ribbo

to be fair, Gallagher had Ely and Redmond not giving him the ball and should have been on much sooner. I thought Ramsey, Johnson, Callum did well considering how few minutes of senior football they've had.

Decent article from a local rag, to gather quotes off previous managers for the same thing, if he goes hope he does well. He must be gagging for first team football.

Shearer or Bale. I remember Ox's one, his afro was taller than him and his kit didn't fit, but you could see why we didn't get Waigo back or meet Reading's high valuation of Antonio.

22. I remember Morgan at 22, it was either our first season in League One or the one we fell out of the championship. Dean Hammond hadn't even shown up yet to teach Morgan how to slide tackle, Morgan had only played 30-50 games for Saints, rarely scoring, but always with the menace of losing his sh1t and getting sent off. JWP's played over 100 games for Saints, captained his country to success, been deployed in at least 3 different centre mid roles where he's had to chose to dictate play deep in midfield and at the point of midfield, all at 22. I bumped into him in my local shops the other week (didn't realise how short he is) he went onto have an excellent performance against inter the next evening, pulling strings and setting off a lot of our attacks, I tell my mates at the games who by large retorted, "hope you told him he was a sk8te *****". I get the feeling he's going to be like Southgate/Milner/Le Saux/Barry etc. Solid pro quietly heading for a 600game top flight career, inoffensive, probably quite good at scrabble, the whiff of middle-class upbringing, easily mistaken for pompus. No wonder the terraces hate him.

Graham Hunters great regardless if he can be a bit whimsical and wordy with his questions, he gets a lot out of the people he interviews. The Peter Beardsley one in particular's a great listen, as are Stracs, Pards and the hundreds of ex saints managers he's interviewed.

Blimey, bit of a turn around for Barnsley!

Antonio's had a lot of football in between Reading wanting a premium for him and him being bought by West Ham, I don't think he'd of had that with us, certainly with Ox coming through, he's probably the reason we didn't pay an inflated fee.

yeah, he'll be good for 2 years in the U21 League, maybe he'll be squad filler of a decent standard, or it's just the kids representative or someone else stirring the pot.

Everyone does it.

You can draw parallel's for Targett + Bertrand with Baines and Galloway at Everton, with the understudy looking good to get 10-20 games a season, which is good development for someone under 23 in the Premierleague. The issue comes when Bertrands out and Koeman's playing anyone but a fit and motivated Targett.

How many of these can you attribute to Morgan at 21? And Morgan at 21 was playing at a much lower level with a much taller frame than JWP. Look at how much Morgan improved from 22-24, especially after Dean Hammond taught him how to tackle. The futures good for JWP.

He lacks the balls that MoPo had to drip feed them the minutes required for an untried youth prospect to be a youth prospect ready to understand first team football and the step up. Sounds to me like Koeman's "motivating" the kids to join his squad while moving the goalposts every transfer window. Of course it's more difficult to come into the Southampton team now than it was four years ago, but it looks a lot more difficult to come into the team now than it did last year because the first team squad's been filled with quantity rather than quality. Four years ago we'd forgo signing an Antonio because we knew we had an Ox in the wings, I don't think our succession planning is that brave now.

As utterly pointless as this thread is, I agree with what's said above. I used to think Moyes as tactically naïve but he's a great club manager, his succession planning at Everton and operating on a budget (Michael Calvin's "Nowhere Man" goes into detail about Moyes quite well) is vastly underrated and Martinez is reaping the rewards of the groundwork he's done. Historically he's managed a lot of the functions that Les Reed does and that's not how it works at Saints, plus gone are the days where He can come in and slowly evolve a Prem club. In Koeman I trust.

I'm with you on that, he was always a bit raw and needed a bit of coaching! Shame about Fish, I'm still waiting on Jamie White to come good!

Kane spent a few seasons out on loan at a good level! Seagar cannot compare yet, not even Sam Gallagher can. Agree with Reed though despite always being late to a challenge he was in an ideal position to get some gametime this season. This whole succession plan's not really working. You cant buy like for like because there are few players for instance like Morgan in the world, that's why he was so coveted, so you develop. I think Oriel was a contingency signing, 1) for Europe and 2) for Victor and 3) we couldn't say no when he came up for that price.

quick question, can you manage any of the national teams u19 or u21 sides?

Im all about bumping old threads today, hows everyones Sloe Gin plans doing this year? my bush/tree/monster has berries but they dont look ripe yet!

not really suprising consider our press are so good at finding mass corruption within his organisation.

I dont think we should expand the UK, we'd never fill it.

Corks progress is unique to the larger turbelant premiership clubs. Chelsea flooded they're academy when Roman + Frank Arneson came in and very few if none of them have come through into the first team, Mancienne, Hutchinson, Cork, Bertrand and the rest of that youth squad who are all about 22-24 have failed to make an impact at Chelsea because they will go and procure proven talent instead of blooding they're own, then the manager changes or Arneson leaves and the process starts again.

he knocked in almost 50goals for Winch this season, they've been on fire.

Davis had that Sunderland defence infront of him.. Peter Shilton couldnt have kept a clean sheet with that defence.

theres a pretty good fish shop in Boyatt Wood near the Arrow that might do it.

first world problems

never change Dalek, promise me you'll never change. I said the dutch reveloution would be a success... oh how wrong was I!!