Football Special

The January when we signed Pellegrino's mate Guido Carillo before shortly after sacking Pellegrino was another odd one. Monaco really did laugh all the way to the bank

Leicester always wriggle out of it. No doubt will adjust their financial year for accounting purposes if needed

It's a compelling argument and both windows reflect badly on the board. Complete lack of strategy and poor decision making. Selling Alan Shearer for a British record fee and replacing him with Dixon and Speedie was a bad one.

Don't forget the win v SWANSEA

Qpr fans rate him highly and hope he can be signed permanently , seems could be a good option next season if we can fit him into side

I agree but you know how this corporate bollocks works, they'll use the low attendance to justify closing the Kingsland again next time as smaller crowd showed there wasn't demand for it

Brilliant win for the u18s in FA Youth Cup tonight at home to Derby, away to Watford or Spurs in the 1/4 final

Just seen they won 1-0 tonight v Oxford, that's 9 goals conceded in 31 league games, incredible, I can't recall a record like it

At non-league level a significant cup run and paying customers can make a real difference to the survival of a club and I completely understand that, however with Saints we're guaranteed £100M+ from tv alone and have an opportunity to use this game to give something back to a fan base sitting through the worst season in our history (points wise) just take a leaf out of Prestons book and fill the ground as much as possible with the next generation , nice touch charging the Grandads and Grandma's a fiver as well

There's actually very few general admission seats in Itchen Centre as sections of blocks 5 - 9 are hospitality , it certainly limits the options. Makes the decision to close the Kingsland even more ridiculous , all for the vanity of trying to make the stadium look busier for the tv cameras. Kingsland won't be opening as no chance other areas will sell out. Plenty of availability in Saints Bar hospitality Itchen centre but who wants to pay those prices 🤷🏻‍♂️

Seems plausible based on Juric comments, if there was a clique close to Russ perhaps they are not enjoying the change of culture. Shame as I liked Downes , but even his move did seem odd where Martin implied he needed a lot of persuasion, needs to get his head down and put some decent performances in.

Listening to the Burnley fan on Total Saints Podcast, expect 11 changes from them with midweek games tonight and next week making the Cup game low priority amongst their promotion push, incredibly they have had TEN 0-0 draws already this season. Ticket sales still look poor, likely attendance about 14k, really should have taken an approach like Preston who have made it a tenner for adults, kids for a quid in their tie against Wycombe , shows it can be done

Was talking to another parent at my kids football training who has been a regular at Saints ladies games, interesting perception that ambitions for the side seem to have been downgraded and club not prepared to spend to keep better players and no realistic aim to reach top flight. This Echo article seems to back that up, although other sides like Durham and London City Lionnesses who aren't affiliated with men's teams (?) are still managing to compete. https://www.dailyecho.co.uk/sport/24905162.allen-admits-southampton-fc-cant-compete-top-championship-clubs/?ref=rss Season basically over with no realistic chance of promotion or relegation, we play Pompey at St Mary's on March 22nd , might try and go to that, show them some support.

Seemed to be linked with half of the championship in this window, is he still at Saints? Would expect him to be important part of Championship squad, but Juric doesn't seem to want him?

Seems fine to me, explains the context of the signing, coming in to replace particular players that are leaving?

I'm laughing at someone giving up supporting their team if we sell an u21 who hasn't done enough to feature in the first team, get a grip man , there's plenty of players I'd be more disappointed to leave ahead of SAA. Are you the chap who works at Pompey? Need to spend less time amongst them.

He's already played for two clubs this season, I don't think he can be registered at a 3rd unless that has changed

🤣 we've been terrible and Sam AA hasn't done enough to earn a first team start , he's got potential and personally I'd like to have seen him loaned but having watched quite a few B team games he just doesn't do enough for me

Ideally also still recovering from an injury?

Other clubs had been moaning for years, Bristol City particularly

Although FA rules dictated that young players must live within a 90-minute commute of their team, Southampton were granted special dispensation by the Premier League to open a satellite site in Bath due to the port city's coastal location with the sea taking up half of their catchment radius. However, after pressure from the Premier League and EFL to shut down the centre due to it being outside their catchment, which intensified following the Saints' relegation from the top-flight in 2023, the closure has now been finalised with no more young players being taken on. Those already enrolled in the programme will go on full-time up to under-16s out of Beechen Cliff School in Bath until they finish their studies. Players are also receiving support to transition to other academies, which could be at City or Rovers

Yep completely changed from the days where 8 year olds James Ward-Prowse, Callum Chambers and Luke Shaw signed up and went through the whole system building an affinity with the club

Bath academy wasn't really our choice. And most of those players left without us being able to hold on to them without matching big Man City contracts which probably wouldn't have been enough anyway

The whole academy system is a mess I think, if they show too much promise they end up being taken off us like Rodriguez, nothing we can do, if not good enough get released, it's the in-between where we have to hope to get lucky. A lot of movement between academies and signing young players to join academies like we've done in recent years