way down south

I don't believe puel will win over the fans easily after last season's burnt bridges and such. but I do think he'll improve on pitch stuff like decent football and goals most importantly because if we had say 10 more goals at home this season and we scored half the chances we made in games I think there wouldn't have been a puel out camp. goals are what makes attractive football IMO. if barca played the way they play but couldn't hit a cow's arrrse with a banjo, like most of our forwards, they might be relegation candidates and be labeled boring by everyone.

Fine 20 mil might be ott for j rod and long. 15 mil maybe 7 million each long signed a new contract last year. But forster is still known by the official title "england international" not the steaming pile of doo that we know.

Also might get 10-15 ml for forster. Invest everything we get from transfers and splash around 20ml of our own dosh and its possible. #Showambition

Begovic Mccarthy Hassan Bertie Mcqueen Semedo Maguire Stephens Maya Cedric Pied Hoj Rom Jwp Davis Redmond Bruma Boufal Imbula Gabi Austin Iheanacho Starting XI Begovic Cedric. Semedo. Maguire. Bertie Imbula. Rom Gabi. Boufal. Redmond Iheanacho Dreamland i know, we'd need to spend atleast 70ml on semedo, maguire, imbula and iheanacho. But we'll get 50-60 ml for vvd, 20 ml for long and rodriguez so its concievable.?

I think the huddersfield coach I forgot his name could do it. he had one of the smallest budgets in championship, and an average squad but I think he got them to the playoffs. although I think he was klopp's underling at some point and pretty much copies klopp style down to the baseball cap and beard. Liverpool fans will have a field day making jokes the day we hire him.

koeman is like a poor man's mourinho, down to being a whinging ****. buys players, gets results, leaves. doesn't improve players or actually pay attention I mean he said he never heard of Sims so. doesn't particularly become too attached to teams. I never really liked him as a manager or as a person always seemed too arrogant IMO.

not a hummels just yet but can certainly see him being a star for us as early as next season. playing alongside vvd would do him a lot of good, could be one of the best central defensive partnerships in the league as time passes. he's got good range of passing, confidence and skill to bring the ball out, reads the game well, but not so strong in the tackle and in the air. but I think that should come with experiance, he's certainly not a small guy. I mean Gallagher's weak point was in the air last season now he scores most goals with his head. just about learning how to use his body.

I hope we play cacersa with Maya. I trust his experience would help in nullifying man u attackers. ibra injured I think so martial, rashford and mkhitaryan only ones to worry about clearly we won't keep a clean sheet, so let's hope we have enough bottle to attack. Barry and long up front. Redmond jwp wings. classie Rom middle. ryan, maya, carces, Cedric back four. in a 4-4-2.

While i also wish we had someone in the u23 who is absolutely ready, we unfortunately have no one. Atleast IMO. But as a ton of up and coming players at other clubs prove, the main way into the spotlight is through injury to senior players. Rashford being a prime example. He'd be an unknown if someone didnt pull out of their europa game at the last season through injury. Anyway i do have high hopes for the likes of valery the fullback, o'connor a cm, the new former arsenal winger who looks to be exceptional and mainly the young cb who was voted young poty last season whose name escapes me.

Its really frustrating realizing that we have so little trust and confidence in ourselves these days that we dont trust ourselves to really go at any half decent teams atleast at home and get some goals and maybe even points. I read some article by some former dipper or scummer on us, he said in seasons past everyone knew they were in for a fight when they had a match against soton, home or away teams were atleast expecting us to give them a game whenever they played us. Think the pochetino and koeman days when we were never really expected to just sit deep every single time against decent opposition, i mean we're not tony pulis' wba or any team of fat sam's. We go toe to toe with the best in the league, thats just what we do(did). I guess puel didnt get the memo. IMO hes massively underwhelmed the fans, players and the staff even, with how he's managed the team over the season. Gone in the summer is my guess. Any hoo rant over. No high expectations for this game, they get camped in our half for 90 mins, we dont dare venture anywhere near theirs, they have 25 shots to our 3. Forster has a decent game but luck runs out and we concede an own goal or someone drops a clanger. We lose 0-1.

Massive, massive game for the club, fans and players this. Especially Stephens as he seems likely to start, its a huge risk, huge reward kinda game for him. If he's able to withstand the no doubt apocalyptic scale of attacks from the likes of sturrige, coutinho, origi, firminho, nivea, then it'll be the making of him as a future top class centre half. If he cracks under all the pressure and god forbid makes a few grave mistakes that the dippers punish, then I doubt he'll recover from being responsible for this club missing out on Wembley. So #prayforvirgil #prayforstephens!!

I for one think he could develop into a decent premier league player, apart from being 5ft 6(just like most of our u23s), he's arguably the most talented of the bunch aside from hesketh maybe although he's looking a tad injury prone lately. he's got incredible pace, decent technique, and good goalscoring instincts judging by his u23 and senior outings this season. He's also only 19, so plenty of time to improve his dribbling ability, his shooting, passing. also maybe grow a couple inches as well (hopefully).

I can't buy all this, "only we have the black box" business. You really think teams who spend 90 million on 1 player, can't afford to buy some monitors, some servers and analysts? Its because they simply cannot afford to buy an unknown player from a lower level league and risk him not having an instant impact, and plus risk losing out on all the publicity of signing a pogba. Us on the other hand don't have all that pressure on us, we can buy a mane or a juanmi, our fans will sit and watch if he's a gem or a dud, they won't sh@t the bed like " oh! Sh@t, we need Antoine griezzman even tho we already have zlatan on 300,000k a week!"

How in F@@cks name does puel not realize that the best performers in our team vvd and romeu are doing so well due to playing regularly and not being dropped after every frigging game. If jrod was playing as regularly as those two, I bet my balls he'd have scored 10+ goals by now. But noooo he gets dropped after each good performance. Why the F@ck?! Jeez he actually does seem clueless, does puel.

Playing with long up top against a team like Burnley who will more than likely sit deep and play long balls to gray, is just daft. J rod needs to start, but give Redmond, Bertrand, clasie, Davis maybe Cedric some rest. Forster, Cedric(Stephens), vvd, Maya, McQueen, ROM, jwp, hoj, sims, tadic, j rod.

I can verify that he can ping some 40/45 yard diagonals from time to time, also left footed so compliments vvd, strange and unconventional yet surprisingly effective with the ball too. I think its his frame and posture that makes him look clumsy. But 18-20£? Seems very unlike Us and he's not young enough to develop and be sold for twice what we paid, he's 26/27 I think. But nonetheless would be pleased if we got him, defo an upgrade on fonte IMO.

I keep playing the game in my head over and over, very best we could hope for, sturrige doesn't start, neither does origi, karius has a biblical mare yet we only win 2-1 b/c of a Forster moment of incompetence. Second leg we set up to defend as per usual, we concede 2 first half goals and 1 more 2nd half goal. Ft 3-0 (4-2 agg.) Sorry but I just can't picture anyone in our team having a storming couple of games and get us through this tie. In the past you'd say maybe mane/pelle/even tadic(in last years form) might win it for us. I mean Thierry Redmond?, the currently useless tadic?, j rod? Vvd has more chance of winning it for us than the rest of em. Suffice it to say, not as excited as I should be. Purely b/c i don't think we've got a snowballs chance.

O'Connor I think, good cm from the u23s, tho still 17/18 I think his style ( from what little I've seen) looks to be perfect for our shuttler roles, athletic, good passer, okay dribbler, has quite a shot from distance on his left.

You maybe right, but I'm thinking more on the lines of "the lesser of two $hits" for each position. Which in the cf department is j rod, wide are tadic and Redmond/ sims ( I'm starting to think sims maybe better than Thierry f00king Redmond), cm Davis, other cm hojber (since classie seems incapable of going forward for love nor money) so that makes our bestXI Forster, Bertrand, Maya( holy sh#t!!?), vvd, Cedric, romeu, Davis, hojbe, tadic, sims, j rod. Just my opinion tho.

One thing I pray for tho, is that puel isn't smug and frankly stupid enough to want to put out anything other than THE best we got in each position, for both legs. That doesn't include jwp and long, also maybe fonte too currently.

Which is what I'm trying to say, not sacking black or even banning him seems a stunning move from the club unless there's more we don't know.

For me, the nervousness stems from us being impotent on the attack. I get nervous in thinking that even a weak team can park the bus, defend against our limp attacks for the best part of the ninety minutes, then take one of the few chances they get as Forster is as leaky as a funnel right now, they may only need one chance. Which is the sum total of what I expect this Saturday.

IMO where reed actually dropped the ball was when he hired black, puel has good credentials for a club like ours we may not have know that he existed, but he does have a good pedigree and is Southampton type of hire. Has history of playing expansive pressing football (yet to see that here mind), is very good at bringing through younguns, and has a low key personality (don't we know it). But black... I mean I'm just stunned while looking at what that guy brings to the table, he's a distinctly below average coach, has a less than glowing rep as prem coach and as we discovered a while back, is as shady a character as you can find. Which if you didn't know any better, makes you think never in a million years is he working in a top position in Southampton fc. But he's doing just that, a distinctly non Southampton type person making a living in Southampton, what I think is maybe the club's hands are tied somehow and that's why they haven't sacked him yet? I mean I don't remember seeing him too much in training videos, maybe he's already stopped doing his job and is waiting a certain time to actually get sacked?

Channelling my inner most optimist side here, I think there's hope for puel still. Because back when he was seriously being linked to us, I read every article on him and nice and also watched some of Nice's games as well. They played some excellent football did nice, it was Tottenham-esque in that they pressed the opposition really hard and BTW Ben arfa was chasing down the ball like crazy as well, and also kept the ball when needed really well. Their transition is extremely quick, I think I read somewhere that they scored the most goals in league 1 from counter attacks while still having more possession than the opposition. So I think (hope,pray) that puel realizes that this dormant non pressing crab football isn't working and that he should revert back to what got him this job in the first place. Playing fast paced, high pressing, counter attacking/ possession hybrid football.