Ashby Saint

Why well done Hughes? We were extremely lucky in the final 10-15 mins. Hughes screwed up the subs. If he was playing counterattacking against Palace with a high press then why bother with Austin on bench and not Gallagher?

No. I think you are right. Shows that the spending power of the league as a whole is at a stratospheric level. Plus fair play and wages are squeezing the options at the top 6 to use extra buying power.

I read somewhere, BBC transfer day feed I think, that Premier League clubs can still loan players to other English clubs up until 31 August (and sell / loan abroad of course).

Strange one. I never felt that we gave him a chance. I had imagined that we would give him a full offseason before dumping him. He must have been awful in training.

I thought that overall we played okay, although some of our slick passing triangles seemed to go nowhere. As far as passing accuracy, Romeo was the weak link in midfield and it was noticeable that Hoj shouldered a lot more of the responsibility for moving the team forward in the second half. You could see that Gunn had been trained the Pep way with his slick passing out from the back. Gabbi looked sharp with his touches, but frustrated with the service. In the first half, there were times when the ball should have been moving to the right wing, but no one seemed to want to pass it to McQueen. Thought Bertrand made some good runs forward, but he exposed Hoedt behind him. Hoedt seems to have issues with his starting position and relies too much on his athleticism to get him out of trouble. Bednarek made a mistake for the first goal, but he's a young player still learning his trade.

I think the board and the owner know that we need a striker to replace Carillo. I suspect they will try to sell to fund this acquisition, going right up to the last minute, but if they don't then I suspect that the owner will sanction it anyway to protect his investment. The business case for replacing Carillo must be pretty compelling I would think.

Boufal has talent, but he has wasted it with a lousy attitude.

Start negotiations at £15M, sure, but end at £15M, no thanks.

I felt it was the right thing to do at the time. It seems to work for some players such as Mahrez at LCFC, but obviously not for all. A new intangible to build into the black box - are you likely to honour a commitment to your contract or throw your toys out of the pram when Klopp calls?

We have to be better at spotting the talent that others miss. We have done it in the past, but we seem to have been less effective recently. For every Toby or James Maddison, there is always a Mane or Van Dijk. Spot the talent, develop it, sell it on. That is the Southampton Way.

Wonder what Nick Pope and Tom Heaton are on at Burnley.

This.

Sounds like a very Saints signing that... similar background to Bednarek (young defender, capped at youth level).

Hughes as coach, who is the face of Saints on match days. Yes, please. Hughes the DoF as well. No, thanks.

I thought he was clearly out of touch with the second part of the interview and the Echo did really well to keep asking the difficult questions. The line that irritated me was "I think in the end the most important thing is what happened with the fans down the stretch. They were just all in and so passionate and had so much fun." Really? I *loved* watching the team get tanked at Newcastle and West Ham without so much as a whimper, ranting about the referee after the Everton match, and then having to sit through the ordeal at Swansea with no fingernails left. Fun is not the word I would use to describe it.

For me he is the definition of an uncoachable player. He felt the team should adapt to him and not the other way around. Don't let the door hit your arse on the way out. There are some of the negative elements of Boufal in Redmond's play, but I hope that he is more coachable.

I do wonder if things might happen a bit quicker this summer as we have stable ownership now. Kat was looking to sell the club last year and I can imagine that this had an effect on the speed at which significant decisions were made. Hopefully Nelly will say yes or no a lot quicker. Hughes sorted on Wednesday (I hope).

This. Stoke hate Hughes, so they won't do us any favours. Man City can score for fun if they want to. This is not over.

Would not have Boufal anywhere near the team as he is clearly in the cannot be arsed camp.

Apart from Boufal, who gives the impression of being not very coachable, then I’d give most of the players a fresh chance under the new regime before the great sell-off. Not sure about Tadic as his attitude has been off at times.

As others have said, the chances of staying up were zero with Pellegrino and pretty slim with anyone else. If Hughes comes in, we have a chance. I'm thankful for that. His first act should be to get the squad together, single out Tadic and tell him to get off the pitch and clean the toilets.

Oh I don’t know. Some of the players have been crap and it is not all about the manager.

When up against it, some players work harder, give it everything, work to correct the errors, and then there is Tadic and Boufal that blame everyone else, give up, and sulk like toddlers.

It is the poor recruitment that has killed us over the past two seasons.

BBC commentators - "Tadic has had no influence on the game." "Tadic plodding forwards." I do not understand how that player can steal a living as a Premier League footballer.