andoru

Generally agree, but a three-goal lead is very comfortable. No away goal to worry about either. I can't see Vitesse scoring four, even with a number of changes, so I think we can afford to drop some. Or else, start with a strong team and aim for an early away goal to properly kill the tie, then bring on the subs.

Yep. Van Dijk doesn't have Prem experience either and people have been clamoring to get him. Italian football is known for being defensive, so I don't have too many reservations about signing defenders from Serie A. Strikers on the other hand ...

Wherever he goes, I hope he hurries up because I need to free up a space in my ex-Saints fantasy football squad. There are four at Liverpool now, but I can only have three. I need Lambert because we only have him and Crouch representing the strikers, so I've got to cut either Clyne, Lovren or Lallana. If Ricky leaves, problem solved.

I post on the sly at work and and at home, in between arguments with the wife.

So bad it's good. The 'When the Saints ...' riff reminds me of that Scottish band Big Country that used to have an electro-bagpipe effect.

Southampton first, Bournemouth second ... if it wasn't for Portsmouth the south coast would be the most popular place in England.

I did this last season with all the defectors. Came bottom of my league of 20. The only position I couldn't fill last year was goalkeeper, but this year there's Artur to fill the role. Will have to drop one of the Liverpool one's this season as you only get three players per team, although if Ricky moves on I can keep them all. Boruc Clyne Lovren Chambers Shaw Cork Schneiderlin Lallana Walcott Oxlade-Chamberlain Lambert Subs: Crouch, Dyer, Puncheon, Hammond

All clubs sell of course, but that's not what "selling club" really means. A selling club is one that bases its business model on the sale of players. The transfer fees form a major part of its revenue. Utd, Arsenal etc don't rely on selling the likes of Ronaldo and Van Persie, so they are not selling clubs.

My fantasy football team of nobody but ex-Saints is going to be much stronger next season with Morgan in midfield.

Yeah, I was saying the same to the guy in front of me. With Bertrand out we are pretty vulnerable in that position going into Europa. Coco Martini, or whatever his name is, looks like he has no pace and he moves like Carlton Palmer.

Augustinerbrau. Good traditional beer hall on the northern end of the hill that's on the west side of the river.

Anyone heading to Red Bull Arena tomorrow, I'm informed you need either bus 1 from stop C outside Salzburg station, or you can take an S-Bahn train. The stop is called Taxham Europark. The Valencia boys are out and about in town right now. Hard to miss in their bright orange kit.

Anyone else in Salzburg for the Audi Quattro Cup? I just got here today. I've worked out where the stadium is, just need to figure out how to get there. Saints kick off just after five, with the first game at four. Presumably I'll be able to get tickets on the gate?

Koeman: We start to play a friendly on that Wednesday, that’s too early for
 the international players but we will use that friendly game with the
 people who started today. After that we have the two 45 minute games,
 the first one against Valencia and normally the international players
 will play 45 minutes. That’s the second week, but for them the first
 week and we have to grow in all aspects of football, in a physical
 way, how we like to play football. Most of the players they know that. The "normally" is a bit ambiguous, but it sounds like the first-teamers will play in the mini-tournament in Salzburg, but not the first game. Hope that's right, because the Salzburg games are the ones I'm half-planning to see. If it's just the kids I think I'll give it a miss, since the travel schedule is already pretty packed and it is, technically, my honeymoon.

I'm expecting Wanyama and Mane to be next summer's Clyne and Schneiderlin to be honest. Vic has allegedly already spoken of wanting to play CL, and although Mane comes across a lot more sensible than his some of his compatriots (i.e. El Hadji Diouf and Aliou Cisse – one obnoxious and the other an ex-Portsmouth player), he has no real connection to Saints and I can't see him staying if a richer club come in for him, which they will if he puts in another good season. We can and should be offering both long-term contracts, but I wouldn't bank on keeping either of them. Having a five-year deal didn't stop Lallana leaving, did it? I think the best we can do is to protect their value.

Apparently we have to give Crystal Palace 25% of the profit from the deal because of a sell-on clause. £2.5m then, as £10m of the fee is profit on the £2.5m we paid CP ourselves.

Ignorance? What's ignorant about my accurate understanding of what 'net worth' actually means? Most people think the likes of Bill Gates have giant bank vaults full of coins, like in Duck Tales, but it's all perception. Same as the stock markets. When the financial crisis hit, money didn't disappear, value did. They are quite different.

Bill Gates wealth just accumulates – he's not really pursuing it, in fact he gives tons of it away. His net worth isn't real money after all, it's just value in stocks, property, personal branding, etc. That can easily disappear – ask Brazil's former richest man Eike Batista, who went from being worth 30b to 200m in one year. Once you start getting into the billions we aren't talking about real zeros on bank balances anymore, but perceived value in whatever the person owns.

Lallana has certainly bettered himself financially – that can't be argued – but not really professionally. He's not playing better football or with better players, and enjoyed only a brief sojourn with the Champions League. I wonder if one day he might look back and regret the move up north. You see, if he'd stayed at Saints he'd retire a legend, and people in Southampton would still be talking about him twenty years later, the way Liverpool will talk about Gerrard for years to come. We'd hold testimonials for him, and when he dies there'd be a minute's applause in his memory. Sure, there might never be any trophies or Champions League football with us, but he'd be remembered. When he retires from Liverpool however, he'll be forgotten very quickly, because he's just another of countless players to have filled a squad place there for a few seasons. Few from Liverpool will remember him even just two or three years after he leaves, which he will. He's not going to end his career at Liverpool. Eventually he'll move on (or be moved on more likely) to play his twilight years at the likes of Sheffield Wednesday or Nottingham Forest, before slipping into footballing obscurity. It's not an original story. I just hope the extra money was worth it, though I'm not sure what he can buy that he couldn't with the wages he could get at Southampton – he wasn't exactly living like a pauper, was he?

Wow, you guys love your 'arguments from authority', eh? "Koeman knows best," "Koeman knows what he's doing," "Koeman knows more about football than us" ... etc. Sure he does, but then so do Mark Lawrenson/Garth Crooks/Robbie Savage/any football pundit or manager or commentator or coach or ex-player who has spent their life in the game. Doesn't stop people dismissing what they say. Even the mighty Alex Ferguson made mistakes, like releasing Pogba or signing Veron. Big Ron is not infallible, and I think Elia isn't worth it. Okay, he might cost just a couple of million, but a) doesn't that tell us something about how he is rated? and b) I'd rather put that towards wages for someone who has more to offer, like Toby. Yes, we need a bigger squad for Europe, but Elia is not the way forward for me. Bar the Newcastle game, he was little more than a body on the pitch last season.

A potentially worrying report from Holland that Saints are preparing to waste some – albeit less than before – money signing Elia: http://www.football-oranje.com/southampton-and-werder-bremen-negotiating-for-elia/? (Please merge this thread if there is an existing one it belongs in. Wasn't sure.)

What was Cortese's original timeline for Saints to make it to the Champions League? I know it's changed now, but I'm still curious. I ask because the likes of Clyne, Schneiderlin and Lallana signed for or stayed at Saints because they bought into the long-term ambition to get Saints there. But surely none of them stayed (or will stay) long enough for the club to achieve that? It was obviously impossible while we were still in League One and The Championship, and I can't believe any of them expected Saints to get there in our first season (or even two) back in the PL. It was really only last season when we came close to competing at that level for any sustained length of time. I know there was a five year plan to get back in the PL, which we smashed by two seasons, but what about the CL?

Edited it for you. 'Small' clubs can't count on local support.

Fully intend to go, although I haven't looked into tickets. I'm going to be in Salzburg then anyway, so the pre-season games are bonus.

I'll never understand the reasoning behind needing to play for a so-called big club. Do Man Utd shirts hold magical powers I am unaware of? Will Clyne's form suddenly leap ten-fold the moment he slips on a Liverpool kit?