Giordano

I think the most likely are: KD, GDP, RC and BS. All would get into Readings first team in the CCC and know what is needed to get promoted. KD was number 1 goalie in the CC championship team of the year - i know he just signed a new contract but that just means we get a fee for him- and he gets to play every week instead of getting splinters waiting for Boruc to get injured, GDP scored 11 in the CCC last year and dominated many otherwise compact CC defences with his physicality, speed and technical skills, plus he has flexibility to pay different roles which is always a good attribute for the manager, whilst for the early part of last season Chappie was our most effective midfielder, meaning he was one of the best of not the best midfielder of his type in the League. Billy Sharp is Billy Sharp- with the right service he will score goals at CCC level. Those are the four who in my opinion would get playing time under NA at Reading in the CCC. I dont see him buying "maybe" players, they will want to bounce right back with a strong squad added to by a couple or three marquee signings( ours are not marquee signings- they are incredibly solid and guaranteed to do a good job for you in the ccc signings) from outside..

I never let off a smoke bomb on the terraces but I have to say they do look pretty cool on the TV when ive seen them in Italy Turkey etc. I still have am amazing mental image of what it was like that time in Rumania in the rain and wondered why we cant get that kind of atmosphere and of course its all to do with Elfnsafety. Which is fair enough. I'm not supporting unsafe activity on the terraces but I must admit i do know what its like to be there supporting the team and I can imagine its a right buzz having one of those going off around you when Saints score and stuff like that.A right buzz. Especially if you've had a few beers. So- you can be elfnsafety and condemn it if you like- and i will agree- but hopefully you can understand why it happened, how it happens and realise that this kind of stuff will AlWAYS happen when you get a bunch of lads hyped up at an away trip. Its not safe its bad for kids its all that stuff- but its also part and parcel of what makes up our most vocal loyalsupport. You probably cannot have one without the other.

Most Saints fans apprehensions and desire for the start of the January transfer window opening were born from our rubbish start to the season and form in September/October/November. We looked at the Jan window as some kind of last-chance to salvage the season by splashing the cash. The more we got trounced the higher the number of players we needed. As you will recall after c.10 games the consensus was we needed two goalkeepers, two centrebacks, a left back, a winger and a holding midfielder. And possibly another striker. The last 12-14 matches is a different story. Based upon THAT form we DON'T need ANY goalkeepers ( Boruc is a starter and Davies is back up), we got one CB (Forren) and we DON'T need another (cos Maya, Jose and Jos have improved), We DON'T need a left back (cos Shaw has emerged and fox is his back up), We DON'T need another holding Midfielder(cos Cork is back from injury and Davies is back up) and frankly between Mayuka SDR and Tadanari Lee we have wing play options, pace and goal-scoring potential a plenty - albeit unfulfilled. The position we are exposed in is, to me, creative attacking midfield / inside forward (for old timers) and an absolute like for like replacement should SRL get injured. For the first i can see why we are looking at coutinho/zarate types - if Ads stays injured for much longer and Ramirez only lasts 75 minutes we are struggling..For the second- its very obvious but it strikes me if rickie gets injured we may also struggle somewhat as none of the others can do exactly what he does. I'd say Jrod would get first dibs but then we might need to change system if it did not work and we'd look a bit impotent up front. So it leaves us looking for a creative flair player for me and possibly a striker. Dark horse is an upgraded holding mf instead of Davies.

reasonable justification I suppose. They been a yo-yo club up until about 13-14 years ago so maybe they just should be a few places lower. btw. haynes, mullery, moore, best, marsh, saha, dempsey, dembele, intertoto cup winners, europa cup finalists off the top of my head. And Micheal Jackson, lol.

Having laughed at the number of times this has cropped up i thought I'd put some input towards this pointless yet ongoing debate about who is "bigger" than who. Here is my list - my own list from my own personal reasons, no explanation given, and as of today. 1. Man United 2. Liverpool 3. Chelsea 4. Man City 5. Arsenal 6. Spurs 7. Everton 8. Aston Villa 9. Newcastle 10.West Ham 11.Sunderland 12 Southampton 13.Fulham 14 West Brom 15.Stoke 16.QPR 17.Norwich 18.Swansea 19 Wigan 20.Reading Probably got a few wrong, not much in it between Sunderland and us really and Fulham is a debate i suppose - but we are def "bigger" than West brom, norwich qpr stoke reading swansea i reckon. Sorry but WHUFC are bigger than us imo and the others there no debate. :-)

http://www.whoscored.com/Statistics This site rates all european players stats by game and then produces a table. From it it shows who the highest rated saints players are, in order, relative to the rest of europe. No surprises in the top ten ( apart from ronaldo is only rated 4th best after messi, ribery and pirlo ) but here the saints players in the top 1421: 1.number 260 overall is : Adam Lallana avg 7.11 2.number 297 overall is : Rickie Lambert avg 7.08 3.number 304 overall is : Morgan avg 7.07 4. 405 :Gaston avg 6.99 5. 427 : JP avg 6.98 6. 471 : Maya Yoshida avg 6.96 7.number 501 overall is : Luke Shaw avg 6.94 8.number 632 overall is : Jack Cork avg 6.86 9.number 684 overall is : Jose Fonte avg 6.83 10. 934 : Nat Clyne avg 6.7 11. 1121 : Jos Hooiveld avg 6.56 12. 1283 : S Davies avg 6.43 13. 1328 : Fox avg 6.36 14. 1357 overall is : Guly avg 6.31 15.number 1378 overall is : Jrod avg 6.27 Only players with total appearances greater than the average number of appearances across the top 5 leagues are displayed. Interesting stuff.

Haha Steve.....Saintslist has always been the equivalent of a Broadsheet paper group compared to the more (imo) tabloid-like Saintsforever and Saints Web forum...there are fewer total loony-tunes per 100 on Saintslist than here and the average age and general demographic is probably different. The quality of reasoned argument debate is usually higher and generally less personalized and, it appears to have had troll inoculations so you can get a sensible answer to a sensible post most times. As for the Guardian blog article- makes some good points.

Its a lot better than arry coming in and basically saying the team is rubbish and we've no chance really. MP is right to say he thinks teh current team is strong. If he said otherwise would reveal him as an idiot. He avoided lots of bear traps in his interviews very skilfully. He's not stupid.

Very unhappy at that. Disgusted and angry. I thought NigeL could build and build and build and was doing so. Cortese just scored the biggest own goal of all time. QPR, Reading, Villa and Wigan will be DELIGHTED. sICK,.

Depends on injuries. If Cole were to sustain a bad injury ditto Baines I'm sure Luke would get a look in the next WC. Clyne must be there or thereabouts too. If Rooney/Wellbeck get injured same for SRL. Scoring from the bench against City and now Chelsea is VERY good news for SRL and for Roy- as SRL is showing that he CAN be an impact from the bench goalscorer which is an attribute Roy might value highly from a squad striker. He does have the extra benefit of not missing penalties which has been something of a Achilles heel for us too! As for Cork- hes putting himself in contention for the holding mf role currently occupied by Carrick...injury to Carrick and Cork might get his chance- he certainly did ok in the olympics when he came on in that role. As for Puncheon- he keeps scoring who knows... but he must be ahead of the likes of Downing, Joe Cole,etc.

My thoughts are: Forren can be used to smoke out Astori if he sees he could miss out on a bumper EPl pay packet - he will put pressure on Cagliari - but by the same token whats to say BOTH are not suitable, at the same time. Three international centre backs plus Fonte and Jos is good. If we get both i can see Jos being retired to somewhere else though. The good thing about Norwegians is that they are well educated so English speaking is not a problem- Astori is 26 and might need a bit of time. At 1/3v the price of Astori he looks decent value for a 24yr old young International CB. Has anyone mentioned Claus yet though? :-)

So Molde is training with Liverpool who might unload 22yr old Uruguyan international 6FT 5" CB Sebastian Coates on a loan by consequence. I wonder if there is a team needing an emergency CB, which coincidentally also has a Uruguyan connection, that can immediately put him in the team because he has relevant EPL experience that he could go to then....maybe a team with a mate of his already there that he played in the same team as in the Olympic footie...hmmmm.

Well done - I just saw that. Hilarious on this site his choice of evenings cinema entertainment is misunderstood as referring to a transfer deal. He is tweeting a bit recently but strikes me as too canny to let any info slip out. The Sardignians would have his guts for garters if he did- and he knows it. Respect and all that. I like the sound of him.

I agree with the OP. Good post. We have had to learn quick, but we are certainly learning lessons. We have had to take risks and some have not worked ( the goalies, the lack of cb cover) but others are working (Clyne, Shaw, Maya) and we may just be about to see the potential turn into reality of players like Punch, Jrod and Ramirez. All in all, about as good as i could expect. I also admit I enjoy Nigel's smiley almost p taking interviews post match. His positivity and desire to support his players is great - and his style of talking is so funny it cracks me up at times. If he can keep us up and then push on. I think he may be a future England + Liverpool Manager one day. Or get a UK tour filling stadia like Dara O'Brien or Micheal Macintyre. Incidentally, on the subject of "controversial" posters here. I think i used to be one many years ago when it was called something else, Saintsforever that's it. I'm a bit too bored of it now to renter the game, though this post is a tiny exception. Some of the funniest posters here though remind me of ex colleagues who lived in a micro-world of their own, immune to criticism, immune to "conventionality" immune to the secret mind control rays emitted by the media and society in general that make us think act talk all the same, indeed criticism spurred them on because it was confirmation of what they already "knew" about themselves and the world. Its not so rare as people think. But it can be tiresome for "straight" posters trying to understand wtf a thread is all about once its been influenced by the funny ones. If you are one of the subversive (aka funny) influences here though it can be very fulfilling and quite a hoot though. A good practical advice suggestion is every now and again put some "straight" and "normal" sounding input towards a thread, then when you come up with your off-message stuff its even more effective. I note a number of the seasoned pro's do that already but for up and coming posters its a useful tip.

BUT would you swop him for SRL plus £4-£5M say? SRL can get to play in the CL - surely he deserves that and is a perfect replacement for Celtic if they lose Hooper. Everyone happy, SRL gets a champions league experience, a scottish champions medal or two no doubt and adored by millions of Celtic fans worldwide - a nice final chapter to his career, whilst we get Hooper and let him loose on the EPL! If we lost Rickie to anyone I wouldnt mind it being Celtic. He deserves some winners medals. I can see Norwich offering Holt to Celtic in the same vein...

The voice of experience. A point at Villa Park is always a good point. There home record is sketchy this season but all the same, avoiding defeat there is almost as good as a win frankly. We all hope nay expect nay demand all three points but if we get caned 3-0 its still not the end of the season. A hard-fought draw, picking up another away point is another brick in the foundation of team confidence to play anyone anywhere in this league and be competitive, especially after the nonsense of Chelsea which was certainly a set back considering the likes of Swansea can go win 2-0 at their place a few days later. Not losing away at Villa saturday will be a good result for me.

Morgan will skipper if no Fonte, Ads or KD in goal. I think it has to be him instead of SD, RL or Cork. He is an articulate, thoughtful and intelligent footballer.

If i recall correctly, Wesley Schneider is on something like $200,000 a week at Inter, but is not playing. If AL is going to be out a while, and as a short term til end of season loan do you think a cheeky bid to pay a quarter or a half his wages for six months plus a little bonus if we stay up could get him off Inters hands for a while but give him the EPL stage to show hes still got it? Would cost us maybe £3m over that time but we should sell out everywhere and he would surely shine in england. Worth a punt? It might be time to mix it up a bit with such a high profile loanee ( unlike that hopeless spurs kid last year), and they don't get much higher than WS.

Incidentally this would double or possibly treble his current wage, he is on $1m per year at Cagliari - not sure if that is net or gross though, if its gross our $2m net deal would be a 300% increase. For three years. What's not to like? If someone came up to you and said - go play football in England for 3 years and we will treble your money, guaranteed, would you say- but are you Liverpool? You'd say, where do i sign. Nobody is going to pay him that in Italy right now, but if Liverpool match our offer its a different matter. Wages surely not a problem and surely £9.5m isnt a problem either given what they spent on Sturridge...all to play for, and of course there's the ruskies.....its not over by a long way, but if we get him, like Ramirez, he ain't a benchwarmer, has to start, along with Coutinho of course :-)

The contract termination clause is a new one for me. I did not know for certain that it existed for ramirez but apparently the same deal is being offered for astori. It sounds to me that there is a relegation clause which allows us to cancel the contract and sell him for what we paid if we get relegated, but is it? And why is that so good? The Italian paper regards that as an "ingenious" clause but i don't really understand whats so ingenious about it. If we go down Astori and Ramirez are unlikely to want to play ccc football, so i am assuming that this ingenious clause is nothing more or less than the same thing that Demba Ba had- ie if we get a bid equal to what we paid for those players then that triggers an access clause so they are allowed to talk to the other club. Is that anybody else's translation / understanding of the last part?

For me: First would be Luke Shaw - from nowhere to certain starter at left back and coveted by the top 4 even more now he has shown he CAN play in the EPL. Second would be Morgan and Cork equally, both showing consistent class and ability at EPL level. Third would be Puncheon - most improved player for sure. Fourth would be Yoshida and Clyne, progressively improving.

In response to the original question the answer is NO, we are not a better side without Lallana. AL is one of our best players. The side (if you mean the first team squad on matchday) is weaker without him. Take AL away for SFC and we are weakened, for sure. So, prima facia, the answer is NO. I understand your underlying point though, and it might actually be a "better" team overall if AL was not playing, at certain times, depending on a number of variables The variables are mainly: 1. What formation NA wants us to play. 2. Who we are playing. 3. State of injuries in the squad. 4. Playing at home or away. Everyone who said that Guly has provided more cover for LS recently than AL had done previously are correct up to a point, but its an obvious and not necessarily accurate observation from which to draw the conclusion that we should play without AL more often - the formations adopted by NA and his instructions to Guly and AL are much more relevant frankly. I'm fairly certain NA tells AL to "make something happen" whereas he is more likely to say that to Guly but also tinged with " but don't forget your defensive responsibilities". Frankly i don't think either are all that good at the defensive side of things but of the two id have to say Guly is better than Adam - basically because he's bigger,stronger and faster. Adam is smarter and has better vision and composure final third and obviously ball skills but on the defensive side- Guly wins. If we are likely to be doing a lot more defending than attacking there is a fair case for Guly ahead of Adam.

yes please - you have a pm.

Its something of a sweeping generalization and a very easy stereotypical comment to make I know, but anyone who can and does play CB for Italy (recently Euro finalists lest we forget)whilst playing for a low ranked Seria A team like Cagliari has GOT to be something a cut above what we have at SMS. In fact he should be a cut above most of the EPL centre-backs. Whoever compared him to a Cahill or a Jagielka was not far off the mark in terms of his provenance and relative abilities. IF we were so LUCKY that he chose us above Everton or other clubs interested it would be another absolute coup for us. Astori would cost at least double if he was English, ie £15-18M. He cost Cagliari $7million in total ( plus fees im sure) so anything over that probably is a good result for Cagliari though they reputedly turned down $15min in June for him- though im dubious myself that this is totally accurate. Being cynical i'd have thought if he was going to be sold by "cash-strapped" Cagliari it would be to the russian outfit - not us - and even then to an Everton not bottom three Southampton - unless NC does a Ramirez and the Italian and Italian speaking connection counts for something and Cagliari they get more dosh up front than is the norm. Bottom line- A current, 24 year old Italian International Centre - back to join Saints? You have got to be effing kidding me, but then again, Uruguay's number 10 for a team WR number 2 in June 2012 plays with us so whats unrealistioc and whats not. As far as i can see EVERY player in Seria A is for sale to the EPL at the right price- Pato, Robinho, Zarate ....

He was'nt totally useless despite popular legend. He certainly could not jump, or tackle or even run like a pro footballer so he was certainly out of his depth and he looked like he was breathing out of his arse and completely f8cked after 10 minutes ( which to be fair if any non pro footballer went on the pitch at this level would be too) BUT he did have one half chance which most of us went "oooh" to, towards the MR end which, if it had gone in, would have been an immortal moment! Its one of my favourite Saints recollections..."I was there when Ali Dia played for Saints"...:-)