Nordic Saint

The moves of Wanyama from Saints to Spurs and of Kante from Leicester to Chelsea show how incredibly influential the role of defensive midfielder is in today's Premier League. Wanyama never seemed to be fully appreciated by some Saints fans and some even felt that Clattenburg's dodgy red cards meant he was a 'liability'. How wrong they were. I think Romeu has proven to be an adequate replacement for Schneiderlin, which is what Clasie was originally bought for, but we really miss having a tough tackling defensive midfielder to break up opposition attacks at the halfway line. Puel has tried Reed in that role but he really isn't in the same class as big Vic. We really need to buy an 'enforcer' in the summer. The transfer of the season: http://www.football.london/tottenham-hotspur-fc/players/victor-wanyamas-incredble-tottenham-hotspur-12560221

Once Dave Watson gets to work on Hassen, he'll deteriorate as badly as all of the other keepers at the club. Whatever you may think of him now, Forster used to be a very good goalkeeper, who kept an exceptional number of clean sheets. He was a massive improvement on Kelvin Davis and I remember how relieved we all were when he came back from injury and replaced Stekelenburg. Whatever Watson is doing to our goalkeepers, it's having a terrible effect on their form and confidence. We need a new goalkeeping coach.

We should be looking to the future. How long do the Les Miserables on here want us to keep their failed Charlton manager hero for? Until he's 70? For the rest of his life? Reed wasn't prepared to extend Fonte's contract, and the Les Miserables said he was right because his performance this season had dropped off. So, why should we extend his? Reed's performance this year has been very poor and there is no reason to think his decline will be reversed as he gets even older.

Reed is 65 this year. His decision making in the last year has been disastrous for the club. Time for him to go. We need our head of recruitment, Paul Mitchell back and someone who is 100% honest and trustworthy, who doesn't have personality clashes and power struggles with all of our top players and managers, possibly Le Tissier?

To varying degrees, 3 of the current top 4 teams in the Premier League owe at least part of their success to players and managers we have sold them. If they buy a couple of our best players, 7th placed Everton could join them in the next year or two.

You could sum it up as follows: We don't buy success. We sell it.

I think we only need 3 more wins to stay up. But, does anyone know how many League Cup finalists have been relegated the same season? I remember Middlesbrough lost 2 cup finals in 1997 and were then relegated. In 1985 both of the finalists, Sunderland and Norwich, were relegated. I think Birmingham in 2011 were the last team it happened to. A win tomorrow would certainly take a bit of the pressure off the team and allow them to focus more on the final.

That one for 2014/15 concludes "producing a total of £44 million of profits before tax in the last two years." Taking into account transfer dealings and the greatly increased Premier League income, we must have made a considerably bigger profit in the last 2 years. Yet, the club is being forced to take out loans. So, if some of the club's profits are being paid into the owner's account, how would we find out? Would it appear publicly somewhere as 'dividends' to share holders?

I don't think I've seen anyone at the club 'basking in the glow' more than Reed does with all of his PR videos, interviews and photos. No one else gets a look-in. Surely, you can't have missed all of them? http://www.sportsmole.co.uk/football/southampton/news/reed-southampton-have-best-midfield-in-pl_276561.html http://www.sportsmole.co.uk/football/southampton/news/reed-champions-league-realistic-for-saints_235957.html http://www.isportconnect.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=35027:leicester-have-copied-the-southampton-model-les-reed&catid=36:football--soccer&Itemid=42

Why do we? Is it just lack of advance planning?

Reed chose Puel because he knew he would fade into the background and do as he was told. Few other managers would have done. Reed is already starting his PR campaign about how he personally has managed to get us to a Wembley final and so has redeemed himself after his failure at Charlton. If he'd spent less time yesterday doing all of his self- promoting videos and photo shoots, he might even have found time to sign a central defender. We'll be seeing even more of Reed as the final approaches. Reed all about it: http://www.dailystar.co.uk/sport/football/583235/Jeremy-Cross-Les-Reed-Andy-Murray-Usain-Bolt-Alfie-Barker

We breed success. We don’t buy it. We sell it.

Les sold him to West Ham. He'll sell the other one in the summer. It sounds like he's offered Chelsea first option. So they'll both be in London. He sold the strikers to Liverpool and some club in China. But, as he claims we've got the best pool of midfielders in the Premier League, he's still got some of them left he can sell.

Excellent. https://southamptonfc.com/news/2017-01-31/southampton-white-kit-wembley-announcement

Who on earth told you that fairy story? Or did you just make it up yourself? When players are in their early 30s, like Lambert, Pelle and Fonte, we sell them, as it is the last chance to get a transfer fee for them. Simple as that. All of these so-called 'leaks' about 'Billy big ********' " Toys out of prams', 'refusing to train', ' being unpopular with the other players' etc are just bullsh!t, which some of our more gullible fans seem to lap up. Speak to any of our players and you'll find that Fonte was popular with them right to the end and they were sad to see him sold. Yes, his agent wanted a contract extension and a a final pay increase as Fonte was by no means our highest paid player and he knew that this would be his last ever contract. He wasn't offered that.

Thanks, I was at that game. Most of the Saints fans were on the icy open terrace of the Clock End but a small group of us went onto the North Bank because it was covered and more crowded so it was warmer. The Arsenal fans were a bit surprised to hear OWTS being sung in their home end. I don't know what the exact stats were but it seemed like Arsenal had about 85% possession and at least 25 shots at our goal while we hardly crossed the halfway line. It was the most one-sided draw I've ever seen and a very satisfying away point against the great double winning Arsenal team. Eric Martin was an acrobatic but erratic Scottish goalkeeper and that was by far his best game for Saints. 1970-71 was one of my favourite seasons. We had a formidable defence with John McGrath and Jimmy Gabriel the latter day equivalent of Fonte and van Dijk.

3. Buying injury-prone players We buy injury-prone and unfit players because they are cheap. The big clubs don't need to do that. Austin's knee issues were well-publicised before we bought him, Boufal and Clasie were unfit to play when we bought them and now we are being linked with Gabbiadini who has an awful injury record, known issues with ankle problems and muscle fatigue, and who has only managed to play 2 full 90 minute Serie A games in the last 2 years. Sometimes it pays off and you get a bargain. You could certainly argue that Austin's goals when he is available to play mean the risk was worth it. If you want to reduce injuries, you buy players who have played 90 minute games regularly without injury or fitness issues. Of course, you still can't do much about bad luck like Vardy's stamp on van Dijk's foot.

You prove my point. Where was Gardos? He covered about as much ground as a training dummy and he's been like that his whole career so no excuses about him only playing for our U23s since October. Watch no. 15. That's him:

I'm still not seeing the improvement in any of them, even Harry Lewis. Maybe the best thing for him will be, like Gazzaniga, to go out on loan so he can work with another goalkeeping coach.

That is not at all fair on Stephens. He was playing virtually alone in the centre of defence as Gardos moved about as much as a training dummy. Nearly every Arsenal goal came about through outpacing the centre of our defence and exploiting the space where Gardos should have been. Poor Stephens was run ragged like Fonte used to be when he had to play alongside Hooiveld. But even Hooiveld was more use than Gardos, whose movement off the ball and covering play were non-existent. I wouldn't call Gardos the Ali Dia of defenders. He can head the ball and on the rare occasions a forward runs into him, he can tackle, but like most Romanian league players he is about League Two level. He's certainly nowhere near good enough to play against Premier League strikers. Stephens, however, shows he has the potential to be a useful squad member at least. If Gardos had played instead of Stephens at Liverpool, we probably would have lost 3 or 4-1.

Once again we saw today how having our singers hiding in the corners off the away end for big cup games makes them more like home games for visiting teams and that was as embarrassing as the performance on the pitch. Why can't the singers get behind the goal at the Chapel end at least for big cup games? There really are no excuses.

Don't worry, with his injury record. we won't see him running around much. In fact, with all the coats and pairs of tights he need to even sit on the bench during a Seria A game, we might not see much of him at all.

Not injured enough, you mean? This fellow sounds a much better prospect for our treatment room: "Spartak Moscow's Serdar Tasci could be arriving at St Mary's on loan for the rest of the season according to media reports this morning. The German who won 14 caps for his country between 2008-10 won the 2006-07 with his first club VFB Stuttgart and played over 200 games before joining the Russian club in 2013 although due to an injury in training it would be several months before he made his debut."

I think the first manager who introduced that counterattacking style was Udo Lattek. Before that, football tactics had always been about trying to dominate possession and territory. I must admit when I first saw it in action with Bayern Munich, it seemed a bit like cheating, as their opponents, including, funnily enough, Liverpool, had most of the possession and did most of the work but Bayern scored the goals. It's worked well for us this season against the big clubs, except in the Tottenham game. I guess Puel would have analysed that one and put things right.