Lallana's Left Peg

Decent line-up but Davis and JWP together again...

It won't be good with Koeman going into his final year of his contract and there being uncertainty around what is happening. It's very distracting. We'll be linked with new Managers, he'll be linked with new jobs - the whole thing is a mess. Strachan left when it was leaked he was going to leave and look at the mess that happened then. The Pellegrini thing is very relevant. Man City may want a better Manager but for them having their Manager go into the final season of his deal is a distraction so they gave him a years extension and all of a sudden the stuff in the press about his future has greatly decreased (their start to the season will help too).

If you are just going to take the line that 'if the club are fine with it then I am fine with it' then a good 80% of the chatter on here is pointless to you The clubs transfer business - good and bad - should always be up for debate as it is one of the most important things it does that impacts our experience as fans. We get more right than wrong, and I'm not saying Shane Long falls into that wrong category either, but I don't think we as fans should just accept that everything the club does is ok and that is all that matters. It doesn't matter to me that Fulham spent eight figures on Ross McCormack and it doesn't matter to me how much Man City spending on fringe players. I just look at what Saints do and whether we're a better team / squad for it and if that money seemed a worthwhile investment.

None of it is relative really - just because Liverpool sold Fernando Torres for £50m it didn't justify spending £35m on Andy Carroll. Just because we sold Calum Chambers for £16m it didn't make signing Shane Long for £12m ok. You should judge each transfer on its own merits. Obviously a players ability is only one of the factors that impacts fees. Shane Long doesn't appear to be a first choice player when everyone is fit - couple that with his goalscoring record and I am not sure that £12m can be justified in any respect. However, he is a good player with desirable attributes for us to have. But you can't ignore the money we paid for him, it's a lot. Outside last years top four plus Liverpool and Spurs no club in this league comes close to the amount of £10m+ players in their squad that we do.

The problem with this is that when a Manager or a player head into the final year of their deal it leads to a lot of speculation and it definitely has an impact on them and their form. It's not good for anyone. I'd like to see Saints and Koeman agree to a 1 year extension like Man City and Pellegrini did - it eliminates speculation and an agreement can be made internally about him moving on.

Yep - but playing for England also elevated their status and made them more desirable for other clubs and also exposed them to playing with players who play for those clubs and earn much more. Damned if you do, damned if you don't!

Adam Blackmore said that Ramirez had rejected the chance to move on and wanted to stay for his final year. Given that the player rejected the move I guess the only other option was for the club to bring him back into the fold for one last time or just to completely isolate him from the first team. I like his talent and under Pochettino, before his injury in the Sunderland game, he was starting to show signs of getting to grips with the level of physicality required of him. His loan at Hull was a disaster though. Even if he does well for us this season he walks away for free, but regardless if we're paying him a lot we may as well give him a chance as he costs us the same and walks away for free whether he plays like a superstar or trains with the U21's.

To be fair, whilst I think Juanmi is clearly not physically ready for Premier League games, there aren't many that would be able to keep up with Jay and Mane on the break. Their acceleration and top end pace is rapid.

He has struggled with injuries and form but when we sold him we were all gutted. The benefit of hindsight has (thus far) shown it to be a great deal for Saints though.

Yep I agree.

From memory I think at Chelsea we played a flat 4-4-2 (Mane and Long up front with Davis and Tadic wide) so that was a bit different to last night? I think it is good to have options but I think our best team has Pelle in it.

It's a nice way to play but we have to respect that we played against a team that gave us lots of space, had zero threat going forward, and didn't defend very well either. When the team is lacking confidence it often reverts to safe balls up to Pelle and that makes us one dimensional. But when we have more verve as a team we mix it up well and Pelle contributes a lot to that. Last night was a good confidence boost but I think Pelle is still very important to the way we play and must start unless he is in a really poor patch of form or is shattered.

Very good team on paper, but if it is Shane Long up front on his own I have some concerns that he will be asked to play like Pelle. Also would it be Jay left, Juanmi middle, and Mane right?

I'd give Pelle a complete rest. We rode him heavily in the first half of last season and it really showed in the second half. Jay Rod should be able to play up front, but I'd like to see him play with a partner. Not opposed 3-5-2 tonight.

I think Les Reed said that Wayama has already been offered a new 5 year deal (though my recent recollection of his comments hasn't been accurate so that may need double checking ) therefore I think the club are trying to plan as far ahead as possible. I agree with you that the market will be a mess - everyone will be after the lions share of the new money and it'll be interesting to see what clubs act early and place their cards on the table and which wait and see what happens with the market.

I wouldn't be against it, but I don't see it happening. Others ahead of him in the queue no matter what way you look at it.

It's from a Les Reed interview on the clubs YouTube channel earlier this summer. May even have been one of #TheMarch videos. In it he says words to the effect of 'once we signed Soares it became clear Clyne was not going to sign his new contract'. Will try and find an exact link tomorrow or Thursday if you really doubt it.

To continue the West Ham shot conversion madness, they had three shots on target Saturday and scored twice. Going into added time it was two and two!

Yeah I think so. First week back in training so seems a bit much to be on the bench.

I think we know how we play with Long up front on his own and I don't think anyone wants that again. Jay would be an interesting option as long as we play differently and don't expect him to be like Pelle. The problem is all our forward thinking players like to play off Pelle and I don't see Jay as that type of striker. Maybe put Jay up front with someone and see what happens?

This calendar year the club have been very vocal about ambition and what we want to do etc. The summers transfer business was all about that. Reed even claimed we got all our targets (which we know is BS to be fair). It went very quiet after Europe and being thumped by Everton.

Just what I get told in public by the club! Reed and Krueger in particular.

I am with you in that I don't like Davis as a DM (not in our system, anyway) but Yoshida as an emergency right-back is fine but as a bonafide alternative to Soares is concerning for a club with Top 6 ambitions. Yoshida is a valuable squad member and had he been forced to play there through injuries then I have no complaints. But for him to be selected over Soares concerns me because a) it's Yoshida at right back, which defensively isn't great and going forward is a disaster, and b) it means Soares either can't be that good, Koeman doesn't fancy him, or he has some big errors in his game which will take a while to fix. I think for Southampton to have Soares / Martina / Yoshida as options at right back is fine. I think for any team wanting to finish Top 6 it's laughable. And that is the way I look at things. If I look at things from a Saints perspective it is very easy to justify most of what we have done in the summer. If I look at it from a punter who gets told by the club that they want to compete on all fronts and push on I just laugh - it's not good enough. Stek I will give you but with Forster out the bar was low to find better than Davis. I am quite happy with Stek and think the club have done good business there. Clasie we have to see but I suspect you are right and he will be a starter no matter what. Romeu and Soares I don't see him as thinking they are better than what he has got, but time will show there. I'm not seeking a big wage player really, but I am seeking someone ready to make an impact straight away. Because each summer if we sell high and buy low - and the replacement player is of an ilk that they will need half a season to get up to speed this club cannot and will not sustain progress and will instead just be a factory that takes punts on players and some will be hits and some will be misses. With the money we have available we should be able to do better in my opinion. That said, it's all very early but when I see signings to beef out the squad that aren't better than what we have I don't think it's a good way to go about things.

I would suggest there is a difference between rotating central midfielders in their natural position and shoehorning a centre-half who has weak distribution into a right-back spot. This is my main issue: If Soares is known to be defensively weak (you would like to think the club were aware of this before we signed him), and yet he is immeasurably better than Martina, why didn't we buy another proper right back to compete with Soares (who has differing characteristics)? This would mean we don't have to play a centre-back at right-back. The only teams who do this crap are Tony Pulis long ball teams. It's the same with Juanmi, club talked about pulling off a great deal etc. when we signed him and yet he has the body of a pre-pubescent 12 year old and he isn't in a condition to be able to contribute. Of all the signings we made in the summer right now there is only ONE who is Koeman thinks is better than what we already have and that is VvD. That's a problem for me.

The only person who could be suggesting Soares is rubbish is Koeman as he is playing our third choice centre back ahead of him out of position.