Gorgiesaint

Haven't they? Surprised he wasn't shipped straight out the door if he was that poor. Or maybe, 5 managers saw him as a valuable member of the squad. Not to mention successive England u-21 managers (enough to make him captain) and Gareth Southgate who called him up for an England squad. Is he a world beater? No. Has he fulfilled his potential? Possibly not. Is he a very decent squad player who cost us nothing other than wages? Most definitely imo.

Rondon signs for Newcastle on a season long loan. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/45089622

That's 7 in 3 games in pre-season now. But it is only Telstar playing non-league & amateur opposition. Still good start for him.

Italian journalist Gianluca Di Marzio claiming that Napoli close to agreeing a deal with Lille for Kevin Malcuit. https://gianlucadimarzio.com/en/napoli-trying-to-close-deal-for-malcuit-the-latest

Not going to walk into our team right now, but one for the future? At a £1m, it's peanuts. Buy him, put him out on loan in the Championship for a season.

Whilst he's not been as good recently going forward, he is solid defensively. He's one of those players who's not spectacular but is a steady 6-7 / 10 each week. I do worry that we'll realise what we're missing once he goes.

I agree with your thoughts on Targett. Was good to see his performance and really encouraging but let's not get carried away, it was 45 minutes in a pre-season friendly. If we are going with 3 at the back this season, which looks likely, then the wing backs have to be mobile and have good crossing ability. Cedric is mobile, but his crossing over the last couple of seasons has been terrible.

Wasn't considered good enough to be kept on at the end of his last contract, and subsequently been poor for Everton. Why would we now consider him good enough now? We've 2 academy graduates who can do a job there - Targett last night showed he could swap sides if necessary, and Reed did a job there for Norwich last season. Neither are proven, but worth taking a chance on. We'll just let Koeman pick up Cuco when he next gets a club job.

Maybe Morrison was a bad comparison, but I was looking for a talented player who has under-performed. Now you may be better informed than me, but what I'd heard is that he had massively under-performed until he was moved into a deeper role this season, he certainly has failed lived up to expectation until this season. Whoever can channel him (or maybe just gag his agent & 'team' behind him off the pitch) will have a very, very good player on their hands.

Heard last week he was free agent. Really talented player but serious attitude problems. He's only had one decent season when he switched from an attacking midfielder to playing in a deeper lying role, but has completely fallen out with the Schalke management and board. Bit like a German Ravel Morrison.

Only in current circumstances!!! LOL. Initial instinct is Pep, but would the players be good enough to do what he wants them to do? For that reason, I'd go for Poch with Emery as second choice. Klopp would just annoy me even if he managed my team, and Jose just needs to quite football and go and do something he enjoys. Sarri, bit too unknown.

Italian journalist Tancredi Palmeri reporting on Twitter that Manchester United have contacted Barcelona regarding centre back Yerri Mina.

Your opinion doesn't 'offend' me at all but you do seem to contradict yourself. You stated that Hughes 'deserves a chance'. Well so far, he has exceeded your expectations by keeping us up. I understand your concerns about the defence and the number of goals we conceded last year. We'll need to see how things go at the start of this season, I don't read anything into pre-season results but we've signed one centre back which should help address one major issue of being competitive in the air. Hopefully Vestergaard will help with the organisation at the back as well. We won't know if it's resolved things until at least 10 games into the season. The other point to make is that when Hughes came in, he was in an emergency situation. Now he has a full pre-sesaon to get his idea's across, the new season is the time to judge him. That's called giving him a chance. I will say that if you asked me at Christmas last year, I would have said that Pellegrino needed sacking but I would not have taken Hughes as I thought there were better options out there. That said, having left things as late as they did, I'm glad the club appointed him, At that time, he was probably the best available. By saving us, he's earned his chance but that also needs everyone to get behind him.

So how is he expected to answer your criticism's? He kept us up when you expected us to go down, and since then we've not played any competitive matches.

Bit of a part in the League Cup semi final at Anfield. In fact if Shane Long had shown as much composure in playing in Charlie Austin in the Chelsea semi final last season as Sims did playing in Austin in that game, we might have made the FA Cup final.

The article says Wolverhampton, not Saints. We're not mentioned.

Rickie Lambert was 26 when he had his big season with Bristol Rovers that got his move to Saints. He then developed from there as we went through the leagues and was 29 when he made his Premier League debut. Not I'm not saying Sam Gallagher is the next Rickie Lambert, but we as Saints fans should know about players that develop late.

I don't know if it's still there but the wine cooperative in Beaune is worth a visit. Basically you pay for a wine tasting and when you've been round once then you can go back and drink as much as you want. Had about 30 odd wines to taste when I went there. Actually quite educational, going through the different grapes and locations.

Maybe we need to get him off the wage bill before the window ends so we can sign another striker/winger. If we hold out then we don't have time to replace him, or if we negotiate for someone, will they wait for us to then offload Boufal?

One thread on this forum, by the end of the season, to actually remain on topic... ... nah, what am I saying? The usual suspects will be out infecting every thread with their moans and whinges over everything the club have done over the last 5 years, oh, and the mods will do nothing about it.

What are you basing your judgement of 'very questionable experience' on? What experience would you expect him to have?

Wonder if this will be the outgoing that Alan Nixon referred to on Twitter a couple of days ago? He did say it would be in the papers over the weekend.

Confirmation that Jose Fonte has agreed to join Lille subject to a medical. https://www.losc.fr/actualites-foot-lille/jos%C3%A9-fonte-un-mondialiste-et-champion-d%E2%80%99europe-portugais-arrive-au-losc At least he'll be able to commute on the Eurostar from his London base and stay close to his family.

That's a bit of a coup getting someone of Marieanne's calibre and profile to the club. She could probably still show Shane Long a thing or two about finishing!.