andoru

Good shout on the short-term visa. I've never used it personally but I assume it's straightforward. That gives more than enough time for tourism in Shanghai (two days is enough tbh) and possibly even Suzhou or Hangzhou as one-day trips. You might want to just stick around Shanghai though and take it easy.

Schiller = Schalke

Hey all. It’s been a fair while since I last posted but figured I’d wade in on this thread as I’m Shanghai based and have the official Saints social media and fan relations manager as an acquaintance. She’s offering my free tickets for the games if I’m interested. I’ll probably go to the Schiller game even though it’s annoyingly on a Thursday evening at 7:30pm. It’s in Kunshan which is between Shanghai and Suzhou, roughly 20m on the high-speed train from Hongqiao station, itself around 30m from downtown on the subway. It’s just about achieveable after work. The second game is a Sunday but it’s in a city called Xuzhou about 300 miles from Shanghai. I’ll give that one a miss! The weather in July is going to be brutal for a game of football, even in the evening, so I imagine it’ll be a pretty tame kickabout. Anyway, if any of you do make it out let me know and I’ll be happy to answer any questions about getting around etc. Or try to answer them anyway.

Great to see Davis and Long being the heroes for their teams, and that NI have confirmed their spot. Wales are all but guaranteed to be there and RoI have their fate in their own hands now, thanks to Shane. It's only Scotland that's let the British Isles down.

All fair points. I wonder if sometimes our club believes its own hype. The team has a reputation for finding undeveloped talent, so maybe when they find someone they think "We're good at finding good players, we found this guy, so this guy must be good."

I didn't read it that way to be honest. I assumed Batman was lamenting the fact we couldn't get both players in and were forced to choose between one or the other. A fair reason to lament.

I think you missed my point. It's not only us Saints fans who've tweeted support for Luke Shaw, but fans of Arsenal, Man City, Aston Villa ... everyone. There's rarely such outpouring of sympathy for players who suffer less obvious, but no less serious injuries, such as J-Rod. I was commenting on the peculiarities and contradictions of human nature. Because we can see Luke's leg hanging awkwardly, we assume it's so much more painful than the invisible internal tear of a ligament or cartilage, hence less concern for J-Rod's welfare from outside the club.

Feel for the lad obviously, nobody deserves that. But, I don't recall too many tweets of support from Man Utd fans when J-Rod suffered his knee injury, which could easily have been career ending, or when Fraser Forster got hurt so bad he's out for a year. People only seem to care when it's a visible break. They think it's so much more serious.

The money and the fracture are unrelated of course, but I suppose PP's point was that his situation isn't as bad as for an ordinary bloke suffering a similar injury. If someone on 25k a year breaks their leg, it can affect their ability to earn money for their family – money they need much more than a millionaire – and they have to make do with occasional trips to an NHS physio. They also get zero sympathy except from a few close mates. Shaw is going to get the best treatment, all while being paid six-figures a week. That should soften the blow slightly, even if it has nothing to do with the injury itself. I guess that's what PP was getting at.

Neither did we. Our game against them finished 2-2 if I recall, and involved us conceding two very sloppy goals to throw away a lead, before rescuing a point. And like you said, it's "early days", so probably too early to be suggesting Newcastle are a relegation contender.

I know JWP is not the most popular player, but I quite like him. He's not spectacular, but nor is he awful. He just doesn't offer anything we don't already get from the likes of Steven Davis, which is hardly an insult (although he's much maligned by many of you as well). I'd like to persevere with him if only because he's an academy graduate, and pretty much the only one ready for first-team football (Targett wouldn't be there if Bertrand was fit). We need to stay true to our pledge to develop youth with first-team football. JWP will only improve if he's playing.

I seem to recall us being given one for intent against Villa. The defender swung at J-Rod who went down without any contact at all. It wasn't even close to an actual foul.

Dire, obviously, but for those who like a positive spin, that's three clean sheets in a row now, and VVD looks very calm and composed at the back, even if West Brom didn't pose much of a test today.

Brendan Rodgers. No other manager comes close to loving Southampton as much. He wants to manage us so bad he's been moving the club piecemeal. I say we reward his passion with a job offer.

"… earn himself a big money summer move to Liverpool and integrate himself into England’s European Championship plans" I wonder if the writer deliberately drew the connection between those two events. "After progressing through the Palace ranks a move to Southampton followed where he quickly attracted the attention of the big clubs and Three Lions boss Roy Hodgson." I'm glad our small club was able to help showcase his talents. "I always set my mind on playing at the top. As a footballer you want to be playing at the highest level and when you start at the bottom and work your way up to the top it's always good. It's the way I have done it." Fair enough, he has done that, but I'm not sure Liverpool is quite "at the top".

Never mind whether we or the board would take him, which is apparent that we wouldn't, would HE want to come back? Would his ego be able to handle coming back 'down' to our level, especially so soon? Maybe towards the end of his career he would accept it, but he probably still thinks he is in his prime and thus above Saints' level. It would take a serious swallowing of pride and a super-sized serving of humble pie to return to St. Mary's.

Obviously. Hence my dig about loyalty to your employer. If they had any, they'd want the club they play for to get a fair deal, having given them a chance to play professional football, improve themselves, put themselves in the shop window, etc. It's what I liked about J-Rod signing the new deal, saying he felt he owed it to the club for sticking with him while he was injured and providing quality care that's basically ensured he can continue with his career.

There is a key difference though in that Celtic aren't losing a player to a league rival. When we lost our starters, they all went to clubs we were/are in direct competition with. That matters. Celtic fans also know their club doesn't need the absolute best. They can win the SPL with Championship-quality players, or maybe lower Premier League quality. If they're being offered a big transfer fee (and for Scottish football £11.5m is just that), they might as well take it and buy a cheaper replacement who can perform to the level they play at. It's a lot easier to be gracious when you're not strengthening a rival or weakening yourself in any meaningful way.

Why would the likes of Berahino or Wanyama ever want to sign for Spurs when Levy values them so cheaply? If I was them, I'd be thinking, "If you think I'm top-six quality, pay my club a top-six transfer fee. If you're not willing to, clearly you don't think I'm worth it, so f**k you." But then, I have a brain and a sense of loyalty to my current employer. Your average modern-day footballer ... not so much.

I'm sure every player at every team would love to move to a 'big club', but if no big club wants you, tough s**t. Wanyama needs to remember that. He might want a move, but unless a club actually bids for him and offers market value, he's not going anywhere. Personally, I'd let him stew on the bench for a while and promote Romeu to guaranteed starting DM. We need someone in the club prepared to cut a few egos down to size, because Vic isn't as great as he thinks he is. He's important for us, but he's nothing to the teams chasing titles and trophies. If he really wants a big-money transfer, he's going to have to earn it by showing the right attitude and improving his game to top-four level, the way Morgan plugged away for years learning his trade.

We're basically Newcastle now in terms of business model and what 'weight category' we are in. Newcastle scour the continent for cheap European talent that they hope to bring on and sell for profit a year or two later. That seems to be what we're doing now. Mike Ashley has supposedly said he wants to win a trophy, and Les Reed has talked about similar ambitions for us, but neither club really seems poised to do so. Money from sales is reinvested, but no extra is injected (not now anyway), and cheaper replacements are bought. I've been saying this for a while, but people find it hard to look beyond the propaganda. The press coverage for us is mostly positive (English roots, great academy, quality scouting) and for them is mostly negative (aloof chairman, constant upheaval in management, too French). Everyone feels sorry for us when we lose players, and enjoys it when we do well because we're a nice little family club that doesn't bother anyone and which gives talent a chance to show itself. Newcastle are seen a club of mercenaries, run by a tight chairman who is only concerned with profit. They have brought mediocrity upon themselves, so it's said, and their fans are seen as whinging deluded idiots who still think it's 1999. Get past the media image of each club though and you can see we are really quite similar. Nothing wrong with it of course, just the nature of the game. We're mid-table clubs with ambitions beyond what we can afford.

Harrison Reed is the one that most perplexes me. It's clear most of the others aren't ready to step up yet, but Reed has already turned in some solid performances in the league and, of all the youngsters, looks the least phased by being in the first team. Several of the others still look like kids, but Harrison carries himself like Shaw did: comfortable, assured, mature. Sure, he has a lot of work to do, but he's got a strong foundation to work with. I'd like to see him given more chances, but Koeman doesn't seem quite as convinced. I bow to his greater footballing wisdom though.

What's more interesting is that, internationally, people often support more than one 'big' club. Here in China, the same plastic fans support Real Madrid, Man Utd and Bayern Munich in equal measure. What would they do if they were all in the same competition? (I never get a straight answer when I ask that about the Champions League.)

We would, but it would be like Celtic losing players to us. That doesn't affect them much, because they play in a lower-quality league and don't need superstars to do well. An English league without the 'big' clubs would be similarly weaker, and so a team could compete at the top with a lower-quality squad. Losing players sucks, but if you're going to, much better to lose them to teams you're not in competition with.

1. Buy disaffected squad fillers from the so-called big clubs who want to get their careers back on track. They'll be less inclined to leave, and can also act as an example to other players thinking of moving on. Koeman needs to have Bertrand and Romeu sit down with every one of our players and drum it into them how much it sucks not even getting on the bench at Chelsea. 2. Don't be afraid to damage a few egos. A lot of players move to big clubs because they believe they are good enough to go straight into the first team. When they arrive they are shocked to find it's not that simple, and they sit on the bench. In addition to point 1 then, we need someone prepared to bring a few players down to size, and not let them believe their own hype. 3. From the day a player arrives, indoctrinate them with the following message: If Lallana was Champions League quality, and Clyne was, and Morgan, and Lovren, and Toby, and Shaw, and Chambers, and Walcott, and Bale, and Chamberlain, and now Mane and Wanyama are all supposedly good enough to step up, doesn't that mean that together they'd have made a Champions League quality team? Sometimes staying put and being patient brings the rewards, and not chasing a short cut solution.