Lallana's Left Peg

Anyone who saw Forren play for the Under 21's will see why he has been kept well away from the first team. Fit or not, he needs to work significantly on his conditioning and strength. He is so slow it looks like he is running in wellies. However he has very good anticipation and is great on the ball. The club must feel they can work on his physical state to a point where he can compete in the Premier League and the team will benefit from his other skills with the ball etc.

I'm not so keen on him. When the rumour came out around March there was a thread on him and I said as much then. On one hand he'll tick a lot of boxes for us in terms of age and type of player we're after. But on the other he was at a good club in Swansea and then decided to join Man City (obviously no issues with that in principle) but he did so a few weeks after they sold a winger because they didn't play him. He killed his career and pleased his bank Manager. He may now have a point to prove but is he that good that he would be one of our top earners? I don't think so personally. I'm firmly on the fence with this one and given his wages I'd rather we go after different players.

Can't see any way back for him and Sharp. If anything the club wants to push on next season so if the powers that be determined they were surplus to requirements this season then they are even further away from being involved next season. Just hope we get a half decent fee for them and no further obligation to subsidise their wages.

An interesting thread. For me when you support your team you want to develop an affinity to something more than just their existence - its nice to have other aspects of it that you can be proud of. The challenge here is that due to the amount of money in the game now clubs are run more like businesses and the relationship that supporters have with them changes. We're unique in that clubs have a captive audience, but the level of engagement can vary. The money and turnover of players / Managers also makes it hard at times to develop a connection with what is going on. It is all very well saying slow and steady progress however I think that becomes harder every year in football. Slow progress means you lose your better players most years as the big boys come knocking, and without the financial means to retain them a slow progress places a massive stress on recruitment and it is very very hard to always get transfers right. Many aspects of the club have changed since we got relegated from the Premier League, however I am quite excited by the new ownership. It is undoubtedly underpinned by financial means however the club has invested in many areas and not just the first team. Much of it is invested in the framework that the club wants to operate once we're as good as we can viably be. For me as a supporter there is nothing I like more than seeing youth products make progress and contribute to the first team. I think that has defined our club as much as anything else the past three or four decades. It's been a common thread throughout promotions, relegations, 'boring' seasons, and ownerships. It also appears to be at the heart of the club in the new era. No doubt we want to progress quickly but the opportunities are there if you are good enough. I'm proud that our Captain is a youth product. I'm proud that we've had the balls to ask a couple of 17 year olds to significantly contribute to our first season back in the Premier League. I'm proud that our Academy is made up of talents from the South (not imported kids from other countries) that reflect our catchment area and we were one of only two teams to have both the Under 18's and Under 21's qualify for the Elite Group stage of their respective competitions. As long as we retain that element of our identity, I am not too worried about the rest. If we ever treated the Academy like it wasn't the future then I'd become a bit less engaged. To be blunt it takes a lot of money to make progress in the Premier League, and if you have it then it makes sense to use it to advance quickly. I think we just have to accept that. But a long as our progress continues to have contribution from players that we developed in our Academy I'll be delighted.

Appreciate that they are just rumours and I don't want to dispel them but isn't St Marys already a UEFA 4 Star stadium which means it can host European matches etc? And on that basis we wouldn't need £1m+ of stadium revisions to attain a status we've already achieved? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UEFA_stadium_categories http://www.worldstadiumdatabase.com/list-of-uefa-4-star-stadiums.htm http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Mary's_Stadium

Agree completely with this. Considering where we were at the start of November, we've done very well considering it has been the same group of players who have done it all as well. There will be every reason to be optimistic for a half decent finish next season, and the players will now have to deal with increased expectation, new standards - and genuine competition in every position. Looking forward to it though.

Thought we did well in all parts of the pitch but lacked the cutting edge / decisiveness in the final third to take advantage of patient build up play. The players look a little anxious at times when being a little more direct and purposeful when running at players may have been better. But overall I was encouraged by the performance. Thought we defended well too, but the distribution from Fonte and Hooiveld is absolutely terrible. I won't moan too much though - I think they did well considering the start to the season and the step up they had to make. They'll likely be replaced in the summer though. Lallana was decent too - showed for the ball well, kept it and moved it around nicely, but no real end product (he wasn't the only one).

I feel like these threads may end up being a daily occurrence for the next month and given we never disclose fees I imagine we'll always be guessing however I would assume around £30m on three players to immediately improve the team, whilst the first team squad will see plenty leave and their places taken by youngsters. And lets not forget the increase on the wage bill that 3 x £10m players will bring - an estimate of 50k+ a week means an extra £7m+ a year in wages.

Exactly. And I guarantee that the vast majority of Saints fans on here feel the same way other than those are are habitually negative.

Ekelund was class. One of my best away day memories as a kid is a game at Coventry where he and Le Tiss played behind Dowie. Le Tiss scored another outrageous effort and Ekelund was all over the pitch. Great game.

Nothing other than financial gain riding on this game now, so would be good if the players and staff do a lap of honour and the fans applaud them for their efforts. It's been a rollercoaster season with the one thing we all wanted back in August achieved. Would be good to show the players and staff our appreciation for the final time this season.

Not sure what to make of all the different stories but I am going to guess that Cortese has the football bug and wants to deliver beyond the original remit and would like financial support to do so. Also it is a bit weird to have a 5-year plan and only give someone in charge of it all a 4-year contract.

Anyone else notice Ward-Prowse pick the ball out of the net when we scored and then spike it in the centre-circle NFL style like '**** this ****, I want a winner'

800k difference in prize money for every league position you finish means we need to go with strongest team and finish as high up as possible. Had we be going into the game where our league position would be unaffected by the result I would have been tempted to start a team half made up of Academy graduates (Lallana, Shaw, JWP, and three debuts) or at very least have the players on the bench to be able to finish the game like that.

In the circumstance it is a great achievement and a weight off my mind. In the context of what the club wants to achieve moving forward I don't think they will be celebrating at all. We avoided relegation and the club won't want to be thinking just doing that is acceptable with the goals they want to achieve. Travelling back after the West Brom away game I thought that was the lowest point of the season. Such an abject performance. The hopes that an open game playing pretty football would be enough were shattered and it was back to the drawing board. Credit to all involved at the club for turning it around. The future is promising but I think this season will be a great learning curve for all about what is required to win games at the highest level. It is now a summer for the club to make a statement and plans are already well underway for that to occur.

Doesn't everyone else see through the Dalek persona like I do? He is the worst of the 'happy clappers' - he is so desperate for Saints to do well that he believes if he can be superstitiously negative and downbeat then everything will turn out ok in the end. It bursts through in his posts (most notably his pre-match predictions). It is a part of his routine - predict the worse as superstition that Saints do well if he predicts they won't. He's done it for a good while now and deep down inside there is nothing more he wants than to be wrong, but he is scared stiff the moment he stops the nonsense things really will take a turn for the worse for Saints. He is everything he doesn't want to be

You heard right. But it was far too late on deadline day to get it done and West Ham were involved too. Was told it was a late one as any move was dependent on shipping out Hammond and Sharp and that only happened that day.

I may well be up for this one Steve.

None of them other than Zaha and he's gone to Man Utd.

On what grounds do you affirm we did crap business? We went after Coutinho and lost out to Liverpool. We also signed a centre-half that the club acknowledged was for the future (his agent has also since stated the plan was for Forren to contribute starting next season). In the subsequent period we've also remained outside the relegation zone and look poised to confirm our survival in the league for next season, so there does not appear to be any bad consequences of waiting to sign the right players. Conversely, our fellow lower-half rivals also stood still, and those who did invest have not seen ANY immediate positive impact whatsoever. So it is hard to understand how you could even assume investment in January would have resulted in more points either, and even then, I'd be interested to learn your thoughts on who we should have signed and how you know they were available and for a price we could afford.

To be fair if the report suggests we're looking at him then I wouldn't read too much into it. We're monitoring around 100 players and we'll sign around 4/5 players this summer (some not immediately for the first team) so I wouldn't conclude anything other than the quality of player we're looking at more than position etc.

Wait and see what the squad looks like at the start of next season before we say he doesn't fit in. I've also heard a few mumblings about him playing deeper in the future as he does for Uruguay at times. We'd need to be a far stronger side for him to be able to do that but perhaps that gives you an indication of what the club will get up to in the summer transfer wise.

Just booked my ticket for the game - are the away fans still behind the goal to the right of the dugouts? I think I saw the Stoke fans tucked away in the Gods ala Newcastle last night so I assume location of fans may be dependent on how many tickets are sold?

To prove your point Newcastle significantly strengthened in January and they've accelerated away from the relegation zone. Oh.

Considered it all briefly and there are loads of advantages and disadvantages to all results - I can't see a real preference from a Saints perspective other than a card-fest and lots of injuries, which aren't likely.