HarvSFC

I can't back the Lavia or Phillips claims. Lavia's clearly a very good player and in our relegation season we were over reliant on him. However, he was injury prone during that season and since his move to Chelsea his injuries have only gotten worse, missing a whole season. We need someone who can actually step out onto the pitch and is dependable for our first season back. As for Phillips. Pre-Bielsa Phillips wasn't very highly thought of at Leeds, then Bielsa got his hands on him and the rest is history... He had a very good Euros with England also, but since his move to City he has reverted to a bog standard player, like only Bielsa knew how to use him, Guardiola couldn't suss out how to and his loan to West Ham was a horror show. Let Everton pay the expense of his Man City wages as they aren't going to be low as I can't see him being much of a success here.

Broja isn't the same player he was here previously from what I've seen of him on TV. The knee injury seems to have set him back quite significantly. His main skill here was picking up the ball from deep and then just running with pace and power, but he doesn't do that anymore, hence the 1 league goal in 21 appearances for Chelsea and Fulham this season. 0 in 8 at Fulham, we can do better now. We don't need to aim low, players want to come to the Premier League if we get our scouting right.

It's going to be an interesting summer for sure, like last summer, but we're in a much better position this time around. I think there has to be a bit of ruthlessness from us this summer. The same ruthlessness we showed Sharp, Hammond, Chaplow, Hooiveld, K. Davis (after a shaky start), etc... in 2012 if we want to compete again. I think we have to say our thanks and move on from McCarthy, which I don't think is too controversial. Once player of the season, played a good part over the last few weeks, a good servant of the club, and it's now time to part ways on a high. I have similar feelings regarding Adams and S. Armstrong. I don't think we've had much say in keeping either with both of their decisions having been made, two good servants again, had some good moments, but we need to aim higher now. Thank them both for their contributions and move on. The loans, keeping Downes needs to be top priority. Essential to Martin's tactics and makes us tick. Unfortunately I think with West Ham's managerial change and with him being a West Ham fan who might want to prove himself there still that it could be one that gets drawn out. Good to secure Harwood-Bellis, but feel as though he needs a Fonte next to him, and no I don't mean Fonte himself. Joe Rothwell is obviously not being kept on. Thank you for the goals against Huddersfield and Sunderland, but I'm not sure what he actually is as a player. Other than those goals he was anonymous in open play. Brooks and Fraser are a bit more difficult. Brooks was a once highly rated player and played very well against West Brom in the second leg and had some other good moments, but a lot of his time at Saints has been a bit underwhelming giving his reputation. I think Bournemouth want him back anyway. Fraser, had a really good purple patch and has done a job as a left wing back, in the last couple of games. I just think he's lacking a bit technically and when his pace goes, which is already on the wane then he will struggle, especially at Premier League level. Probably needs to explore his options, leaves a fan favourite. Sell Sulemana and Mara, they had their chance to prove they were good enough in the Championship, they weren't, so they don't get those chances in the Premier League. Sell Onuachu to the highest bidder, hopefully Caleta-Car has an agreed fee, which I've seen a few times. Sell Lyanco and Perraud, the latter is thought of highly, but we went from Bertrand to him, we can do better. I wonder if Bella-Kotchap will come crawling back now we're in the Premier League. Some talent there, but he's a sicknote and wanted nothing to do with us in the Championship. This could actually be the summer we reset and we've got the financial power to do so now. We just need to spend the money well and wisely, on quality. This season again we had a very large squad, larger than it needed to be, we need to go for quality rather than quantity. If we keep the formation we've been playing recently, then: New GK Harwood-Bellis - New CB - Bednarek KWP (Please get him signed up a new contract) New LWB Downes (Hopefully) Two new CMS, replacing Smallbone and Aribo, who are two squad options, not starters Adam Armstrong - New ST

Oh wow, what a day and night. I think from the West Brom second leg up to yesterday have been my favourite moments as a Saints fan. For the match, Leeds had plenty of the ball and played some nice stuff, but McCarthy wasn't really tested. The shot that hit the crossbar was agonizing, but Edozie missing after going through was the best chance of the game after the goal and for the most part we were defending the 1-0, and it worked. For the stuff outside of the match, it was perfect. There was some myth that Leeds just missed out on automatic promotion and therefore deserved to go up. They finished the season closer to us than they were to Ipswich. There wasn't really much acknowledgement that we finished the season on 87 points. Leeds were seen as the favourites, despite us doing the double over them in the season. And finally, it was Leeds who were writing us off and calling us flat track bullies part way through the season, and my God, we sure did bully them this season. Yesterday was just perfect, short term and long term. We need to be in the Premier League with the money available. I might live in naïve hope that with a few correct decisions that we can one day replicate the Koeman years and get back into Europe, while we'll also never win a cup playing in the Championship. We've seen clubs like Brighton, Bournemouth and Brentford establish themselves with good decisions made off the pitch so there isn't any reason why we can't do so again, we haven't got Semmens telling us how lucky we are to be in the Premier League anymore, we need to be competitive again. My fear before yesterday was getting stuck in the Championship and it is so easy to do so, an unforgiving league. This season and the Adkins seasons were brilliant, but the Burley/Pearson and Poortvliet/Wotte seasons were far worse than the Pochettino/Koeman and even Puel seasons. Final word for Pompey, getting giddy about playing us next season, but we're Premier League.

Think we can all at least agree that this is a lot more exciting than automatic promotion. Our season would've been done weeks ago, no last Friday and no Wembley trip.

Since the turn of the year only City, Arsenal and Liverpool have won more points than Chelsea. They've played 18, won 10, drawn 5 and lost 3. Those losses came against Arsenal, Liverpool and Wolves, so other than Wovles they weren't totally unexpected. As mentioned, Pochettino was just getting this young Chelsea team who had Jackson upfront going. Boehly's got to be one of the worst owner's to have entered the game in terms of club stature, expenditure and results. He just seems to want everything with no clear plan. A stereotypical American.

How come Leeds didn't give Norwich a few chances by giving up possession in their own half? They didn't really give Norwich a sniff tonight which meant Norwich didn't get any confidence or momentum after a couple of Gunn howlers. Leeds dominated. Unfortunately, we'll give West Brom a few chances through our own faults tomorrow, but we've got to do the same as Leeds did tonight given we're the strong favourites also.

Not too bothered if we don't bring in a DoF. Would hopefully avoid another Shea Charles situation where we spend 50% of the transfer budget on a player the manager doesn't want to play/trust. Hasenhuttl also got lumbered with a number of misfits in that final summer and then the pointless Orsic signing last January. Get the manager with the recruitment team to work through a handful of identified players and then sign the one best fitted.

I saw they had wrote an entire article on it earlier: https://www.portsmouth.co.uk/sport/football/portsmouth-fc/portsmouth-rivals-southampton-appeal-for-help-ahead-of-west-brom-semi-final-and-potential-return-of-south-coast-derby-4627595 So, I wanted to see if their claim "Pompey have never felt the need to do this" was true. Apparently, after a quick Google search it isn't. Here's Michael Appleton the last time they got relegated from the Championship: And here's their ex-captain Liam Lawrence: It's almost as if every club does something like this before a big game. Not sure why they've latched onto it, guess they've got to keep pushing their myths.

His son's in our academy, so they're possibly still based around this area.

Lallana being released by Brighton this summer, so get ready for all the links... Would anyone accept him back here given the way he left? Purely on footballing terms I don't think he's a 46 game player if we stayed down and that's what we would need and he isn't a Premier League player anymore if we went up. So, fitness issues too much of a concern and he isn't the same player now because of that. See Ramsey's return to Cardiff as a reference, which was also why I was against an Ox return. Walcott's return wasn't exactly successful either.

After these last handful of games it has become clear that during our dip in form Martin should have pulled Bazunu out of the firing line when it felt like every shot against us was going in and put McCarthy in. The latter wasn't good enough for a Premier League number one spot, but similar to Davis, he's perfectly capable in the Championship. Felt as though one of Sulemana/Edozie should have come on for the last ten minutes for Stephens also. Add a bit off chaos/unpredictability up the field for us because everything we did was very predictable and eaten up by the West Brom defence apart from the Downes and Stewart chances in either half. I don't really get what happened with Edozie, he was in good form, played most weeks, then got injured following a bad tackle, but he hasn't really played since. Got a start against Stoke, but everyone was bad that day. Can't have a handful of midfielders and attackers who can only make sideways passes on the pitch. Need the gamechangers also. Ah well, 0-0. Nothing to chase, nothing to defend. Psychologically, it's just another game we're going into with home advantage. Do need Adams, though. Up the Saints.

Hopefully Stewart has 45 minutes in him.

Ran the game against Sheffield Wednesday on the opening day, so it is a shame he didn't give us a few more to see if we had sorted ourselves out and were going back on the up. Similar to how Lallana, Schneiderlin and Kelvin Davis stuck with us in League One. But, in the same breath we went from having a midfield of Wanyama, Schneiderlin and Steven Davis to JWP being our best midfielder. He wasn't as good as any of those three, aside from his set pieces, so another example of the decline of the starting eleven. Similar to Clyne, Lallana, Lambert 🙁, Schneiderlin, Ings... And many others in that the grass isn't always greener away from Southampton apart from a bigger bank balance. Schneiderlin, Ings and Lambert pretty much finished their careers as a top level player with their moves.

Only team we haven't played off the park for at least 45 minutes of a match this season is Leicester and they were the champions... We've definitely got the team to get us through this and lets hope the recent poor form was due to playing a match every three or four days.

Our record against the others in the play offs this season is won four, drawn two, zero losses. Lets not ruin that now, up the Saints!

Elland Road is like every other ground in the country then. Good when they're winning, bad when they're not. Some myths were being spread a few weeks back.

Won't be the most recent club to win back to back promotions to the Premier League much longer. I said McKenna would be a good option for us last summer, shame we didn't try and pry him away.

Our last two appointments finish the 2023-24 season in 16th and 17th position in League One. Ankersen sure does have an eye for talent.

We looked like a proper mid-table MK Dons/Swansea side today. A terrible insight of what could be next season if we keep the same manager and mess up another summer transfer window. No intensity and lots of playing in our own half today. While Stoke tested McCarthy a lot more than we tested their goalkeeper. Last time we were here we were on the pitch after thrashing Coventry. Now, we're going through the motions against Stoke on a miserable day and the players walking around an empty stadium with a game left.

Guardiola's tactics work because he handpicks the best teams in a country - Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Manchester City. He has admitted himself that he couldn't replicate Bielsa's achievements at Leeds. That would be because his tactics do not work with lesser players. But, Russell Martin disagrees.

61 goals conceded. Look at the league table, Leicester 39, Leeds 37, West Brom below us 44, Bristol City eight places below us 47, 13th Sunderland 51, 16th Millwall 55, go as far down to 22nd with Birmingham and they've only conceded 3 more goals than us this season. These tactics would get annihilated in the Premier League, as we saw tonight and as we saw against the young Liverpool team in the cup. All well and good keeping possession. But we play possession far too often in our own half and in our own danger areas. As soon as we lose the ball, which is now becoming inevitable, the opposition get the ball in a good attacking position spring to punish us with a lot of our players now out of position. We, however, will allow the opposition to set up their defence and attempt to play through them, rather than taking any advantages of any gaps when we do pick up the ball. It has been boring and dull for large parts of the season and we're 4th, which shouldn't be the case. Worrying thing is that Martin doesn't look like he wants to adapt given his history at MK Dons and Swansea and the goals against tally at those clubs. An ex-centre-back who doesn't know how to setup a defence. Go figure.

Walking football, creating nothing, but winning possession. The Russell Martin way.

Downes has missed 9 league matches, 1-0 defeat against Ipswich, 1-1 draw with Watford, 1-1 with Coventry, 2-1 win against Plymouth, 3-1 loss against Bristol City, 2-0 win against West Brom and then 2-1 defeats against Hull, Millwall and Cardiff today. So, of the 9, we've won 2, drawn 2 and lost 5 without him.

What ever happened to that myth that all our possession would eventually tire the opposition out? Seems to have the opposite effect, all the work on the ball knackers our players out.