Beckenham Saint

Apart from Yoshida, who came on leaps and bounds last season, Romeu who arguably became our best player, McQueen who seems to have jumped ahead of Targett into 2nd choice despite not being a RB at the start of the year, Ward-Prowse who had his best season last year, Stephens who despite still being shaky and positionally awkward at the back, really grew into the team and Redmond, who got better as the season went on, sure. Obviously, I think Puel was a major factor in all of these improvements as he is famously good at coaching and developing players, but it all happened with Eric Black on the coaching team too, contrary to your point.

Rafa Benitez has this morning made a loan enquiry for Southampton left back Matt Targett, according to Sky sources. Says it's an enquiry for a loan in two posts on their live feed, so think we can rest assured that's the case... BBC reporting that Wolves are in for Vietto on loan from Atletico.

He looks like the player everyone seems to think Jack Stephens is

but we won't play like that all season - if we played how we did against burnley at home last year for the whole season, we'd have won the league. the team is proven to not have enough goalscorers in it, as op points out. throw in that Cedric never scores for an attacking full back and that we aren't much of a threat from set plays, we're asking a hell of a lot from Gabbiadini on his own. obviously I think we'll be find position wise this season but there's a reason we didn't score many last year and it categorically was not Claude Puel

http://www.dailyecho.co.uk/sport/saints/15458845.Van_Dijk_submits_transfer_request/ "Saints were unavailable for comment, though the Daily Echo understands they knew the move was a possibility and doesn’t change their position."

manes first game was against arsenal in the cup - he won the penalty we equalised from and generally had a very good game (as did Targett incidentally) and was great up until the whole team packed it in for winter. the Sheffield United game was the worst performance I've ever been in the stadium to see but mane didn't especially stand out over anyone else as being dreadful - the whole team was collectively shocking

http://www.smcaen.fr/2017-2018/actualites/infos-club/communique-du-stade-malherbe May or may not affect us (don't know if we're even in for Karamoh)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMBYAJh5JyY

He made 29 league appearances last season

Good point, hadn't checked his account but his profile picture actually looks like a terrible photoshop Probably should have checked him out before sharing...

Murray Groves‏ @MurrayGroves 46m46 minutes ago More A journalist associate of mine who this morning asked van Dijk if he'd be staying with #saintsfc was met with a 'smile and a single nod'. Murray Groves‏ @MurrayGroves 45m45 minutes ago More Replying to @MurrayGroves This was of course on his return to #saintsfc pre-season this morning. Same contact also mentioned an unrecognisable player of small stature

Fantastic business by us to get so much money for a player whose legs, pace, first touch, passing and sharpnessare all gone. Thanks for the one good season but no doubt in my mind if he had remained injury free he'd have jumped ship at the first chance that summer. Some great moments that year, but also some terrible moments that he seems to get away with because of it - losing the ball in a dangerous area that led to mitjyland scoring against us and missing two open goals at the San siro which ended up being the difference between us going through and being knocked out. Looking forward to seeing his dad and brother constantly undermining Tony pulis and west brom on twitter instead of us next season.

Think our scouts have beat you to it considering we've been linked with two of those (Gudelj and Callejon). Haraguchi and Sokratis don't fit our signing mould and we are about to sign a younger and higher rated CB than Balanta, so I can see why you're not making the grade Perhaps if we're going purely on FM scouting and factoring in "Saints type signings" then maybe we could go after Alex Grimaldo from Benfica to cover from the departing Ryan Bertrand and Dortmund's Felix Passlack on the other flank to understudy Cedric for a year before he departs next season, Ruben Neves from Porto to polish into a real combative box to box midfielder before selling on for a huge profit in a couple of years. Lucas Hernanzez or Presnel Kimpembe to play alongside VVD and had he not just gone to Lyon, Mariano Diaz up top for Gabbiadini to play off. Easy, this transfer lark

It's public knowledge that he's been at home in Argentina on family matters so we probably felt it insensitive for him to pose with a saints top in the middle of whatever he's doing. Daily echo said he was due to start yesterday when the first team squad came back but it seems they're actually returning today so we'll probably see something from him / the club today

He had a good clean sheet record, mainly in games where we were tightest defensively. Do you have the stats for "saves expected vs saves made" / shots on target / goals conceded? He was vying with Bravo for the worst in the league in that department at one point and while he seemed to pick up his form towards the end of the year, he had his worst season by a country mile in a saints shirt last season from shot stopping to his woeful distribution to not commanding his box nearly enough.

I'm feeling much the same as John B. Do not get why everyone is saying they have a good gut feeling about the new manager. Obviously, as a Saints fan I want him to succeed and will support us through thick and thin no matter what, but this is the most disengaged and unexcited I have ever felt going into a new season. I have done a lot of reading on the new manager, and nothing I have read has got me anywhere near excited. In fact, everything I have read has turned me off a bit more. I think the squad has good potential in the first XI, but outside of that we have left ourselves very shallow and unbalanced. JWP, Yoshida, Romeu, Cedric, Redmond, McQueen, Stephens and Sims all had good years under Puel last year but I feel that was down to good man management and coaching so the new manager will do well to get them to replicate their form whilst simultaneously getting Tadic, Boufal, Long, Forster and Davis (maybe even Bertrand...solid but not spectacular last year) back to their best. As well as getting our fans back on board (who were absolutely dreadful last year, and probably the biggest reason I am feeling so disillusioned with Saints. When did our fans get so deluded / entitled?) it's going to be a big ask of him. Like I say, I really hope he's up to it, but nothing I've seen so far has got me feeling like we're going to have anything other than an average year. I think we'll finish in the Top 10 again (between 7th and 10th), but we would have had that under Puel anyway.

https://www.transfermarkt.at/bericht-bednarek-wechsel-zu-southampton-vor-abschluss/view/news/279500 Done deal according to this

finally, some good news

He's now managing FC Schaffhausen in the 2nd Division in Switzerland

Blanc would be my first choice, too, but very unrealistic imo. If the reason we didn't go for de Boer last year was that he bad only proven himself at one club, surely his disaster stint in Milan will have done him no favours. I think it'll be out of pellegrino, Martin Schmidt or gio van bronchorst but that's not based on any information other than looking at previous appointments and whose around at the minute

That game was weird - between his appointment and that match all we heard was about how he favoured a high pressing game and so when it came around, people started fawning over how high we were pressing but then after the match Poch said that he just told us to "go and and play how you normally would" so he could judge them and then implement his style. Our fans love to set a narrative early and stick to it

The kit we made ourselves was released at about 9 in the morning!

Looks like the away kit from the sash season