VectisSaint

He wasn't slow and ponderous for most of the season. Yes we needed an upgrade, one to take us forward, but that doesn't mean we needed to ship him out, it meant we needed both for a season, we always needed an extra DM than what we had, Diallo was not the answer. No one thinks Romeu was world class, but he forged a very effective partnership with JWP, and it is clear from his performances in La Liga that he was nowhere near finished, he still had a role to play alongside Lavia and JWP, or filling in for Lavia when he was not available through injury. Free transfer at the end of 2022/23 was the sensible way to reward OR for his services over the years. Yes he wanted to go, but only after the Chairman of his home town club made a cheeky bid for him and Saints did not immediately knock it back as said Chairman expected. If you feel that you are not wanted you would look at your options. Terrible piece of business by Saints whatever way you look at it.

My point really was that you wonder what people expect, a winger scoring 8 goals in a top of the league side but apparently not ripping it up. WTF. Really we should never have let Tella go in the first place but it has worked out very well for the lad, not sure that bringing him back would neccessarily work, he seems to be loving his time up there and it might not suit him to swap a high flying championship team for a struggling PL team even if we do "own" him. If Kompany is to be believed we did have an agreement in place that he was there for the season. May seem like a no-brainer to get him back, but it really might be counter-productive in the long run.

Not sure what you would expect, or what "setting the world alight" means in your eyes. Quote from FLW (following his latest goal after missing the previous game through illness): "Tella’s goal was his eighth of what has been an incredibly successful season and the on-loan Southampton man has also contributed one assist. He has become a firm fans favourite during his spell in Lancashire and shared his reaction to their latest maximum on social media."

Lawro has 1-1, I didn't know he still did predictions, but it's on Paddy power.

Are you sure?

Kickoff in Birmingham. https://twitter.com/SouthamptonFC/status/1603706754487013378?t=jdi7kKqPVap48NYgUJUWkw&s=19

Ran into a kitchen table. Sums him up, head down, never looking up. Skilful footballer but no end product. He does seem to have developed since he left us.

I don't think they are stuttering as such, bear in mind the Bristol game was a cup match, not in the League. In the League we are unbeaten in the last 5 (at least), the issue they have it seems (from not watching the games in detail) is that we can't score enough goals. We seem to be very good defensively, but if you can't score 2 or more goals in a match you are going to struggle to get 3 points. The whole league has become very low scoring, having an effective strike force is the difference (now where have I heard that before). 2 points off the leaders after 10 games is really an excellent performance given where we came from.

Don't suppose we could bring Oriol back on a loan.

Not all ambulance workers are taking action on Wednesday, it depends on the ambulance trust, 9 are affected in total. Newcastle v Bournemouth has also been switched and Man U are in talks about the same. I suspect Charlton is not affected, it looks like London is not an affected Trust. I too thought that changing to Tuesday would bring its own problems but the nurses action does not affect life threatening services, which I would imagine means A&E, so is probably not such an issue. I believe that professional football matches are not allowed to take place without ambulance cover in situ (I could be wrong) so preponing the match was a given.

Benchwarmers, Bednarek has made just 3 PL starts for Villa, and was subbed off early in two of them.

True, forgot the Bristol City friendly

Don't think it was seen as much of a risk at the time we signed him, Everton were well pissed off that we nabbed him, he was seen by many, not just Saints, as a star in the making. But he seems to have lost his way, goodness knows what happened at Vale, played as a makeshift striker when he did play, then played for our B team while still on loan, and finally the loan terminated. Now he's back, appearing sporadically (not in either of the games this weekend). Something seems to have gone seriously wrong, still time to put it right of course.

Not sure this actually counts as B Team. Anyone any idea what has happened to Thierry Small? Recalled from his loan and was playing for us before that, but doesn't seem to be featuring now. Perhaps he is ineligible for this game, but he does seem a bit of a mystery considering how highly he was rated when he joined us from Everton. Anyway good luckntonthe lads today, should be enough talent there to overcome Coventry.

More likely ready for the FA Youth Cup tomorrow. Very strange to have 2 fixtures for the youngsters on successive nights.

Salisu as well

But if you play them in with first teamers (lets be clear here we could field our first team while still keeping to the rules) it will give a good idea of how they perform alongside the "established" players. The only down side is the quality of the opposition, we saw that against Boro, and most of the games coming up are PL Cup, which is against even lower quality opposition (e.g. Colchester).

We have 5 B Team games scheduled between now and the end of the WC, why not just watch them, especially if we use them to give our first team players a run out.

Arguably the biggest mistake of them all. There was no need, we could have let him go on agree end of season having got a replacement.

Surprised if no friendlies are set up between PL and Championship sides during Nov/Dec, Champ team especially are not overly impacted by the WC, seems sensible to keep teams ticking over until Christmas. There are also B team matches scheduled that could be used for run outs, especially with our very young team, although it must be said PL2 Div 2 standard seems low, as demonstrated last week with Boro.

You forgot the bit about him going to the club that wants to sign probably the best of the "nippers" he brought in from us in the next window.

Jack Stephens has played 2 minutes of PL football for Bournemouth so far (2 * 1 minute appearances). You have to wonder sometimes why clubs take players on loan, especially when they have manager changes. Wouldn't surprise me if his loan gets cancelled by Jones (if that is allowable, it may not be in the PL). If I were Jones I would get all the loan players back if possible, Tella, Smallbone, Synek...

I wouldn't have thought it was Jones related given he has been playing in our B team a couple of times while still on loan at Vale. Can we cancel Smallbone's loan at Stoke as well?

He was used as a striker in some games apparently and has been playing in our team games recently. Considering the fuss when he joined us from Everton, things don't seem to have developed too well, though it is worth remembering that he is only just 18.

Except his name is not Nathaniel. It is Nathan. Good luck to the guy, seriously underwhelmed, but he has my support. How does Ruben Sellers fit in with Jones bringingnhisncoachingbteam?