Diabolus Ex Machina

A break away league would only help competition in the short term anyway. If there was still money to be made in the league then another set of rich owners would come in anyway and buy some teams which would again immediately shoot ahead of everyone else and you're left with the same position with a new top 4. Alternately if the creation of a breakaway league got rid of the Champs league etc.. you could reduce that number of top teams to probably 1 or 2 and then you just have the SPL when it was Rangers and Celtic fighting it out for the title and cups every year. What needs to happen is for the playing field to be levelled somehow. Current FFP has made a complete pigs ear of it and only helps enforce the status quo so something else would be needed. A salary/wage cap would be a good start but would be hard to enforce given European labour law I would have thought. Also if you start limiting player wages then the top players will just be poached by other leagues. But for example if the Premier League were to implement an annual salary cap for each team of say £65 million, you could theoretically pay a 25 man squad £50,000 a week each to play. If you want a better player and want to pay him higher wages then someone else needs to be paid less. You could even offset this over a number of years perhaps so you could pay more for success in the short term but then have a reduced cap in the future. As long as the salary cap wasn't set too high it could work in theory. Yes the top teams could go to the maximum every year but it would be fun to see someone like a QPR or West Ham spunk out for a single season to try and challenge. Will never happen unfortunately but I do like the idea of it.

Might as well go for it early as even if we concede we would still only need a single goal to stay in the tie. They look beatable and i'd expect an improvement from us from the first leg. Would like to see Juanmi given a chance to have a run at them. Mane not playing a full game at the weekend might end up being a blessing as well if he's got more energy for this one. Worth remembering we've only lost 1 of our 6 competitve games so far and anything but a loss or 0-0 draw will give us at least a shot of going to ET or Pens if not straight through.

Way too direct. Targett is neither going past his man or tracking back quick enough. Would be very tempted to go to 4 at the back second half.

Caulkers made several mistakes already. Needs some composure.

Gonna need both Targett and Cedric to be adventurous going forward to support the attack.

And Terrys off lol

Even with our poor start you'd have to think that with the likes of West Brom, Sunderland, Villa and the 3 promoted teams we shouldn't have much to worry about in regards to relegation.

How much have we already spent this window? The players you mention all seem to be midfielders which Cuco isn't. A better comparison would be Clasie or Juanmi. Oh and we already have JRod, Mane and Tadic so aren't exactly short there. It's possible that if we tried putting in a release clause it would deter these better class of players for signing for us in the first place as they don't want to be tied down too long. Is it better to have a top class player for a couple of years and sell for a large profit or get merely a good player for longer but with little re-sale value? Doesn't even account for the fact they may try and force a move/go on strike etc...

West Brom penalty saved. Absolutely terrible pen though.

We have replaced Clyne with Cedric, we've brought in Clasie and Romeu to fill the gap Morgan has left, Stekelenburg is a stop gap until Forster is healthy again, VVD is due shortly and we have also brought in Caulker. Koeman has a right to be a bit disappointed with the performances just as the fans have been - probably more so as he is in charge of the team. Just because the replacements haven't performed as well so far doesn't negate the fact they are the replacements. Get used to it. Matching last season (our best Prem season ever) was always going to be a tough task. Let the injuries heal up the new players come in and give a bit of time to gel and see what happens.

Cortese always seemed to have big plans for the club in regards to Champs League etc... and I think he was able to filter that aspiration down through the rest of the club and squad. The problem was the only way you can get that is by injecting a lot of money into the squad. I'm sure that is what Cortese was planning on doing (and who knows it may have worked) but at the end of the day it wasn't his money. Once he was told the funds weren't going to be available reality hit and so we are where we are.

Pretty much this. I'd be more worried if it was teams below us or with similar levels of finances going after our players but it's not and breaking in to that top 6 level is nigh on impossible. Wanyama himself is an interesting case though. I remember when we were first linked with him the deal took a while to go through as the rumours were that they were waiting to see if a bigger team was going to come in for him (I specifically remember hearing Arsenal mentioned). In the end we were his best option and so he joined us. I always expected him to move on eventually as he always seemed to have his sights set high (he did play in the Champs League previously with Celtic remember). Still, he's not handed in a transfer request or anything and if it's true that it was Spurs who leaked the news of his discontent then I don't think he's in a particular rush to go. I expect that's why he was included in the last press conference for instance to show he will be hanging around. To be honest all looks like more of a Clyne situation than anything else.

Well that could apply to 95% of teams though couldn't it. Outside the top 6 there's a minimal chance of Champs League football and while Cups are always possible only 1 team can win each year. So what's the point? Love of the game, love of your team rather than the individual players who pass through. The ones who earn our respect will be legends forever while the ones who show it's more about the money or personal glory will fade in the mists of time. It's about the journey. We have ups, we have downs, players come and players go, but we will always be The Saints and i'll continue supporting and enjoying them no matter who's pulling on those shirts.

I would guess the problem would be proving it came from Spurs. Can papers be made to name their sources? Can't imagine the FA have that sort of power.

QPR apparently confident of holding on to Austin now. Am surprised no one's been willing to get him considering how hard it is to find goal scorers at this level.

So there's been no bid of any sort I take it then? So it's just like Fonte and Villa... Or Mane and Man U... Both of which were shot down by the club at the earliest opportunity and recently backed up by saying we will be selling no first team players this window. If he does go it's probably next summer which is what we all expect anyway. Only difference now is that we may see what we can get for him in January. No worries from me.

Hhhhmmm interesting. I would say that Spurs figure is slightly skewed by the sale of Bale. In fact only Bale and Modric have been sold for +£10.5m in the past 5 seasons (a few more for about £10m each). They also spent practically nothing in the 11/12 season. http://www.transferleague.co.uk/tottenham-hotspur/english-football-teams/tottenham-hotspur-transfers Seem to buy relatively cheap mostly and then sell on at a higher price. Sound familiar?

To be fair out of the 5 competitive games we have played we have had 2 wins, 2 score draws and 1 loss. 3 out of 5 of those (2-0, 3-0, 2-2) results would see us through next week while 1 other (1-1) would make it go to extra time. This is if we continue playing as poorly as we currently have been.

Might as well go for it from the start. Even if we concede would still only need 1 to take it to extra time or Pens.

Well I missed the last 20 mins so don't want to comment on whether we should have won or not but sounds like we had the chances to. So if it's a simple case of having to win at their place to go through then so be it. The way some people make it sound like that's some sort of impossibility astounds me. Season may not have started well but we have as many points as we did after 2 games last year and are still in Europe, nothing to lose our heads over just yet. I won't even go into detail about if we are better/worse player wise as last year. Think i'll wait until all our players are healthy, we've finished our business and they've actually been able to play a run of games together until I judge. I do wonder if the level of expectation is getting to the players a bit though. Last year they came in to the season with everyone expecting us to be relegation fodder which gave them something to prove and no pressure. This year we would be expected to be top half again as well as our European ventures, might be affecting them mentally.

How's he saved that!!

Get in! Got them on the ropes, need to hit them again.

Well that was a sh*t way to end the half especially as we were starting to look the better side. They're gonna sit deep put so we need to keep the pressure on. Forcing them into making mistakes will help open it up a bit. Liking the look of Romeu and the front 3 look lively, especially Mane. Need to really take the game to them second half.

Gonna have to put up with commentators mentioning Man u and Spurs every time Mane or Wanyama touch the ball