SonicBoom

To me there is something unpleasant about sports teams being "sponsored" (in reality being given money to say nice things about the service) by any sort of betting company. It means Saints are tacitly approving it and encouraging their fans to gamble. Saints are therefore guaranteed a return from their dealings with the company, the rest of us, not so much....

Seems a decent and thought through post whether you agree or not. My opinion would be that as a rule we are always going to lose an established player and replace them with someone "with potential". If we were going to replace like for like then we would be paying the same 35 million as we got for Mane, and would those players come to us? Not sure. It's very difficult to compare the new player with the old as they tend to be at different stages of their career. We won't get every one right either, but in the last few years we got enough right to make progress. Finally I'm really keen to see Boufal. He appears to be one of the most exciting signings we have made for years and I really hope the lad can develop well with us.

Good points although I don't know why we simply accept as some sort of perceived wisdom that "it takes time". Does it? Really? The players already know how to pass, trap the ball and move into space. So with a new system they simply need to follow instructions. It's really not rocket science. Was it Shankly that said football is a simple game complicated by idiots. Not only that, we must have been working on this since Puel arrived and we've played quite a few games now. I'm not saying it happens overnight but let's not just assume that the penny will drop at some mythical point in the future. It's just a change in the players position on the pitch. We are not asking them to perform brain surgery wearing boxing gloves.

I bet we use it as part of our sales pitch to potential players. We just show them the roll call of players that have passed through the club. It's a pretty impressive list. Compare it with other clubs of our stature and it's even more impressive.

Tadic is going to be quite annoyed as he just signed a new deal. He won't have expected to be straight on the bench!

It makes you wonder how the medical is done with a player that is injured as we obviously can't put him through his paces completely. I read that he is approaching fitness again though.

Although Sky say we're still 6 m away from an agreement with Lille. I hope they get it done. I really like the look of the lad. Seems to have great feet and genuinely exciting to watch. Only 22 so will improve but looks a real prospect. Only downside seems to be his injury but he's young enough to recover and I guess our medical team know exactly what to look for. Oh and he dives a bit but I'm sure he'd change that once he's in the PL.

Well he looked pretty handy in that clip. We don't seem to have anyone with a real trick in their bag anymore. The last one was Lallana and he only had the one turn.

There are also comments in the press that Everton have been talking to Ghazzal for the last two weeks at Lyon but haven't secured a deal yet.

Twitter report that Watford have bid 15 mill euros for Boufal......

Rashford won't be coming here. He's the new golden boy and Man u have plenty of games to play. Zlatan is 34 and whatever shape he's in he won't play every game, Rashford will get his chance there.

I wouldn't like to see him leave but like all fans i have a very short memory. If we let him go for let's say 10-14 million I would feel slightly better. If we then have replacement lined up in the mould of Toby or a VVD then I'm pretty sure we would get over it.

Keep him! Anyone we've bought before this season now looks a bargain as the money has gone mad. Clasie would probably cost us 20 mill if we were after him this season.

Or Fonte is angling for more money or a longer contract. Mendes asks Jose Mourinho if it's OK if he starts some rumours of united interest. Mourinho agrees as it won't cost him anything, he promises not to deny it too quickly so Saints are pressured into giving Fonte more money. It also unsettles Saints days before they play United. Possibly.

A lot of fans think it's just us that let's players go. It isn't. Over the last few years we have just been the best at taking kids or younger players for reasonable money and turning them into 20 -30 million pound players. They then go on up the line. OK Clyne and VW were different as we didn't get the full value due to their contract situation - which they wouldn't sign. Other teams like Stoke, Palace, West Ham etc haven't sold players like that, because frankly they never had any. Had the top 5 clubs come in for any of their players then they would have gone the same way ours did.

The funny thing is in modern day football you can put all these plans in place to have a structured financial future, then out of the blue an obscure royal family, some megalomaniac oligarch or even an entire country, pops up and buys the club. All those carefully laid plans are then ripped up. The way it is going right now that is entirely possible. In fact I would be prepared to bet that within the next ten years that happens to us. Money is coming in at the top end but there are only so many United's and City's. Then if you want a club you move to the next tier, so we are starting to see the Chinese buy teams like West Brom and even Wolves. Traditionally a clubs stature and financial size was largely dictated by the size of city they came from. To an extent it still is. But that could change. The global nature of the game now means that benefactor could decide he wants Leicester to compete with Barcelona and some have the money to really make that happen. For all the doom and gloom of what will happen when those guys suddenly decide to pull out of a club I don't think that has ever actually happened. Even Kat has now admitted to having the bug.

Talking of the U23's I saw the Liverpool game and noticed Ings was upfront for them. Wonder what the future holds for him. Injury has prevented him from getting much game time at Anfield but he's a decent player and now fit.

Reading the thread all the debate seems to be around our offensive play. It would seem that as we haven't lost a friendly (although we never really played anyone who wanted to win), the defensive side of the system is a bit of an unknown. My concern would be that we could be overrun as quite a few team play three in the middle.

I can't remember the last real goal threat we had from midfield. I don't think even Lallana got as many goals as he should have.

Difficult to get it right. The club wants as much money as it can get and the paying customers want the best for their guests. Those guests are often hard to handle as they are on a jolly and want to take full advantage of the free booze. There are several stories of, let's call it excess, where those guests have tried to drink the entire place dry and have been very demanding bordering on deeply unpleasant. Forty three grand a year seems massively overpriced and judging by the number sold I'm not the only one that thinks so. Saints need to look at this unless they are confident they can sell boxes on an individual match basis. I also hope that rather than boxes just remaining empty the club could donate on to charity for the game, invite some kids in or something.

I was thinking the same about Puel. Obviously results are the most important thing so we'll wait and see, but I hope he is more inspiring in the dressing room than he is in interviews. When he talks about the games he drones on in his monotone for several minutes and I have to admit I've drifted off by the time he's finished. I know he is speaking a second language but your character can still come across.

You never know who you might see in these games. Didn't we play Ajax one year against a certain Luis Suarez - and I certainly remember playing Real Sociedad a few seasons back and seeing Antoine Griezman. He ran the show and now would be a 50-60 million pound player.

Id like to see us do more than replace who we lose. Of course we need to do that but to progress it means bringing in one or two additional players that are potential starters. I do think that we cannot judge transfer business until the window shuts. Clubs often produce a rabbit from the hat on the final day. I can't be arsed to research it but didn't we do that with Mane ?

Berahino would be good for us. People say he's a tool but WBA offered him 65 and Stoke supposedly 75 so if you were him, wouldn't you wait another a few weeks to see if someone offers 85 (and isn't Stoke). Just by doing that you could earn another 40K a month or roughly half a million a year. I'd think he was a tool is he DIDN'T do that! i also think we have bought well. i think Redmond looks very promising, good feet, bit of a pace and loves to shoot. Pierre Emile thingy also seems like great business. Not seen him play but from what I read he has all the qualities to be a great signing.

Absolutely terrible. What else is there you can say. Can anyone explain why this is happening in France? The "terrorists" seem to be concentrating their efforts there (if that is indeed what this is). Lastly I cant understand why so many outlets will put up the terrible videos and pictures. Have a little respect FFS.