Charlie Wayman

Absolutely fantastic. Well done Ricky you deserve it, now go and do your special thing for England. Bloody amazing, bloody fantastic! Three Saints players in the forward line, can't be bad, just want Clyne and Shaw now and we'll field half the team

Quite, real question might be will HE be here after Jan 14th?

It's always a good idea to lower one's expectations. You talk as though the world is our oyster when clearly it is not. As pecking orders go even in the EPL we must rank about 15th choice in players' minds as places they might want to go to; bear in mind the Bundeslega is looking more and more like a very attractive place to be whilst La Liga and Serie A are a bloody site better from a weather and cultural point of view. The reputation of the EPL abroad must be of a rather physical no nonsense, straight up and down sort of set-up where busting a gut and elbows in the face are de rigeur and consummate ball skills are still seen as a luxury that few sides can accommodate. Regrettably the tippie-tappie revolution started by Arsenal and so far best parodied by Swansea and now Saints is still the exception and any foreign player watching Stoke v Hull or Sunderland v West Ham knows exactly what they will be in for on a cold, wet November Tuesday evening whilst the rets of the world are watching Barcelona v Bayern Munich. I mean come on you're 22, good looking, hormone charged and looking for the good life.... uhm... Shirley High Street!

Why "Woy" if not "Wicky"?

You are right but we are not them either which makes it worse. The EPL seems to be losing it's allure and one is bound to wondre if foreign players are put off by our weather, our press or just the now EPL habit of hire / fire players and managers alike where contracts mean ziltch and loyalty counts for nothing. On the other hand Cortese & Pochettino have done themselves and us no favours by suggesting that they know what they are doing and big names can be expected and it's only a matter of time and patience.... I'll bet in closed offices at SMS some choice language is to be heard and if nothing else happens on the transfer front this year somebody will be held culpable and to account especially ITSHTP after 4 or 5 games and we are in the bottom three.

..and this +1

This +1

They'll be more worried than we are right now. They looked 3 yards off the pace and couldn't get near us or the ball especially as the match wore on. N body gives 100% in friendlies but spurning chances can be habit forming so it would have been better if we'd taken our finishing a bit more seriously. Much to admire, some things to sort out but remember WBA are a very decent side and we won't out-run them this easily. We don't have much time left to improve our finishing and it is a real worry on today's showing.

Super start for Nigel's Reading and fully deserved. Great if he comes straight back up, love to see him back at St Mary's next season.

Obviously you didn't read the OS otherwise you's know that Jos asked for No 26 as it was the first shirt he wore here. It's qiute obvious that he's a sentimental kinda guy and these things clearly mean a lot to him. He's bound to be in the starting line-up, no fera of less he's agree player and nowhere near as much of a whoopsie as Jose. Maya ain't fit yet and will start on the bench.

Thank goodness we will no longer have to listen to those one celled loons shouting Steeeeeeeeeeeeevvvvvvvv. Life gets better by the day.

Every cause to be concerned, panic may be stretching it a bit. You cannot stand still in this league, if Cortese is relying on the kids to get him off the hook its a big ask indeed. Once upon a time there was hopeful man called Poortvliet who placed his trust in kids....

Classic guys, nobody has a clue about the numbers involved so let's spend the rest of the day on useless speculation about a minor issue that has no impact on the Club's finances whatsoever.

The yardstick surely is Lambert who looked equally one dimensional in the lower leagues until Alan Pardew gave him his chance. The rest of his story is history as they say, Lambert having the guile and ability to adapt his game to the ever mounting challenges of higher leagues so effectively that he ended his first ever season in the PL as top English goalscorer. As far as one can tell, Sharp has been much the same player in each league he has played with no great evidence of adapting or finding the extra skill sets needed to be competitive at higher levels. Barnard is much the same as Sharp, great at what he does but no prospect of becoming anything other than reliable.

We have to ride the punches, that's what you do if you climb into the ring. Stop whinging Pochettino, you could have sent them all off to Butlins for a fortnight rather than fart about in Spain on hot cinders.

Only by you apparently. Usually I only read posts these days but outrageous rubbish like this needs response. Many on here seem see you as some sort of oracle on matters Saints but more entries like this will cost you dear in reputation.

but, as RL observed on Wednesday it's the getting match fit that's important not the score. Let's not get too far forward as it seems now Pochettino has no idea who is starting XI should be... Fox, Guly... see what I mean.

This is a ridiculous OP, what the hell has this got to do with us or football? Talk about a waste of space, people must be bored stupid to posit offensive tripe like this.

I guess we'll be in or around the relegation zone all year - second season syndrome - and found wanting in creating goals as we were last year when the pressure was on and we desperately needed to win games. Not many clubs seem able to avoid this type of slump in their fortunes and the only explanation can be that all the pumped-up hype and expectations of pre-season (usually arising from the relief of surviving their first season) is misplaced introspection. As they say, "We need to get out more" - a quite valid observation as much of pre-season is internally focused (navel gazing) with most external excursions - like playing Spanish 4th Division clubs - intended to boost morale and the sense of team togetherness. What must be remembered is that all our rivals are doing exactly the same thing as us and 'progressing' in their own minds in equal measure. Nothing that I can see so far definitely makes us a better team than last year and our transfer activity success has never been stellar.

I'm already pointing the finger at Fonte for our defeat by FC Schalke. No problem until he came on. Jos is boss for these occasions.

Only a few days ago Ricky said he wanted to end his career at Southampton. If you want to sell newspapers invent the most improbable story you can imagine. Just ignore it fellas Ricky "ain't going nowhere".

I did too but the encouraging noises from the other players seemed a bit border-line PC to me?

Let's not get ahead of ourselves just because we won 8-0 against a pub team but there is every sign that we are going to walk the PL this season without losing to equal Arsenal's feat a few years ago, Guly is going to star as our new main striker and Isgrove will play for England alongside Clyne, Shaw and Lallana

I don't know if this point has been made on this thread but Pochettino has an employment contract with SFC and would have to pay the club huge compensation to be released from it, money he probably doesn't have. In any case he looks well settled here and he clearly believes he is a father to his players here and he doesn't look the time to turn his back on them at the drop of a hat.

How the hell does that build team spirit? In my career I've been on dozens of motivational and team building projects but nothing as remotely loony tunes as this nonsense. The guy running it is taking the **** big time and Pochettino is either part of the set-up or a complete mug. What a waste of time and money.