Saxon

Good post. Some well needed perspective. I love the club for what it is and I very much love our philosophy. I wouldn't want us to change.

With a picture of Koeman at St Mary's and not a picture of him with for e.g. Bill Kenwright? Sure.

I think Utd will be closer to winning the title next season with Mourinho than City with Goardiola. Guardiola will need to adjust surely. Mourinho will be fired up and hungrier than ever. If Zlatan signs for Utd then I think they will be favourites to win, unless Arsenal actually sign the players they need this summer, in which case i think it will be close between those two.

After this season, £12 seems a very decent price tbh. Very much looking forward to seeing what he can do next season for us (assuming he stays!).

That's really nice actually. I think majority red looks a lot better and is more us. And if we were to have a solid back, this works nicely. The way kit looks good as well, better in yellow than gold.

I would go for this.

Look at it another way. Why would he sign for longer when he's only just joined if not because he believes that he's in the right place and that we match his ambition (implying there is a plan he is confident in regarding player recruitment/retention and manager recruitment/retention)? Yes he gets paid more, but it does also mean he can't move quite as easily for a season or so (much higher fee). So its not completely hollow and is still a good sign. In any case, lets see what happens. Hopefully we're all just used to the last couple of summers but hopefully we can have a summer more akin to the summer Everton had last season, holding onto their key players (but without the backward slide down the league next season and more of the European spot challenging).

Its unlikely in the extreme that this would happen. However... Leicester did just win the league. Anyway. One thing I am puzzled by are the people who keep saying he would be bad for the team and a bad influence. If he comes for a one year stint between going to the MLS, I don't understand why he would be a bad influence. He would want to show off his best in the PL, which is somewhere he has never played and would want to leave a positive impression surely. That would be the whole point of him playing here for a year. If he couldn't be arsed, then he wouldn't bother coming, so I think that's unlikely. In terms of him having a negative impact on the team... really? Would it not be a very positive impact for a player of that caliber, with that experience, to play with the team for a season as essentially a mentor? It might help us hold on to e.g. Mane and Wanyama (at least for another season) and it would for sure, improve our standing in terms of the caliber of players we could attract, if they saw that Ibrahimovic would play for us. But I can only see this as a positive thing. They would learn a lot off of him, they wpuld hear about playing in Europe and I think it would be a brilliant experience for them. It is not like Osvaldo, where we are supposed to be his new home for good and he feels he is better than us. This is someone playing with the team for a season almost as a guest I suppose, someone who is of far higher quality than Osvaldo, and at the end of the day, if it didn't work out and he does sack it in in terms of attitude I fail to see what that will do to the rest of the team. But as mentioned above, I think it highly unlikely, since that would defeat the whole point of him coming here. I think it would be amazing for the team, the players and the club, and it would also very probably help keep hold of Koeman and other key players and would help attract high quality players in the future. I do not see the downside and I don't think there would be an attitude problem because if he thought we were beneath him etc then he wouldn't come.

Sounds like a really really awesome idea. Hopefully you get some decent support from the club media dept. because this could make a really really interesting documentary. The amount of effort it sounds like you're going to put in deserves some significant effort on their part I think to make sure its top quality. This also sounds like the sort of thing that is right up our media department's street. Have you been in contact with them at all? Your pitch video is a very good sell and it looks like you have everything pretty much mapped out so I'd be surprised honestly if they didn't want to get on board this with you. Have you decided how long to do each "episode"? Good luck with it anyway, sounds very cool! I'm sure this would be popular on the youtube channel!

That would be pretty awesome. However, I imagine it would be Everton where he would end up. I don't know if we would be a big enough draw. But then again, we have (or will hopefully have had) three top 8 seasons in a row after this one, so maybe we would be tempting enough.

Please please please can we persuade this man to sign another contract. It is a joy to have him at the club. We could really make something of it, consistent top 8s are hard to achieve, and if we keep it up, maybe we'll get Europa every other season or something. Would be great. Love having him as our manager and he brings so much! Its a real pleasure to have a manager this invested in the club again! You can see what it means to him.

Yeah I guess so, but we still had a chance to score, and up until that point we had been keeping them out ok. It would have probably been a draw. Wanyama made it so that there was no longer a chance of us winning, and probably no chance of us keeping a point so I still stand by my comment.

Agreed. Also, if Koeman goes, who do we get instead?? Not interested in that.

Wanyama f**ked that for us. Plain and simple. Mane made it difficult for Ron to pick him, which was annoying. This has been an annoying game in general. Well, can only hope we can pick ourselves up and sort this out for the rest of the season but it will probably peter out and we'll scrape in to 41 points or something. I don't think (and certainly hope) that we won't be in a relegation fight, but I have a feeling we'll just end up floating just above, nowhere near anything. I just hope we can have a good run at the FA cup and then look to strengthen in the summer. No more selling ********. Some actual academy players doing something would also be good. Still, half a season to go yet, lets see what happens! But I think its time to redress the expectations, e.g., there is no reason why we should be expecting to win away to teams like Norwich. We're not at the level of last season.

I would agree with this. Gazzaniga was excellent. It was good to see him bellowing at the defenders when they let stupid shots on goal, especially when Palace shot from the counter. Definitely think he could take over from Forster some day, if his development continues. Hopefully we'll get Forster back and have him for a while first, and Gazzaniga still has a ways to go, but is looking a lot better.

Have to agree with this. Ok, maybe some people have made a special effort to travel a very long way or have something as a one-off reason why they would absolutely need to get away early. But there's no way that 30% of the fanbase need to leave at 85 mins. I just think, how can you not plan your day that you can't wait until the end? Ok its a little wait to get away at the end, but that's part and parcel of the day out. And it really doesn't take thaaaat long, it's not like you're stood still for 30 mins, you're moving, and you're with a load of other saints supports and will invariably chat about the results. Hardly torture is it. It's a real shame that the crowd doesn't end the home matches very well, regardless of the result its seems.

Van Djik has been fantastic. He is always right there making the clearances and getting the tackle in at the right moments. Really really fantastic performance. MOTM for me.

Yeah he's looked good so far. Some really nice play, some great passes and quick. By the end of the season looks to be a very good player. Once again, very chuffed with the additions in the summer! Also regarding your earlier comment, definitely has the feel of a we play really well and deserve a draw but lose in an annoying way kind of game we'll have to see!

Some of our fast passing has been really impressive. Shame about some of our finishing and final third play, but very good game so far.

I used to check Bournemouth results a few times a season to see how they were doing before they were promoted and I still check up on Eastleigh now and again just to see how their season is going but I don't have a second team. I also check Pompey now and again but that's become less amusing recently because they've started the season well .

Well it seems he has impressed Koeman recently in training. http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/34345282 "He's part of the squad, training well, well disciplined and not complaining. I admire that," said Koeman. So maybe this is the new dawn?

It's really weird. Why have we changed around so much? Why did we stop exploiting them the same we we had been in the first 30 minutes? Just bizarre. Mind you, an offside goal and a colossal f*ck up from Yoshida to gift two goals doesn't help. But jesus christ. Its just annoying that it always feels like against big teams in big games we can start well, and then we're always the masters of our own demise. Anyway its still the beginning of the season, its a long way to go yet! We have good players, a good team and a good manager, we just need to settle down a bit and stick to something and we'll get there.

Yeah this seems a pretty decent assessment. I think he could develop but we'll just have to see. It would be nice to develop an English defender into our side and it would also be great if he could one day replace Fonte. It would also be cool to have another success story like with Bertrand where there were reservations but then the player really blossomed under us. For sure there are bigger reservations with Caulker, and all of this is the root of being from relegation teams as opposed to Bertrand who was with Chelsea in the CL. However I reckon he could improve and he's under the perfect manager for his position as well.

I think Monk would be great however I can't see him leaving Swansea for some time yet and if he does, it will be to someone bigger than us, I doubt he'd take a sideways move to us unless he left Swansea after a bad spell. If he leaves with them on the sort of form they have been so far under him he won't be going to us.

Agree with this. We looked much more solid at the back. Some silly niggles here and there, but partly down to Watford's creative players. Targett looking a bit lightweight at times, but on the whole I think this set-up suited us much better defensively. Going forward, we played some nice passing work and created some chances, its just a shame it was the same old in terms of actually finishing them. I think definitely an improvement and something to build upon for Thursday. COYR!