Ultimatt

Might be able to get a bit more but to put it in perspective, Chelsea signed Matic for £21m and Barca signed Mascherano for £24m. It's all hypothetical though, it all depends how desperate a team is. £60m for Di Maria? £42.5m for Ozil? Hypothetically, if we qualified for CL I couldn't see him leaving for less than £35m and there'd probably be offers that high too.

He could sign one with release clauses; eg. Club must accept 25m+ offer from a club qualified for CL.

From the minimal time spent watching Classie he looks to play like Aaron Ramsay. Small in stature but a terrier clipping at heels to win the ball back and able to push forward. He won't be a replacement for Morgan or Victor, he'll be a replacement for Davis, JWP or Cork, and given Davis signed a new deal and JWP is academy it's Cork on the way out unless he's fine with very very limited game time. I can't see us having both Classie and Cork next season.

Villa away - 0-2 win - They don't look like scoring without Benteke. They'll probably park it like Leicester so we'll need to learn from our last game. City home - 1-1 draw - Should be entertaining end-to-end. I said 1-1 draw but either team could snatch this 2-1. Arsenal away 1-1 draw - Tough to beat them at Emirates but we match up really well. Mane's pace will destroy Chambers. Our mids are strong against their physically smaller players. Utd home - 1-0 win - Fatigue may be an issue here for both teams. Can't see many chances being created. Could really go 1-0 either way.

As much as I want their clubs to fail I actually want Shaw and Chambers to succeed and play well. It speaks volumes about our academy the more class players leave the production line and detracts from it anytime these players don't succeed. Lallana i'm half-half about; he went about the move in a really bad way but we all would've agreed that he deserved champions league football the same way Schneiderlin does. If we don't make top 4 then no one can blame Spiderman if a big club comes calling; Lovren on the other hand can get what's coming to him. A mercenary at heart gets no loyalty from his supporters. Lovren and Balotelli are the scapegoats because they weren't part of the squad good enough to almost win the title but the pennys starting to drop that they were a 2-man team scoring 3 goals a game while the other 9 players conceded 2.

I think any decent CB can look good when surrounded by our defense (see one D. Lovren) but Alderweireld is definitely class. Bertrand is fantastic as well but Targett will really be staking a claim next season. If I had to choose one it'd be Toby based on Targett coming through. The club has a really interesting decision to make regarding Bertrand/Targett, Targett may be willing to spend 1 more year in the reserves.

Obviously if he quickly comes back in the same form as last season then i'd love him to stay, but we've shown we have the squad to do well and win without him. The club well and truly has the power in contract negotiations; accept a contract renewal from a club that's looked after you through your injury and is currently fighting for a CL spot... Or show no loyalty and run off to join another deserter and a club struggling to meet their expectations; Or maybe it won't be a loyalty issue but rather playing time, he'd have a much higher guarantee starting at a weaker club like Spurs

Not hard for a left-back to look incredible against teams that park the bus as hard as Leicester and Palace did. Bertrand and Shaw both had acres of space to go forward. You judge their quality in games where they need to balance attack and defense where their positioning and decisions become crucial.

Interesting how much Arsenal and City are being carried by 1 player this year, and i'd throw Liverpool into the hat too with their reliance on Sturridge. You wonder if Arsenal(-Sanchez) and City(-Aguero) would be having the same season as Liverpool. Goalscorers: City: Aguero(12), Lampard/Silva/Jovetic/Dzeko(2) Arsenal: Sanchez(7), Welbeck/Ramsay(2) Lot of talk about our squad depth being the most likely reason we wouldn't make top 4 but other teams seem more reliant on 1 player than we do. More of our goals are being created by teamplay meanwhile Aguero/Sanchez are winning points on their own scoring out of nothing.

Chelsea won it in 2012 having finished 6th in the league. This meant Spurs in 4th place only got Europa League. Unless the rules changed then it's still maximum 4 teams.

Arsenal are as good as through imo. City still a chance if Bayern field a reserve side but that's unlikely.

Hull City v Southampton 0-1 W (Confident about this one) Southampton v Leicester 2-0 W Villa v Southampton D 1-2 W Southampton v Man City 0-2 L Arsenal v Southampton 2-1 L Southampton v Man U 1-1 D Burnley v Southampton 0-3 W Capital One Cup - Sheffield United v Southampton 0-2 W Southampton v Everton 0-1 L Crystal Palace v Southampton 1-4 W Southampton v Chelsea 0-2 L 5W 1D 4L - 16pts to put us on 35pts in 19 games.

I'd see value in it if he can help develop younger players (rolemodel and all that). Is he likely to get into coaching/management after he retires?

More revenue from sponsors, tv money, BPL ladder position bonus, merchandise, ability to charge higher ticket prices at home games because of more fans. Qualifying as a once-off won't do much but each successful season improves the Southampton brand.

Would like a backup for Pelle. Austin would be a great fit (same kind of player, knows the league, knows the language) but no way in hell are QPR selling him in January as it guarantees relegation. We could grab him on the cheap in the summer. Or we could continue our 100% record of making Lyon players stars in saints shirts and get Lacazette. Different player to Pelle but having variety is good when Pelle is getting shutdown. He's top scoring ligue 1 and this will surely be his last season there, won't be available for cheap though; 20m+. The way I see it, Koeman might have a plan a b c & d but each one involves Pelle, they have a huge relationship and I think it unlikely that we'll sign someone forcing Pelle onto the bench in a rotation. Another CM will be the next signing. Cork probably deserves a new contract but if you wanted to upgrade the team by signing a great CM which one of Schneiderlin/Wanyama/Davis/Cork would be dropped? Most would agree that's Cork.

Even with just Sturridge they looked fine. He played the 1st 3 of the season which saw them beat us 2-1, lose 1-3 to ManCity and beat Spurs 3-0. 2 wins against strong sides and a loss to one of the best, 6 goals in 3 games. When he comes back they'll look a million times better but as it is they're impotent up front and rely on goal of the month candidates like Lallana's to get a win. I wonder what we'd look like with Pelle out, I doubt we'd be anywhere near as lethal.

Di Maria v Leicester https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rhWw06A19qs

?? Different quote. Mines by W. Clement Stone. Point is, Cortese set big goals, even though he never achieved champions league in his time here he still left the club in a much stronger position than when he started.

"Aim for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars." Easy to look at all the negatives leading up to his departure but over the course of his tenure he did an amazing job.

I love this post on RAWK: "Just look at that. Three previous second place finishes, followed by a collapse. It's a vicious cycle we're in. Low..low..low..low..HIGH..low..low, and it's because our player recruitment has been woeful. We don't keep our top players, because we're not ambitious enough as a club." Wonder what Adam, Rickie and Dejan think about that

Few points that I think contributed.. All the behind the scenes staff are incredible. What Cortese put in place is undoubtedly a well-oiled machine with everyone having a role and doing it well. Anyone that wasn't doing their job well was probably cut. We have an more experienced side this season. Shaw replaced with Bertrand a Champions League winner. Lovren replaced with Alderweireld a La Liga & Eredivisie winner & CL runner up. Lallana/Lambert replaced with a prolific playmaker and prolific striker. Pochettino replaced with Koeman who's won a lot of honours both as a player and manager. JayRod covered by Mane who won the Austrian Bundesliga last season. All these signings have tasted success in some form and seem to have a great hunger to continue their success. A real winning mentality in a squad of consummate professionals. Koeman had a brilliant foundation and the $$ to build a team how he wanted. Fonte a solid CB. Clyne an attacking FB. All our CM's have the skills to play both ways. He wanted a strong striker; Pelle. He wanted a creative playmaker; Tadic. He wanted a pacy winger to get in behind; Long Mane (different horses for different courses ok ok i'll stop horsing around). He wanted another attacking FB; Bertrand. etc. etc. What we have now is a team with fantastic balance, fluid movement, players that can defend well and quickly counterattack forward with seamless transition.

Sorry I phrased that poorly. I'm talking about if we were to become a top 4 CL club. When you're a 5th-17th placed club it's great to give the promising kids as many chances as possible, but the reality now is the BPL is too strong for the top 4 sides to play them regularly unless they're truly world-class. An 18yo needs to be something incredible to beat out a more mature experienced player in the top teams. Big clubs best XI (imo): Chelsea: Courtious 22, Ivanovic 30, Terry 33, Cahill 28, Azpilicueta 25, Matic 26, Ramires 27, Fabregas 27, Hazard 23, Oscar 23, Costa 25 - U21 players 0 ManCity: Hart, Zabaleta, Kompany, Mangala, Clichy, Fernadinho, YayaToure, Milner, Silva, Navas, Aguero - U21 players 0 Arsenal: Szczesny, Debuchy, Koscielny, Mertesacker, Gibbs, Arteta, Wilshere, Ramsay, Sanchez, Ozil, Welbeck - U21 players 0 ManUnited: De Gea, Rafael, Jones, Evans, Rojo, Blind, Herrera, Di Maria, Rooney, RvP, Falcao - U21 players 0 Liverpool: Mignolet, Manquillo, Lovren, Skrtel, Moreno, Can, Gerrard, Henderson, Sterling, Lallana, Sturridge - U21 players 2 (Don't see them making top4 this season)

They've flourished for a team finishing mid-table but did they play better than their top4 counterparts? Shaw vs Azpilicueta/Clichy/Enrique/Gibbs. Chambers v Ivanovic/Zabaleta/Johnson/Sagna. None of our stars that left for bigger clubs have flourished this year. Our team this year is outperforming last year so far (early days I know) and it's predominantly made up of older signed players, not young academy players. In fact Koeman's favourite XI features 0 academy players with the youngest being Mane (22).

Stats like that can easily be inflated when teams are forced to shoot from outside the box. He's looked shaky the last couple of games. In the 1st Stoke game there were 2 times the ball was played in and he should've called and taken it, instead of it cleared away by a defender - No communication? In the cup game he moved really slowly for the 1st and should've punched the ball away not long before the 2nd. So far he hasn't exceeded the performance of Boruc but it's early days, he's a lot younger, and his focus/reactions in games could be slow because he has so little to do for long periods. Hard to pull out a top draw save when you've been standing around for 20 minutes. I'm reserving judgement until January when the club has to make a decision on Boruc though I suspect that decisions already made.

I have a feeling the club will be adopting the same model as Olympique Lyon. Like us they invested heavily in the academy and integrated a lot of players into the first team. The constant stream of players coming through meant they could sell their stars for profit and maintain their level. That club would still be a mighty force in Europe if not for the GFC; they became the 1st French club to be publically listed on the stock exchange, only months before the GFC hit. Totally crippled their finances. The BPL is of course a much higher level than Ligue 1, so clubs here don't have the same luxury of being able to play kids all the time without a noticeable drop in results. Look at Chelsea's best XI. Courtious 22, Ivanovic 30, Terry 33, Cahill 28, Azpilicueta 25, Matic 26, Ramires 27, Fabregas 27, Hazard 23, Oscar 23, Costa 25. Bench: Cech 32, Willian 26, Remy 27, Schurlle 23, Filipe Luis 29. All their promising kids are loaned out. If we want to advance to a top 4 club then we'll need to do the same; Develop players in the academy until their ~18yo and then loan them out until they can make the 1st team. Right now that's not part of the clubs vision (understandable given we're not top 4).