! it always makes me laugh, especially at how much it makes everyone cringe

I agree its not really needed, but this choice does amuse me

Rubbish. I doubt either of those clubs could afford him, as we'd only sell him for way more than he's worth as he's possibly now THE most important player in our squad in terms of morale, holding the defense together etc.

Still, I didn't expect Lambert to go either, but that just kind of suddenly happened with him having a medical, whereas this seems to be just a rumour.

Besides, at the end of the day, he's in his prime, he's guaranteed first starter, he's the got the captain's armband and he's playing in a team with bags of potential who are in the EL.

Whereas if he were to move to either of those two teams the only thing he gets is first team. I have no idea what the appeal would be, would they even pay more? But he'd be giving up a lot.

tl;dr sounds like rubbish.

Gazzaniga looks to really have come along quite a lot. So I don't think we do. We also wouldn't be able to attract the sort of player you'd all be after as we have M.S. and FF will come back as first choice when he's ready. We'd probably just end up with another Gazzaniga type as the only sort we could attract, so why not stick with the Gazzaniga type we currently have, who will probably surprise a few people this year if the performances we have seen in pre season turn out to be a good indication after all.

Would love to see Jose lift a trophy for us.

Absolutely 100% this.

I think players should only be put on the banner once they have stopped playing for us, that way the decision is a bit more objective, rather than clamouring for the latest starlet and then regretting it later. How many people wanted Lallana on the banner 18 months ago? I know Fonte SEEMS to love the club, and his importance to the side cannot be understated, but no-one can be 100% sure he is going to join Spurs next month...

You actually make a very good point here. It does make a lot more sense to wait until they have stopped playing.

I still reckon he'll end up on there though especially if the next couple of seasons continue for him like the last!

Just realised, Fonte has now been with us more seasons than Lambert and his impact has been at least as important, not least in recent seasons where he has really stepped up to the plate on performances and in terms of last season how he has blossomed into a magnificent team captain. He loves this club, he bleeds this club, get him on the f*ckin banner already. If Lambert is up there, Fonte should definitely be up there IMO. There may not be anyone else worthy enough for some time.

It will be an honour to have Fonte captaining us into our Europa League campaign, after coming up from League 1 to EL with us within 6 years.

If we hadn't bought Osvaldo and his non-existent contribution to our success, we'd have gone from newly promoted to top 7 in 3 years and made a profit from transfers in doing so.

 

That's quite some achievement.

That's an excellent point. Pretty impressive really.

Its always very hard to call. I think Arsenal could well win it if they hold it together. They have shown signs last season of finally being able to beat the big teams. But it will depend a lot upon how Chelsea do and they could well do it again. Arsenal are younger and hungrier though and the team has been together for a while now.

We won't make the top 6 if we do well in the Europa league. If we drop out of the EL early (don't be surprised!) then I would say we could get 6th! I think Liverpool could be in for a tough season. SPurs will probably do better or similar to last season. Poch has had a season to sort his team out a lot more now. If they do lose Kane to Utd or someone though (in a shock move ala Delph) then they might be the ones to drop out of the top 6.

Swansea and Stoke I predict to be our main rivals, also Everton since they won't have EL this season. I think Palace will do well and I think West Ham will not make the top 10 and under perform compared to their board's expectations. I think Sunderland could well be fine with Advocaat and having a preseason with a decent manager. West Brom should be fine, depending upon how Berahino does this season under more pressure, they could move up or down the table. Newcastle and Villa will struggle, especially Villa. But for relegation I reckon Norwich could wel stay up. i think Leicester could well drop and do a Hull, and I think Bournemouth and Watford will go down pretty solidly but with a good fight ala Burnley.

I'll stick my neck out with this one:

Arsenal

---------

Chelsea

Utd

City

---------

Spurs

Liverpool

--------

Saints

Swansea

Stoke

Everton

Palace

West Ham

West Brom

Sunderland

Newcastle

Villa

Norwich

--------

Watford

Leicester

Bournemouth

South Coast Rivalry:

Saints v Bournemouth 0-1

Bournemouth vs Saints 1-3

Looks very cool!

Have to say though, compared to last seasons strip, this one's really does look like garbage. I like teh green away as its something different, but the home just looks crap. Somehow they managed to ruin stripes. The quality may not have been as good last season, but it looked f*cking awesome!

Excellent article. Completely agree with the sentiment. This is the smartest way for us to progress as a club. You can imagine that eventually, as we grow, the number of clubs that can prize our players away will begin to decrease. In the meantime we'lll just keep building up an excellent reputation (allowing us to attract the top youth of Europe) for development and keep raking in the cash

Wish him well. He has been fantastic for us. Loved watching him play and he put in a cracking effort last season. We all make mistakes, no one's infallible. I hope he gets a good reception when he returns.

As someone else said. Of the player's we've lost over the last couple of years, second to Lambert for me (with a big gap mind ).

If anyone wants to trust Sh1te Sports News, in case you hadn't noticed it, they actually managed to get Ronald's name wrong. i.e. one of the most well known defenders ever and the manager (for at least a season) of a top 7 club in the PL. And in a news story that is part of an ongoing saga they have been reporting Ronald's quotes in for some time.

I present to you our new manager (according to Sky Sources) Ronaldo Koeman.

http://www1.skysports.com/football/news/11700/9905781/southampton-sign-defender-cuco-martina-from-fc-twente (last paragraph).

"Ronaldo Koeman strengthens his squad ahead of the new Premier League season."

To me it has got to the stage where the player should now decide. If he wants to play elsewhere then he should. If he is ambivalent then he should play elsewhere.

I don't think so. It's clearly a big legal issue, which has nothing to do with Toby. He may well be happy with either club (nothing any of us can complain about) and if he comes out and says which one he'd like (maybe its hard to choose, I would say purely from a neutral footballers perspective you can see arguments to go to either (arguments we've all done to death I might add)) and then it turns out he can't go there for whatever reason legally, this screws his relationship with the club he actually can move to, and also makes him look a fool.

His best option is to stay quiet and keep out of it until there is clarity in his options. There is nothing to be gained from his input publicly and everything to make the situation more complex.

We aren't though. We are trying to stick to a deal that has been agreed and to stop a player moving to a rival.

 

Nothing bellendy about that IMO.

Completely agree.

This is us being screwed over, not AM It's not us being the bellends!

I really hope we manage to keep him. And as someone else said, it's nice to see us standing up for ourselves.

I think this is being done for 2 reasons.

 

One being preparing for the season and the second a show of strength to Morgan, Clyne, Toby etc.

Yeah I think the show of strength to the three we want to keep/get really badly is a very good point.

Nope

I guess you may know a lot more about all these people if they registered with work related emails that only you'll know? Though of course you cant tell us with data protection and all that.

Unless I'm being a moron (certainly can't rule it out) and it's dead easy to get round that and/or what I've just said is a load of ******.

Not sure. I guess local area given little demand further a field.

But if its just for in Soton then there's no point surely with the Saints shop being there. It must mean it goes to more places. Maybe just the biggest JD sports shops, but still. I would have thought it would roll out a bit more, Swansea did i think? So I think its fair for us to as well.

Hopefully it does would just be cool to see it other places.

A/B - Definitely swing past Turtle Bay for some food - either before or after.

 

http://www.turtlebay.co.uk/locations/southampton/

This. With regards to food it mayaswell be /thread

Anyone else trying for one of these? I had the adult membership in my basket, and tried t pay abotu 5 times, each time getting a variety of error messages such as make sure you're logged in. I logged out and back in, and now all I can find are junior memberships.

That does look better on the mannequin. It's growing on me.

Yeah I've been very indifferent to it thus far, but actually on the mannequin I do kind of like it. I like having something a bit different. Besides, it makes the seasons where we have the classics more special, if we don't have them every year.

Agree. I doubt he'd be that hungry. Think it was Alex Ferguson who said never to sign players on their way down. He's played for Arsenal and Barca, would he really be that motivated to reallly make a difference to Saints?

Bertrand.

/enddiscussion.

Turns out we were voted the 2nd best away day in the league by the traveling fans last season!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/32975501

Premier League: 1. Hull City 7.79, 2. Southampton 7.23, 3. Stoke City 6.94, 4. Sunderland 6.93, 5. Leicester City 6.84, 6. Arsenal 6.84, 7. Swansea City 6.72, 8. Newcastle United 6.68, 9. WBA 6.63, 10. Manchester City 6.53, 11. Spurs 6.11, 12. Everton 5.80, 13. Burnley 5.76, 14. Aston Villa 5.69, 15. West Ham United 5.58, 16. Chelsea 5.52, 17. Manchester United 5.40, 18. Liverpool 5.32, 19. Crystal Palace 4.94, 20. QPR 3.58

Does this list agree with what people think? (those who managed to make every or most of the way games?)

You might want to get used to the idea that we won't qualify for Europe every season right now, to save disappointment later.

Yeah this exactly. It's completely unrealistic to expect us to be able to qualify for the Europa again next season as par. For a start, we barely managed this season with league position. Next season we have the Europa league, and the big teams will probably be better from the off so I think if we qualified two seasons in a row, that would be amazing. The on par result would be: next season, top 10, nice europa run, season after, qualify again. Then maybe the season after that we can reassess where we should be.

Staying mid-table, pushing as far as possible in the Europa, and also, trying to re-qualify for the next season via one of the cups, would be amazing. As maintaining a consistent league form alongside the Europa is going to be tough, our best opportunity to re-qualify could be to go all out on the cups. Hopefully we'll have the mettle to get past the likes of Sheff Utd or Sunderland this time! But if we won the League cup, we'd have Europa sorted, and as long as we had a reasonable league position (top 10) that would be an awesome awesome season.

Next season

Dreaming: top 4, win a cup, last 16 Europa league or anything better

Crazy season, top 6, win a cup, europa league group stage OR top 10, win europa league, no cup run OR, top 4, europa league group stage, cup run

Well above par: top 6, europa league group stage OR top 6, cup win, not europa league group stage, OR top 10, cup win and europa league group stage OR top 4, no europa group stage, no cup run

Above par: 7th, europa league group stage, OR winning a cup, top 10, don't make europa league group stage

Par (successful season still, what we're aiming for): Top 10, group stage in europa, good cup run

Sub par: top 9, don't make the group stages of europa, don't get very far in the cups.

Oh-****: 11th or below, no Europa group stage, no cup run

Definitely very subjective, but that's kind of how I see it? Basically tl;dr if we get top 10 and have a good run in the europa league (i.e. make group stage) then we've had a good season.

Please feel free to disagree though, be interesting to know what you would expect? What would you be disappointed with? try to be as level headed and realistic as possible!