Lallana's Left Peg

Does anyone know the last time we won a league game and Steve Davis didn't feature at all? Probably more recent than I think it was but I can't think of when it may be.

Rickie Lambert

This all makes a lot of sense.

There aren't too many examples in history of Managers going into the last year of their deal and the team performing well are there? Even Fergie didn't announce his retirement until March I think. And it didn't go well when Strachan said he was off. Koeman going into the last year of his deal is going to cause lots of unrest and speculation which will be distracting. Even Man City gave Pellegrini - a dead man walking - a new deal to stop the speculation even though everyone knows he is off this summer. Be interesting to see what the club does. I think they'll want Koeman to commit one way or another.

That is a fair point about pressing but I suppose my definition is a set of players who are expected to contribute significantly in defending when we don't have the ball. I don't expect the strikers to do that much beyond a press and not making it easy to pass out of defence and we know Mane switches off defensively as I said. I like Mane centrally but behind a striker and not behind two as defensively I think we leave ourselves very exposed.

He'll work hard in his part of the pitch. But when the other team are attacking he's not a part of the play when he starts as a striker. He's not tracking runners, he's not goal side of the ball, he's not a part of the defensive unit that works off the ball. He'll defend as much as a striker does.

He probably thinks, as do I, that having three players on the pitch who contribute nothing defensively is a little risky when playing away at the team 5th in the table. We know Mane doesn't do much defensively to the point Koeman plays Yoshida at right back when Mane plays wide. And we know that two forwards don't defend (because they shouldn't). I can't remember the last time we started three players on the pitch who don't help out defensively. I am sure someone can enlighten me, but I am fairly sure we don't do it much and certainly not away from home.

Almost certain those quotes came from Les Reed back in August. And he only has 18 months left on his deal. I slightly dubious about that article as a consequence.

Whilst it may seem fun to ban a journalist who fabricates stories (or, if not fabricated, is very uninformed - just as bad for a journalist) about Saints I can understand the club letting him get on with it and allowing the public to make up their own mind about his record. Ultimately the more he gets wrong the more he'll be ridiculed by fans. He'll get paid no matter what so I don't imagine he cares.

Sign him for his name alone. And his hair.

1 question but asked 17 times until he says something in his answer the press can use to take out of context.

If you want to focus on production then other clubs will match us in terms of first team players in the Premier League. If you want to focus on how many Academy players play for top half (or maybe Top 6) teams in the Premier League then very few will match us. If you want to focus on sale value of those players then no-one is close to us. Depends what metric you want to use to define success.

I wouldn't presume a player bought for £12m+ signs a contract with a newly promoted club where he isn't guaranteed a very good basic wage. Had he been on a modest amount he wouldn't be at the club right now.

There is a difference between signing young players and selling them without an intention of developing them for your first team and developing young players for your first team and losing them against your desire. It's not comparable and the issue Saints have is that as we're good at developing players (either good recruitment at youth level or good scouting at senior level) then we tend to lose lots. No-one has ever thought we could keep these players. The issue has always been replenishing stocks whilst at the same time using the excess money we generate to better the club / team. It's hard to do but it can be done. Eventually you'd like to think we'll have so much money we can start to invest even more in our team. Or we spend the money on bad signings. You never know.

The trouble with fanzines is that people get content and share opinions online now. So the market for them dwindles unless they're really really good.

Yep I agree. Big Vic can probably get himself a better deal at a bigger club. Not sure how much he would play there though - or if that really matters to him. I'm quite pragmatic about him moving on - would love it if he stayed and if he was motivated but he's had too many poor games for me to lose any sleep over replacing him. I also think he is really replaceable with his attributes as well. If he did move on it would probably be for £15m or so factoring in his contract and increased TV money etc. and that would be ok - basically means we had three years service out of him and made a profit on his move. It would be an all round success.

That can basically be interpreted as the club accepting Wanyama is off and trying to protect his value through the media. Interesting snippet at the end of that article - guess we may well see some money spent on the Academy soon then.

I would agree with this. Even if you take into account the suggestion that Austin wanted to move back to the South coast and wanted to stay in the Premier League that left just two clubs that he could join. But waiting until the summer still made it possible for him to go elsewhere if someone chucked silly money at him so to take him now for £4m and for part of that £4m (and his wages) to be covered via not only recovering 6 months of loan fee but also suggestions that Liverpool paid us extra to make it happen and recover 6 months of wages with that bomb scare Caulker gone then it is fantastic business and I bet the club can't believe their luck.

Independent article just states that other reports (e.g. The Mirror) state so.

Austin won't go. All the rest you've said will.

If this could be the season we finally get rid of Sunderland and Aston Villa that would be great. They've contributed nothing to this league for far too long.

I'd agree Forster hasn't had anything to do in order to make a tangible difference, but you can't tell (or measure) the intangible difference to the defence with him being back - we'll never know with that one. Stekelenburg did little wrong but he didn't make the saves a half decent Premier League keeper does. As the season went on it became clear he is nowhere near as good as Forster. However, as a 6 month stop-gap he was a decent signing.

Depends how you measure success - I sure their accountants are more than satisfied!

How would he fit in though? Not a fan of padding out the squad. There is so much money about this summer we should only be identifying players better than what we have - but that is just the approach I would take.

That's £25k a week.