saintrich

Interesting looking at Burnley defensive unit as they lost Nick Pope, Ben Mee, James Tarkowski and Nathan Collins. They have been playing Muric (GK. 24 yrs old, few cup appearances for Man City and random loan spells before signing for a low fee.) Roberts (RB. 27 yrs old, seasoned championship defender that was already at the club.) Harwood-Bellis (CB. 21 yrs old on loan from Man City, but crucially already had two previous loan spells at Blackburn and Stoke.) Beyer (CB. 22 yrs old on loan from Gladbach. Only played in Germany previously.) Maatsen (LB. 21 yrs old on loan from Chelsea. Crucially already had loan spells at Charlton and Coventry.) They've also had Charlie Taylor, 29, lb, already at club, playing the odd game at centre back). Obviously having Vincent Kompany playing a dominant style of football probably eases pressure on the defence, but still interesting to see how they recovered from a big clear out.

Most of the obvious ones will go and a few based on contract situations, but I'd really like to see what Sulemana, Mara, Alcaraz and Tino can do if they stay. Perraud and Bednarek could pop up with a fair few goals if they stayed. (not saying they will stay) Berge at Sheff Utd, Sarr at Watford suggests we should be able to keep a couple of our players we'd like to keep, mainly due to wages and fees limits the amount of clubs who can buy.

All midweek champ games are available on sky sports red button I think.

He has been fine so far. The sideways and backwards comment applies to everyone in last night's game and that is a result of coming up against a robust, well organised side who aren't very adventurous in terms of deviating from position. The same applies to the Leeds game who were also set up more solid under their new manager than perhaps previous. That is a collective team/set up/mentality problem of us against sides that sit back, not a Sulemana problem. He looked good against Wolves and has shown glimpses in other games (having a decent chance early on vs Chelsea, playing a good through ball to Walcott vs Man Utd, absolutely skinning Perreira vs Leicester.) His acceleration over short distance is frighteningly quick, clearly the jury is still out on end product, but there are far more problems to worry about in our side than him at this stage. I would like to see him in the side with Stu or Aribo rather than Moi, Walcott etc.

Reminded me of when Man City stuck David James upfront.

I thought Jackson looked good against us in pre season, importantly he looks very strong as well as being quick and as such is difficult to brush off the ball. Jones said he wants more pace and power and that ticks those boxes. I don't watch La Liga, but perhaps he gets doubled up on a lot and other players get more space as a result.

Someone else on twitter is suggesting Livramento has injured his other knee. I'm sure Saint Garrett posted something the other day about needing a new right back - I wonder if this was in reference to Tino or KWP leaving or a combination of both.

If Lavia is fit to start then we could see a switch to a back 4? If we stick with 3 centre backs hopefully DCC will come in for Lyanco. Stu in for Aribo sounds like a popular decision based on comments I've read about yesterdays game (I was working).

Karlsson wanted to leave AZ in the summer, don't think they'd let him go in January, especially as they are near the top of the table. Looks like he would be a good signing though. Him or Kent + a striker Gyokeres/Wood/Sports Republic choice seems the most realistic we could hope for.

January hard window for a striker, I wonder if we'll look at the championship. Viktor Gyorekes looks to be one of the best strikers in the division, seems Everton picked Maupay over him in the summer because Coventry wanted more money upfront than Brentford did. 17 league goals last season and 7 so far this. 6ft2, but looks like he has good movement and finishing. Has given some opposition defences the run around this season by all accounts. Not a recommendation by myself as such, just thinking what the club will do.

I don't think him failing at Stoke is that much to read into. They have been a shambles of a club since relegation. Michael O'Neill did a great job at Northern Ireland and failed at Stoke. Alex Neil was doing a good job at Sunderland and jumped ship to Stoke and it's going badly wrong, their fans were frothing at the mouth after they lost again at the weekend. They are just a rotten club. If Sport Republic have been tracking him for a while and think he's a good fit then I'm happy to go with that. If Semmens suggestion I'd be more worried.

Used to be loads of away fans in block 1 and 2, but now that block 2 is season ticket holders only, it is kicking off in various other parts of the ground instead. It's almost as if the home fans weren't the problem. Who knew? I assume the club will be punishing the home fans in the Kingsland who had the audacity to point out away fans in the home end? No? Thought not.

That was short lived!

I remember Hajto playing some nice diagonal passes against Anderlecht in a pre season friendly, Kenwyne Jones scored a hat-trick and I thought we would breeze the league. Both ended up having really really average seasons. Thankfully for us Jones came back from the 2006 world cup looking twice the player he was in that 05/06 season.

Its season ticket holders only in block 1 and 2 this season. There are loads of seats around me in block 2 for that reason. So everyone from block 1 will shuffle over into the empty seats in block 2. It shouldn't make much difference from loss of sales, to what they have already implemented.

Spurs aside we haven't really been too much on the back foot, or conceding wave after wave of attack - which makes the three 1-0 defeats a bit harder to take. If we can work on and improve our attacking play over the next few games, while continuing to limit chances and goals at the other end, then I don't see any reason to make a change. But if we improve our attacking play and go back to conceding plenty of goals and chances (let's perhaps ignore the Man City game when measuring this) then I don't see how he will be able to continue this time around and perhaps a change could be made around the time of the World Cup break starting.

I would add his goals away to Chelsea (boxing day win) and Everton (under Mark Hughes) to the memorable list.

We have a much quicker side now and all the players can cover ground well, we can afford to be a bit more aggressive with our buildup play on the front foot without worrying that we might leave someone like Romeu or Bednarek chasing back slowly. Hopefully that alone can contribute to a few more goals. We can win the ball back and transition quickly too. Ralph made a big point about not selling Adams and he has started well, proving to be really robust in his two non scoring games. A new contract must be due and hopefully he can flourish with that confidence in him. I'm sure Aribo can move up to be a presence up the top end in games where Adams is tiring. Gakpo would have been lovely, but let's not forget how hard it has been to shift our unwanted players - we did the right thing in not buying someone just because the money was there, if the players we identified weren't available. If you just watched the Chelsea game alone in zero context, you wouldn't say we needed 4 additions after that, so it's nice we have continued to evolve the squad. #noholdsbarred

He's a real good player, player, player, player player

Entertaining read. They are all definitely unanimous in absolutely despising him.

The stewards who are newly put on the end of the rows in the itchen north are indeed a different company and wear different clothing to the regular saints stewards. The incident I referred to earlier in the thread about 3 stewards having a go at someone because his foot was very slightly on the stairs - the regular female steward came up and sorted it and seemingly told the other 3 new stewards to leave him alone, as they all went back to the end of their rows and the man continued standing how he was previously. On another note, what are the rules on taking a tshirt off? (not me, honest!) A fella a few rows infront was made to put his top back on by one of the new stewards, but there were fans in the northam shirtless. Lack of consistency and nit picking. When I went downstairs at half time the steward on the end of my row basically moved about an inch when I said excuse me and left me the tiniest gap to squeeze past. I did'nt react in any way as 1. I know its trivial and 2. It seemed like he was hoping for a reaction. The new stewards are all on a power trip and seem intent on stirring up a reaction that justifies them being there in the first place.

It's really poor, Itchen North is season ticket holders only now so there are loads of empty seats. And we have loads of extra stewards all the way up the block on the end of rows, my mate had to move season ticket seat to the other side of me to accommodate this. Away fans are now buying tickets in other areas of the stadium where there is little steward presence, so the over-saturation of stewards in the itchen north decide to nitpick - 3 stewards surrounded a bloke today as his foot was ever so slightly on the stairs, meanwhile Man Utd fan was pretty much waving a flare in a stewards face in the away end.

Looks like Leicester are going to sign to sign Akanji from Dortmund to replace Fofana and West Ham just signed a defender so I doubt either hold any concrete interest in Bednarek. I'd rather sell him at a cut price £8/10m then loan him, but maybe saints feel they can get a £1/2m loan fee, wages covered in full and then still sell him for £8/£10m next summer? Striker - I quite like the look of Nmecha from Wolfsburg, someone mentioned his name earlier in the summer, but don't think he has been linked properly with anyone. Would have worked with Shields before at Man City, probably going to world cup with Germany as they don't have many striker options. Scored a couple in the champions league last season. Yeah probably unrealistic the more I think about it.

Hassenhuttl literally said 5 days ago we are looking at bringing in a full back? Would be ridiculous if we didn't.

Marco Silva was bemoaning his lack of wing options in his press conference yesterday as Harry Wilson and Manor Solomon have both picked up 'long term' injuries. I wonder if we can shift Redmond or Moi on to Fulham, their wages (and other deadwood) really limits their suitors.