Nordic Saint

The latest rumour is that someone very high up at our club is shall we say being economical with the truth yet again about a player he wants to sell in an attempt to push him out and that in reality Fonte has not handed in a transfer request at all.

They didn't buy him though, did they? I reckon it would be a bloody good strategy to pretend to be interested in a player who you believe is overpriced and overrated to lure a rival club into buying him. Les Reed was the fall guy. If he now gets lured into buying Manolo Gabbiadini, one of the most overpriced and overrated players in Europe, because other clubs are supposedly interested in buying him, he'll be an even bigger fool.

There is nobody in his right mind who would employ Eric Black as assistant manager. His track record is abysmal and relegation could almost be his middle name. But, this is what Les Reed had to say: "Claude clearly came out on top of a very impressive shortlist. We have not only got the best man, but the right coaching team to support him. Eric Black has an excellent pedigree as a coach and vast experience domestically and internationally." Les Reed 2016 Reed is totally out of touch and hopefully will do the decent things and retire this year at the age of 65 so we can get someone in to take the club forward over the next 5 years and beyond.

"Claude clearly came out on top of a very impressive shortlist. We have not only got the best man, but the right coaching team to support him. Eric Black has an excellent pedigree as a coach and vast experience domestically and internationally." Les Reed 2016 "I believe as a group we probably have a choice from the best pool of midfield options in the Premier League." Les Reed 2016

Complete and utter rubbish. Most of those players were unknowns when Paul Mitchell spotted them and would have been happy to come to any Premier League club. Mitchell was, admittedly, a brilliant head of recruitment and that's how we got them. If Les and Kat weren't so desperate to cash in on them at the earliest opportunity, the players would be with us for longer and we might actually win something. But, Paul Mitchell, the creator of the black box, has gone and nowadays we're getting the mediocre signings that other clubs don't want like Nathan Redmond and Jeremy Pied and equally poor managerial appointments like Eric Black. Van Dijk was the last of the players Paul Mitchell identified for Saints. Meanwhile in Spurs' last game, there were 6 of Mitchell's players in the starting lineup : Dele Alli, Son Heung-Min, Wanyama, Alderweireld, Wimmer and Trippier. The good news is Mitchell has handed in his notice at Tottenham and he would be the ideal replacement for Les Reed when he retires at 65 this year.

These Tweets by Villa fans back in June were quite prophetic, as if Puel is sacked during the season, he probably will take over as caretaker manager until the end of the season: Andy Reilly ‏@andysays78 Eric Black the new assistant manager of Southampton? Stick your money on them tanking and him stepping in come February. 11:03 AM - 30 Jun 2016 Reece ‏@Reece_AV Eric Black has been present at numerous clubs during relegation - surely he can't carry it on at Southampton? #AVFC #SFC 10:22 AM - 30 Jun 2016 from Birmingham, England

Les Reed will sell them anyway. He's sold the attack. Now, he'll sell the defence. Until Reed goes, there's not much any manager will be able to do as the squad is only going to get progressively weaker.

And then we get another one of Les Reed's brilliant appointments, Eric Black, as caretaker manager until the end of the season. Black's got every team he's worked for relegated, including Villa last season when he took over as caretaker. The man who has to go is Les Reed.

I assume you are joking?

He's 65 this year so my question would be: When are you retiring? He gets great credit from some on here for good things which happened at the club in the past, but this season he is getting things very wrong, including his activity in the transfer market and his managerial and coaching appointments. It's time for him to step down gracefully and be replaced by someone younger, more in touch with modern football people and the current transfer market: someone who's still going to know what he's doing in five years' time. I think he's perceived by many football people as an arrogant, interfering old man, who'll take the credit for their work - he even tried to take some credit for Leicester's league title, saying they'd just copied the Southampton way- and that is going to put good managers and players off joining the club or even the current ones staying here.

Well, now that he has got rid of everyone on the staff who actually did a good job at the club, which is in fact just about everyone who was here, including coaches, managers, players and backroom staff, this Machiavellian old chap is now in almost total control and I don't think there's anyone who can get rid of him or even stand up to him: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/les-sacked-for-giving-turkeys-xmas-654543

He was the best midfield player in our team so if what you say is right (not that it is) what does that say about the rest of our midfielders? He is arguably now England's best midfield player. Liverpool could sell him for twice what they paid for him if they wanted to.

Dodgy refereeing decisions are always going to go the away team's way at the Northam end. The initial reaction of the crowd behind the goal has a big influence on refs in 50/50 decisions. Nearly a minute of 3,00o Spurs fans baying for blood finally made up Dean's mind to award a red card. It would be interesting to see a statistical breakdown of how many penalties and red and yellow cards go the away team's way at the Northam end. At least at the Chapel end, although there will be almost no crowd reaction at all, it doesn't favour the away team.

What would be the point of sacking Puel when Les Reed has said he chose him as the perfect fit for our club? Being cynical, I'd say that means he was an easy-going chap who would do as Les Reed wanted him to do. Ultimately, Reed did not like Pochettino and Koeman's strong personalities and independence of thought and their objections to his high turnover transfer policy. I'm not sure any manager with a strong personality would want to work for Reed now anyway. Reed is 65 next year so hopefully he will retire gracefully. Whatever he may have achieved in the past, his decision making in the last year has been poor and he seems out of touch with modern football people and the current transfer market. We need someone for the long-term future. Are we supposed to keep Reed until he's 70 or 75? I'd replace him with Paul Mitchell, our former Head of Recruitment, who was the master of the black box responsible for selecting our best players and managers. He is young and intelliegent and he will be available when he sees out his Spurs contract in a year's time.

If we'd had Wanyama, we'd have got a draw tonight. If we'd had Mane, we might even have won. Against the top teams with skilful attacking midfielders, we need a defensive midfielder who can get stuck into them, break up their play and stop them at the halfway line like Wanyama used to do. Instead we gave their midfield the freedom of the pitch, to do as they pleased. I though Puel might see that and try to put it right in the second half but I guess he just doesn't have a single midfield player left in the squad who can do that job. Up front against the top Premier League defenses, you need a striker with lightning pace and skill like Mane or great physical presence like Pelle. We haven't got those either. Our dealings in the transfer market since our head of recruitment Paul Mitchell left have really weakened the squad. We should try to get him back when he finishes his Spurs contract.

What's happened is England goalkeeping coach Dave Watson. He's turning a very good goalkeeper into a mediocre second division goalie like himself. He even managed to mess up Joe Hart's career, and as for his impact on our younger goalies... well none of them are ever going to play in the Premier League by the time he's finished with them. Get rid of Watson and Forster will be fine again.

On 20 October 2016, Nice won 1-0 away to Red Bull Salzburg in the 2016–17 UEFA Europa League. That was Nice's first-ever UEFA club competition away win, having previously gone 15 UEFA club competition away matches without a win.

I'm not claiming to be ITK

He is one of the PR boys so it sounds like Les has decided to sell Fonte in January, even if the rest of the message is spurious. We usually get all of these stories about how a player is 'spitting his dummy out ' and how his team mates will be glad to see the back of him just before he is sold. I guess we'll be hearing the same stories about van Dijk in the summer.

So this is the spin we're going to get from Les on the sale of Fonte in January, is it? He's still going to sell van Dijk as well in the summer so that excuse really doesn't wash.

Do we care? It's just another trophy we'll be resting players from.

Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo have played over 60 games a season for their whole careers. Our poor lads can't cope with more than 30 games when they are 19 and 20 so they have to be rested?

Yes, it was great to win that trophy. I'm just frustrated tonight that we didn't make more of an effort this year in the Europa League or the Football League Trophy. Why bother with the early rounds if you're going to field a weakened team in the later stages? I really hope we field a full-strength team in the League Cup semi-final. If we win that, it will be the highlight of this century for me as a Saints fan. We're also in with a shot in the FA Youth Cup. I'd like to see us win that too. But any trophy would be great. We should target the easier trophies to win and build the winning habit from there.

We are Southampton. We don't care about winning trophies so we never win them. Reading fielded 6 players who've played for their first team this season and only 2 of their Academy players; we fielded our U18 team. Whenever we get anywhere within sight of a trophy, we field a weakened team. Reading have won 2 Championship trophies in the last 10 years and they clearly intend to get to Wembley and add this cup to their trophy cabinet as well. if we'd fielded Sims, Reed and McCarthy tonight or even our U21 team, we'd have won. At least we won the Premier League Cup this century. I'll always remember that.

This season should see out 13th top 8 finish so it's nothing particularly unusual. I think our average finishing position in our 40 years in the top flight is 11th. This season will also see our 14th major cup semi-final, again not so unusual. What is unusual compared to other clubs which get crowds of our size, is the lack of trophies. We have massively underachieved in terms of trophies won, even compared to Portsmouth, which is a smaller club. Maybe we've just been unlucky but it's nothing to do with being small and unable to compete. That is just defeatist talk from same fans who come out with the 'we should know our place' line and be ever so 'umble, perhaps so they don't feel disappointed again when we fall at the final hurdle. Maybe the lack of expectation from our fans and club owners is one factor in why we have underachieved.