qwertyell

Think their young right back who was having a bit of a breakthrough season has picked up a bad knee injury on international duty. Shame for the lad, but potentially disrupts their settled defence. Another blank incoming then...

Henderson was left out initially because he wasn't fit. Prowse has no-one to blame but himself if he misses out - he's been shite all season without Romeu to carry him.

Said at the time that Delap wouldn't be the starting striker we needed. Ridiculous that we spent most of the summer seemingly putting all our eggs into pursuing a striker without a single league goal to his name, before abandoning that plan and then going all in on a winger who never even wanted to join us.

Come on, they were really good for about 20 minutes of the second half of that game against the Dutch at Euro 96.

Unless those four defenders play for Saints.

He's just Shane Long without the pace or aerial ability. Doubt there's much more to come from him in terms of development. The fact that he's become our main striker is a damning indictment of the entire club.

Wouldn't even get that. "... same every year. No-one has ever caught the cheese. I mean, what would they do with it anyway? Who wants a muddy cheese...? And finally... Southampton are in the market for a new manager... (Holds finger to ear) Hang on a minute! A big cheese update at the top of the hour, after the break."

Eddie Izzard ran 32 marathons in 31 days. Doesn't mean he isn't slow as shit and easily outmanoeuvred in the midfield.

Think the Juventus job will come up soon. Allegri's second coming has been rotten.

Based on nothing but a search on transfermarkt and a vague yet baseless feeling of some types that might interest us: Dejan Stankovic. (Excellent player in his day). Serbian. Last club Red Star. Domenico Tedesco. Seems to have been earmarked as a bright young coach (age 37) for a while, without an amazing record under his belt. Last club Leipzig. Vladamir Petkovic. Experienced coach who managed an excellent Euro campaign for the Swiss 18 months back. Paulo Sousa. A name that often comes up. Available. Xisco Munoz. Got Watford promoted. Then, in classic Watford style, got sacked a few games into the next season. Scott Parker. People within the game seem to think he's a really talented coach destined for great things. David Wagner. Was the high-pressing, Klopp-esque hipsters' choice a few seasons ago. Frankly performed miracles with Huddersfield. Pal Dardai. Another hipsters' choice from back in the day. Xabi Alonso. Out of left field. An aspiring manager - only managed Sociedad B - but you've got to start somewhere. His intelligence and playing experience in a number of countries under great coaches would, you'd think, give him a shot at becoming a good manager. Sean Dyche. You know it's going to happen. Mauricio Pochettino. You know it's not going to happen. Assuming we're prepared to pay a little compensation to snag a manager in work: Jess Thorup. FC Copenhagen manager. Danish. Reunite him with Ruben Selles. How much compensation would Danish clubs really demand? Contract until 2024. Thomas Thomasberg. Danish. Doing great things with FC Randers this season - top, unbeaten, after 10 games. Then there's these beauties out of work: Claude Puel Mauricio Pellegrino And everyone's favourite, Martin O'Neill. (Should add, I don't think the club are going to sack Hassenhuttl anytime soon. The World Cup break will be the likeliest time to take stock.)

He was pretty strongly linked to Man United when it was reported that we'd "won the race" for his signature. Perhaps having seen us sign a 17 and 18 year old left back in the last two summers he's had a rethink and doesn't see a pathway here for a 16 year old left back.

Terrible from start to finish. Although to begin with a solitary positive, the kid Larios looked game. Physically, he's got a lot of developing to do, but he's brave, pretty quick, and tidy on the ball. The rest of the side were a fucking joke. They had no idea how they were even going to get into the opposition third, let alone create chances. Backwards, backwards, hoof - rinse and repeat. Elyounoussi will rightly get hammered for his consistent crapness, but in terms of what we should expect from our captain, "talisman", and best player, Ward-Prowse was appalling. An absolute chicken shit of a performance: didn't want the ball, didn't take any responsibility, just passed the buck (backwards), on the rare occasions he wasn't completely bypassed by the game. He's not going to the World Cup on current form - and he'll have no-one else to blame of he misses out on another tournament squad. Selling Romeu when we knew Lavia had a bad injury will prove to be one of the dumbest decisions we've ever made. There's absolutely nothing there in midfield now. No physicality. No tackles. No aggression. Nothing. Maitland-Niles won't provide that either - just in case anyone is trying to convince themselves that he's the answer. That's not his game. Don't rate the keeper at all. Hasn't made anything other than straightforward bread and butter saves - and has fucked two of them up in the last two games. 4 defeats in 7. No goals in 3 of 7. No clean sheets. And the football is garbage. Going to be a big January, I guess...

Fuck me, Ward-Prowse losing the ball on a counter attack because his first thought is to pass backwards. Useless.

Dire. No quality. No intensity. No hope. The Ward-Prowse/Diallo axis continue their record of being overrun and overpowered EVERY SINGLE TIME they play as a partnership. Usual vanishing act from Elyounoussi. This "upgrade on McCarthy" is nothing remotely special, either. Don't get the hype. His distribution is crap as well Aston Villa are absolutely shite. And comfortable against our rabble. Another toothless defeat on the cards.

Couldn't give him away so gave him a new contract instead. Rather him than Walcott, to be fair. No Salisu news, then...

I don't think he's the kind of player some people seem to think he is. As a replacement for Lavia, he doesn't have the ball winning ability. He'd just be a like for like swap with Diallo - a good athlete who is pretty average on the ball but a willing runner. After letting Romeu go, we have noone else in the squad who can play the holding role aside from Lavia. Wouldn't surprise me if - out of desperation - we see Lyanco have a go at it at some point. Villa won't find our lightweight midfield much of an obstacle to get past, IMHO.

Burnout probably. Their pressing game for the last five or so seasons has been immense. We can't keep it up over the course of one 38 game season - they've been playing 60+ games a year. I also think you're going to see a lot of top sides attempting to get by doing the bare minimum through the first half of the season. Players don't want to get injured before the World Cup, subconsciously or otherwise.

"The grass is not always greener." Have you seen our pitch?

Thought Ryan Finnigan was rated as a midfield prospect - made his first team debut against Shrewsbury in the FA Cup in 2021. And Jack Turner is supposed to be decent. Never heard anything about Bragg. Lewis Payne, also training with the first team, can play in midfield too FWIW.

Not sure. Alexander Isak left Dortmund after a rough time to join Sociedad with a buy back clause inserted into his contract, but when Dortmund were rumoured to be planning to exercise it, he made it clear he had no intention of returning - ever. The two clubs reached an agreement to remove the £30m clause for about a £5m settlement.

Don't think he's ready. Still got a boy's physique. No chance he can play a lone striker in men's football. He'll get eaten alive.

I think I read City's buy back clause isn't active until after two seasons, but they have a first refusal option in the meantime - if, say, a club makes us a tempting offer in the summer, City are given the opportunity to match the offer and agree terms with the player ahead of anyone else. Who knows the precise details? I suspect we'll find out sooner rather than later - if Lavia continues to play at the level he's shown so far, his stay here is going to be extremely brief.

A starting striker was priority number one and we failed - the most important player in the team, and we're stuck with Adams and Armstrong, who the manager has historically not rated at all. Letting Romeu go when we knew Lavia was injured isn't the smartest thing we've ever done either. No-one else in the senior squad can fill the physical, ball winning role in the centre of the park. How can they have not noted that Diallo and Ward-Prowse as a pair are lightweight and defensively hopeless? They've failed to work as a partnership literally every time. Who thought today would be different? Lots of promising incomings, but some glaring gaps in key positions remain - and to have ignored them this long is pretty negligent.

Maitland-Niles is no more a ball winning, physical defensive midfielder than anyone else in the squad. Selling Romeu when we knew our only other alternative in that role was quite seriously injured won't prove be a masterstroke. Still not convinced by Bazunu. Seems very small in the goal and easy to beat - don't think he's made anything more than regulation saves for us so far. Nothing McCarthy wouldn't have. Take a point here.

Very successful in refreshing a stale squad headed out of the division with some pretty exciting but mostly unproven talent. They've already added energy and spirit that was in short supply during last season's appalling run in. Priority one, though, was a starting striker, and we objectively fucked that. There might be a bit of revisionism after Adams scored his first goals since February, but the manager didn't really rate him - and he absolutely didn't rate Armstrong. We'd have listened to bids for both. And yet they're now our starting front line. Our striker chase - at least that was reported on - was pretty weird all in all. Apparently, we had a bid in for Broja all this time, yet whenever the manager spoke publicly about him, he wasn't exactly gushing in his assessments. As wooing goes, it was pretty cold. And then we went all in on a striker who has never scored a league goal and is currently shooting blanks in the championship. Yet, we were going to break our record transfer fee for him - presumably installing him as our number one goal getter. And then it was onto Ramos at Benfica, which never sounded real and we'll probably never hear about it again. Then we seemingly abandoned all hope of "priority one" and threw all our eggs into the basket of a winger who didn't really want to join us. And didn't. No-one can say a transfer window under our new ownership is boring, I guess. Look forward to more madness in January.