Bit of a plonker

Steve Cooper is standout for me. Did great at Forest and Swansea, prem experience, got a team promoted from Championship, out of work, unlucky to be let go from Leicester and probably right level manager for us. Think we would probably be attractive for him as well and doesn’t have any baggage

What really gets to me with Saints is that the opposition are beating us at 80% effort, we are so easy to play against. Without the ball we don’t tackle, hustle, close down space. With the ball, we are sideways and backwards then hope a winger will beat a man to put a cross onto a midget forwards head. Ipswich didn’t need to break sweat to beat us. That should never happen

My first game of the season and went with an Ipswich fan. My thoughts, make THB captain, he was the only one who looked like he was trying to organise anything. Play Charles in midfield, where he is meant to be. Try to play forward and get behind teams, we didn’t manage that once all night. Put some fucking tackles in… nothing I hate more than watching average teams take the piss out of us without actually having to do anything. My mates thoughts, he never felt nervous once that we were going to get back into it. Heads dropped as soon as the goal went in.

Didn’t we loan Cedric to Arsenal until the end of his contract or am I not remembering correctly?

I don’t know about Ryan Fraser but the levels of Dad’s Army “We’re Doomed” Fraser on here is nuts!! We have 7 points, are unbeaten in the league, have shifted a large part of a bloated squad, got great values for those that have left and appear to be treading a path that other successful Championship teams have used (Forest promotion, Burnley promotion, Sheff Utd promotion) experience coming in (“when will we learn from only signing unproven kids”). I am excited for the season ahead, winning matches, playing better football and being competitive. Bring it on.

N'Lundulu impressed me last night, never seen him play before. His hold up play was strong and the way he made and took his goal was very impressive. Also gets involved and is not bullied, think he has a lot of potential. Reminds me of Tammy Abraham. FGR is my local club, quite often go there, really nice club.

One of my all too rare visits and the most enjoyable for a long time. Northam was fantastic, voice was hoarse next day. Hats off to all you regular in there, fantastic effort. Redmond always dangerous, Sims a bit iffy for me, can be exciting and direct, can be a bit too easily knocked off the ball, although Boly is a bit of a beast in comparison to him. Ings looked a bit off the pace for me, but he is clearly got great awareness, brings others in, great assist for Redmond's second. Thought Long came on at right time and was threatening, and looked the player you would want Long to be. Also Romeu played well and steadied us down and bought control. Those substitutions changed course of the game. Wish we could cut out the tendency to play ourselves into trouble, and first half especially, Wolves played brilliant one touch football to get in behind Valery and to the side of Bednarek - they should have scored more from that as we were all over the place at that time. Hojberg could become my favourite player, if I am allowed one at my age! Hassenhutl, what a manager! Everything that we need in a manager, tactically aware, improves players, trusts youth and passionate. If he was manager somewhere else, he would get right on my tits, much like Klopp does. But for us, perfect.

What are you expecting him to say? You cut out the massive amounts of bull**** and drivel, then he is effectively saying that they are not happy with results, they need to change things, first change made, review going on, we need people who understand football. He even said that they can act (buy) in January if they need to (obviously it took a few more paragraphs, but it was hidden in there). However, if he is setting direction, it is easy to see how people could get lost following it.

Really positive, been obvious for quite a while that the club has lost its mojo, and hopefully this is the first step in finding it again. Sets a tone throughout that we are not going to accept mediocrity and that there should be consequences for not meeting the levels that individuals need to attain.

A successful organisation has a single strategy that is the focus of the whole organisation, not applied differently at different levels. That strategy is set by the leadership, and I would assume in our case, ownership. The strategy that we had, that Les called "The Southampton Way", was successful for a period of time, from League 1 up until 2 years ago. And I know Les was not here all that time. But during and since that take over, and I suspect in the build up to that, when Kat decided she wanted to sell, it has gone, leaving us with a ridiculous looking hashtag, along with WeMarchOn. March On we do, but not to a place that we would want to march on to. If we carry on at this rate, next season we can look forward to a day marching on to Portsmouth.

I genuinely believe football would be better if the Top 6 all fooked off into a European Super League orgasmafest. In terms of players, there would be no difference, except more will have he chance to compete for medals, which should (I know) motivate them. All of the rest of us teams will still have our players poached, they will all still want to leave if a bigger club comes calling offering mega money, but for those of us left, we will have the chance to compete. There would also be some great teams to come up from the Championship who would add real value and competition to a competitive top league. I don't really see a downside.

But I think this highlights what is wrong inside the club. Looking at those players, Elyonoussi (highly rated, good champions league experience), Armstrong, Lemina, Boufal, Gabbiadini, Redmond, Hojberg, all have talent and all have the ability to play at no worse than mid table premier league level, and should be better than scraping for survival. Add Ings into that. You have 8 outfield players who should form the nucleus of a decent attacking squad which can compete better than we are. Is Elyonoussi worse than David Brooks or Ryan Fraser? Lemina and Hojberg worse than the central midfield at Brighton or Burnley? Would Ings get a game at Watford or Palace? Obviously, something is happening, under a succession of managers, which is meaning that is not happening. Something larger is wrong at the club. I think it is mentality. I had thought it had started with Puel, who changed the way we played and we became dour, boring and negative, and was obviously continued by the muppet last year. But it must go deeper than that.

If going for a bit of Iron Maiden, got to be Phantom of the Opera. Left field, Don't let me down gently by the Wonder Stuff

I went to the game. He started brightly for first 20 mins or so, but I was generally disappointed in his performance, especially against a really poor Hull team. He didn't really beat anyone or get any decent delivery into the box, and kind of drifted. But at least he did get game time, and judging by the comments by the Reading fans around, he seems to be a bit of a favourite there in general.

All of the new signings showed real promise for us, especially Vestergaard who was very assured. Lemina looked good, he plays a bit more on the edge to try to make things happen, but that does mean he will make mistakes. Stephens is not good enough for RB cover, he was a fish out of water when he was high up the pitch wide right. Ings looked like he loved being on the pitch. I hope he scores goals, because the rest of his play was very bright and he could prove to be a bargain. Need Yoshi back into defence. Not convinced by McCarthy. He made 1 good save, from lennon I think it was in teh first half, but the rest were pretty standard saves, the type you would expect him to make. Thought his distribution put us in trouble on more than one occasion. Glad we have good competition in goal.

If he scores 10-15 goals this season, will look like a tremendous piece of business by us. His purchase price will look as cheap as chips.

Based on blind faith over logic, I think we will win on Sunday, no worse than a draw. Stupid really, but mid 40's and still get excited for the start of a new season, despite the club doing their very best to temper expectations!

City win title, Liverpool finish close second in exciting race that has pundits proclaiming the premier league to be the bestest league in the world ever. Despite 14 teams playing drab football desperately trying to avoid relegation. 2 of he 3 promoted sides survive. Cardiff get relegated but surprise the league with a fantastic team goal comprising 5 passes, including an 80 yard hoof from the keeper. Saints finish 16th with Forster being the hero of the hour, scoring 5 goals in the last 6 matches in his new position of big lump up the front. He ends up top scorer and a recall to the england squad. Gao makes a Saints related statement. Unfortunately it is that we have tripled our Chinese based Saints support, as Nelly has triplets. 3 english teams make the champions league semi finals. Barcelona win the competition. Southgate gets sacked from England job after losing 4 League of Nations (or whatever it is called, maybe it is Games of Thrones) games against Croatia and Spain. Sales of waistcoats plummet and people, including ladies, start shaving again. Beyond the world of sport, Britain crashes out of the EU without a deal and much to everyones amazement, everything goes swimmingly well. OK, people lose jobs, prices get more expensive and there is social disorder, but the sense of community fostered is quite terrific as finally the country is united around fires in streets with pitchforks in hands. Quick note to the entrepreneurially minded, start a pitchfork business now. I only ask for 15% share of the profits.

Wilshere would be good for us, would certainly improve the first team, which is what this summers transfers should be about. Would be surprised if we got him though.

Shame to miss out, but re-assuring that we are putting good bids in for decent players

Shilton Golac Wright Toby Dennis Williams Morgan Armstrong Le Tiss Shearer Danny Wallace All in their Saints best - Shearer was good enough even at that age to be worth a place.

That's impressive work. My wish list would be to sell; Clasie (not sure what fee we could get - maybe £5m) Davis (perhaps deserves to go out on a free transfer or nominal fee) Carillo (erm... help?) Forster (£10-15m - he is English) McQueen (£3-5m maybe) Boufal (£15-20m) Gallagher (£5-10m - is that overly ambitious?) Loan out; Reed Seager Barnes Rose Flannigan To free up space for 2 strong CB's, target man and 2 good wingers/attacking midfielders.

Why does the board find it so bloody difficult to start the summer of with strong in a positive manner? We had a chance this year to move forward in a positive manner, a positive statement by getting Hughes signed on a contract. Keeping his team in place, who had a transformational affect on the team performances, if not all results. In a summer where it should be obvious that there will be player comings and goings, when the transfer window is already open, and when it closes early, when we are not even encumbered by a significant number of players away at the world cup, so hopefully can get them all in for the start of pre-season and start the new season with a bang, we faff about. I hope the appointment is confirmed tomorrow, we really need to get this done quickly. Comparisons with dates that previous managers signed contracts are absolutely meaningless. We need to show intent, as much to show that there is a change of attitude at the club, lessons have been learnt, and the **** ups of the last 2 seasons have been put behind us.

I understand the aim, I am just not convinced that there is a plan to make Southampton the big winners in any increase in commercial income from China specifically. Football in general is bigger, the premier league is getting bigger in China, and the size of the commercial deals that the premier league gets from China, and other emerging markets, gets larger. But that money goes to the premier league, and through them, is distributed to all clubs. We will have as much exposure as the other 19 premier league clubs. There is a chance we may get more, due to the ownership. But if our football is crap, football fans will still switch off if they are watching a crap match, even if the team is Chinese owned. Plenty of teams have already been over, done pre-season, even mid-season tours in China. We just seem to be doing the same as others, and hoping for better results. Obviously, I have no proof either way, just waffle on a forum, but from the few public statements we have, I can't see us doing anything different to anyone else that will give us any competitve advantage.

I agree, we are small compared to City, Utd etc.. But we are not small compared to Burnley, Leicester, Everton, West Ham and the rest of the league. And I don't think anyone wants us to go gung-ho in the search for a sporting nirvana that is ultimately unobtainable for us, bad memories are all too fresh. Leeds have never recovered from their attempts to get there. But for our chairman to describe us as small is wrong and self limiting.