Tommog

Yeah I agree. I have been so disappointed with the defence I really thought the attack would take care of itself. On paper we have a lot of options. But there seems to be an issue going forward as well. It seems to me the defence is so weak at the moment we need the midfield to act as another line of defence. Which seemed to shore things up a little today. But at the expense of our attack. Im often reminded "southampton are not a big team get used to it" which to me is just negative thinking. But just because you are a small team doesnt mean you can't have exciting attacking players stay with you for more than a season. Just look at Palace, Swansea even Leicester

The Good Romeu looks like a bit of quality Point away from home The Bad Have zero ideas going forward. I am not a fan that demands Barca style football at the expense of results. I want results no matter how we get them but whatever we were doing was never going to unlock even Watford's defence. So p*ssed off at the amount of people hailing VVD as our saviour. Firstly he hasn't even signed for us. Secondly i'll reserve judgement on whether he is actually any good after 4-5 clean sheets.

Yeah i would say location needs to be taken into account. Sh*te Heart Lane is prime real estate with London land selling at about 40 trillion a yard. Then you have Liverpool where you can buy a house for a fiver. (financial data may not be entirely accurate) Fair play to arsenal to be honest. Have a lot of respect for them. For years Wenger was always fighting with one hand behind his back financially when competing with other top 4 clubs. They got their financial house in order and now are one of the big boys without the house of cards based on one Saudi/ Russian.

Nothing £40 million of shrewd signings on proven players wont fix in the next few weeks. More realistically though will see what The Black Box spits out and hope we get a Morgan replacement for 6 million!

This

We do have good players yes. And agreed they will attract interest. But what makes us a soft touch is they know we will sell. All clubs have some decent players, they might lose 1, not 5! Look at the way Everton are fending off Stones and Barkley. Berahino at West Brom, etc. Ok the transfer window isnt closed yet. But they at least try and keep them and the poachers know they are going to have to do some serious sweet talking and put some serious money on the table.

Still finished 7th.. the ride was fun but materially that's the only thing that changed. Not all the players had 1 year left on their contract, Chambers, Lovren, Lallana just off the top of my head And why are we the club that gets destroyed each summer by poachers.. its because we are a soft touch

To be honest I think its nonsense. Utd could get any player in the world (apart from maybe Real Madrid/Barca stars). Why would they go for a decent player when they can have MEGAstars. If it is true then like many others have said what is the point in putting time, money and passion into saints. Ok we did a "fantastic rebuilding job" (why dont we just trade mark that) last summer, we only did that because we had to. Its like saying "I built an amazing house".. well yeah great its only coz you burned the last one down so what? But he hasn't gone yet and this might all be BS. Clubs are perfectly entitled to make approaches. Its just the fact we always sell that makes the fans so angry. In 13/14 season we finished 8th with a great squad. Then got decimated, totally rebuilt, and finished 7th. SO the downside is we get it wrong and become relegation fodder. The upside is we climb ONE place. Thats a terrible terrible plan in the long run. Its like betting everything you have on RED at the roulette table and it coming up and therefore assume its a long term strategy

This. Don't know why I am getting grief. Are we not allowed to suggest that maybe... just maybe Saints won't be able to pull off the recruitment feat we did last summer? Being a fan isn't just about banging your tambourine that the grand high leaders have got it right. To me debating and questioning things is what makes football fun. My point is just that Saints spent 50 odd million last summer and that translated into 7th finish. So far this summer we have spent mid 20 million on transfers and (net spend of about -20 million) and look very frail in the positions we sold. Regarding whether we leave JayRod in or out in the transfer balance sheet, I can accept he should be left in... but whether he will be anything like the player he was who knows, fingers crossed and also it wasnt the attack where we were weakened from last season. All i am saying is to compete on the level we did last year I think we are lacking investment. One new CB still leaves us pretty off the pace form last years defence.

Cedric 4.7 Juanmi 5 Martina 1 Clasie 8 Romeu 5 Ok so around 24. Still not even half what we have lost in quality players. Point still stands

Why are you such a sarcastic pr*ck? And maybe offer up some reasons where I am wrong instead of "clueless.. wrong.." Well done though.. the voice of mediocrity is always the loudest

I know its hard to get away with pointing out where Saints might be going wrong on this forum without being called a "bed wetter" BUT... Last season we did a fantastic job by regrouping after selling our top players. But last season we sold about £80 million of players bought about £55 million of talent in over the summer (not including successful loans- the impact Toby made was worth additional millions I think). This summer we have lost Clyne (12.5mill) Morgan (25 mill) and Toby who should have been sewn up as a Saints player that we lost with a market value of 11.5 million. If it werent for Clyne being on a 1 year contract and the Toby deal totally messed up I think those players could have gone for far more... but i'll use conservative figures. Long story short we have lost £50 million of strength since last season and so far only spent about £15 million. So both comparing this seasons squad to last season on personnel AND last seasons transfer business to this seasons we are severely off the pace. And thats just to stay in the same place as place year. You need to constantly be improving in this league. Im under no illusion we are not a spend big every summer club. But I don't care what anyone says the correlation between money spent and success in the league is indisputable. So far we seem to have lost 3 world class players including one of the best holding midfielders in the world and the best English right back. And replaced them with 5 squad players. Hopefully Clasie proves to be more than a squad player but there is no doubt Caulker is not a Toby replacement and I've yet to see evidence Cedric is keeping our defence at the level of last year. We have 2 weeks left of the transfer window but in my opinion we need some serious spending to even try and maintain last years success let alone progress. Let the attacks commence...

And which part is total drivel? Getting pretty sick of people on this forum with no ambition that think "oh well, enjoy the ride, good old Saints remember the days back at the The Dell blah blah" where is the fight to push on? Nobody said anything about "forcing" players to sign for us. But as we have found out money talks. If you want a good player you have to pay for a good player. We finished 7th last season, we had every pundit in the country swallowing their pride and saying "you know what, Saints have shocked us all, what a fantastic set up" our stock has never been higher in the eyes of the footballing world, this is the time to leverage all that. There is no reason at all why quality players in the 8-10 million pound bracket shouldn't want to come to us. You are right, the window hasnt closed yet... although RK himself has said all he wants is another CB and he is happy with the squad. If the fringe players we bought in are the ones that are going to take us to the next level them someone has messed up

Youre absolutely right, last season was a huge success. BUT i think there are some ways things are different this season. Last season we made HUGE profits on transfers. We sold youth development players for mega money and turned a big profit on the resale players and we spent 50 odd million strengthening the squad. Any team in the league that spends 50 million is going to have a bit of quality. This season we lost our best CB for nothing due to a clear balls up with the loan deal. Sold Clyne well under his true value with the 1 yr contract situation. Morgan still arguably went for less than his value, i think he is one of the best holding midfielders in the world and went to one of the richest teams in the world. Long and short of it is we have only spent about 16 mill this season. That is not a lot of money. This league is almost entirely dictated by the amount of money spent.. sad but true. For us to repeat the feat of last season we are going to need to spend a hell of a lot more. (and this is coming from someone that fully believes in the scouting system of southampton and marquee signing usually backfire with us)

Am I the only one that's bored of this "well when we get Virgil Van Dijk.." is he the only defender in the world we can afford? Im all for having a target but he is a defender in one of the least competitive leagues in the world.. granted Wanyama was a good signing from Celtic but this guy better be bl*ody good to warrant all this faith we are putting in him. One thing that I do know is he probably isnt good enough to gamble until last day of the transfer window for him/Celtic to make the decision. We urgently need some defensive quality added to the team. I love that we try to scout out talent under the radar but sometimes if you want the finished article you have to put your hand in you pocket and spend. I know its early days and i'm definitely prepared to look back on this post in 3 months and ridicule myself but so far... Cedric... who? Fontes mate from Portugal that played like Adam Sandler's "Waterboy" first half last match and exposed again today. Caulker.. A defender whos been part of the two leakiest defences 2 seasons running Jumanji... Excited at his pedigree to be honest but unlikely to play much part without injuries to starting 11 Clasie.. a decent "name" but looks very very lightweight physically for this league. Martina.. a utility bit part player Romeu... looked settled today but again a punt on a forgotten player. Definitely a tactic to try once or twice a season But come on, are these the sort of quality signings that take a team that were knocking on the Champs league door for half of last season to the next level? Seems to me very "wheeler dealer lets take a few punts and save us some money".

Don't know much about Romeu, but I have to say I love the tactic of going after the "big clubs" young players. It actually uses our club's size as an advantage rather than a disadvantage. Gets so depressing hearing people say "of course we are going to lose our players we are a small club"... true, but where's the ambition? I dont want to see us just get pillaged and accept we are easy prey. But, by going after players that bigger clubs might want to hold on to for 2-3 years time we can offer them a fantastic development at a growing club and put the likes of Chelsea in an awkward position of either gambling he won't be a first team player in the future or cough up for someone that might never break through.

Happy with the 2-2 overall. First the bad.... I hate to press the panic button too early but thought we really missed Morgan, he was like a shield breaking up play in front of the defence but every attack from Newcastle seemed to reach our back line, when you are under so much pressure there are going to be goals leaked. Defence very poor first half and was a little disappointed with Targett to be honest, but dont want to judge him, it was a tough fixture. But the positives, Pelle had one of his best games for us I think. Clinical finish and looked mobile and came looking for the ball. I think Mane is going to be the standout player this year to be honest. Yes he missed some chances but he also created them, he has pace, skill and is so unpredictable I don't think he even knows what he will do next. I predict here Mane will get at least 15 goals this season and be the big money sale next summer. Long proved he is a very handy supporting player, exactly what we need late in games. On balance, a tidy point for first game of the season but must must get another quality CB and possibly holding midfielder... I know we have Clasie but watched him at ST Mary's for the Europa game looks like a school boy, worry for him in Premiership