Redslo

The problem with getting rid of Cork is not that we need him now but that we needed him for the second half of last season and that need was completely predictable. Even if Schneiderlin hadn't gotten injured, it was pretty obvious that both Schneiderlin and Wanyama were going to miss two games each for yellow card accumulation. Barring bad luck that is four games Cork would have improved the side significantly. Once Schneiderlin got injured, the absence of Cork was even more telling. Quite possibly we would have made the champions league if we had kept Cork. We certainly would have qualified directly into the group stage of the Europa League if we had kept him.

We need to be looking for Fonte's successor this summer. Fonte's age will become a factor in the next couple of years and we need to be prepared for it when it happens rather than at the next transfer window.

My assumption was that Stekelenburg was here auditioning for a starting job somewhere and would not want to stay unless he couldn't find one. If he were willing to stay it would provide great depth for the club/team/squad/roster where we have always lacked it before. On the other hand Gazzaniga may have signed his long term contract expecting to be the number two with a theoretical chance to compete for number one.

Anyone assuming our current form will carry on indefinitely would be predicting that we would make the Champions League this year and win the League title next year. I think people are merely predicting/hoping we would finish out the year doing about as well as we did for the last two plus seasons which would put us in the high 50s--a point total which might very well make Europe this year.

You say that now, but....

If we are going to dream why can't we be Leicester?

Not quite. Tottenham and Man U should be included with Liverpool and if one of them wins Europa but finishes out of the top four and Man City, Chelsea, or Arsenal win the champions league but finish out of the top four then the Europa champion doesn't qualify for the Champions League. (That was the rule last year. I am assuming it didn't change. It is also so unlikely that it doesn't matter really.) And, if we finish 6th and either the League Cup or the FA Cup are won by teams in the top 5 (doesn't matter who), we qualify for Europa.

I just spent 15 minutes typing a thoughtful response with sensible questions and comments and was about to post when my cat figured out how to turn off the power strip. This is alarming for many obvious reasons. I am not going to redo the whole post. I will acknowledge that you know a lot more about how the FM research post works. The primary point I was trying to make is that FM is not designed to accurately forecast the second half a season. It has no way of adjust for sudden significant changes in player's ability level other than by increases in skills of young players with predetermined high ability caps. These changes would not be available to the game simulating the second half of the season. This is not a flaw in the game. It is a flaw in the way it was used in the article. That being said, I do think there is an element of circular reasoning big club bias. Players for big clubs are rated higher because they are expensive big club players so they must be good. Also, I assume that FM management imposes some kind of limits on researchers. If you, for example, had accurately rated Southampton players for FM 2014 such that they would come in 8th and underachieve (by goal difference) while doing that I am pretty sure your ratings would not have been accepted. Again this is not really a flaw. If there was not some limit every team's researcher would generate excessively high ratings in the honest belief that their club was going to have a great year. Most of the time they would be wrong and the game would be a farce. The cats require attention.

Also, FM tends to overrate the quality of players from big clubs and underrate the quality of players from not so big clubs. Quite simply, you could probably play this season out 1,000,000 times and never have Leicester do as well as it has so far. You might get a season or two in the million where Chelsea does this badly, but it would probably be due to massive bad luck with injuries, not poor play. When Southampton buys a player from a lesser league, FM assumes the player will not be very good. For example, when we bought Wanyama they rated him as a 146 current ability (CA) 160 potential ability (PA). That was actually pretty good for one of our purchases. That same year they rated Fonte a 130 CA and PA which made him not a very good Premier League defender. (Now they rate him a 144 for each which is significantly better.) This year they rated Clasie a 140 CA/149 PA. They rated Depay a 150 CA/172 PA which is basically a very good player who is capable of being world class. Why? Because he was bought by Man U. If they had bought Clasie and we have bought Depay the ratings would have been different. A year earlier Clasie was a 140 CA/ 155 PA so his potential dropped just because we bought him. A year earlier Depay was a 147 CA/ -9 PA. (Negative numbers refer to an variable undefined potential. -9 is the second best possible.) His current ability improved when Man U bought him and he got a pretty good die roll on his potential. Schneiderlin went from a 145 CA/153 PA to a 155 CA/160 PA because Manchester United bought them. Clyne went from a 137 CA/150 PA to a 148 CA/156 PA because Liverpool bought him. Football Manager information can be used to analyze some things, but it is not at all suitable for playing out the second half of a season to make predictions following the real first half of the season. You would probably get a better result simply assuming that things will end up where they are now.

They qualify for the Group stage of the Europa League as does the team finishing sixth. The winner of the league cup or the seventh place club(if the winner of the league cup has already qualified or Europe) enters in the qualifying rounds just like we did this season. yes to the question--unless an English Club that did not qualify for the Champions League wins the Champions League (i.e. Chelsea). And I do think it would not take away one of Englands three Europa League spots.

That would have been a good idea last week. Now I am not so sure.

And therefore there is room for improvement which Southampton can be a part of and get credit for. Also, things are changing in the US. More and more parents are resisting the idea of letting their kids get their heads bashed in playing American Football--assuming regular football does not turn out to be just as bad there is an opening for getting some of the better American athletes to go with football rather than Football.

I discuss this and related issues on a recent blog post: http://redsloscf.blogspot.com/2016/02/southampton-2016-2017-premier.html

Maybe he thinks we are too distracted by all this football nonsense and should concentrate on the things that matter in our personal lives. He is right. I am going to bed.

No. By then all the fans will be holographs.

This is a potentially significant problem. And if England doesn't lose its fourth Champions League slot this year (for the 2017-2018 season), it is very likely to lose it next year (for the 2018-2019 season). This web site provides all the information you need to see what is going on: http://kassiesa.home.xs4all.nl/bert/uefa/data/method4/crank2016.html Either one of you could be right, but I think something in the middle is more likely. With the big TV contract, they would have difficulty spending themselves into trouble like Leeds did. So long as they only offer sensible contracts they should be able to unload unnecessary expensive players when they fail to requalify for the champions league. I agree with most of this. The TV money will make it more likely that non-top 6 clubs will compete with the top clubs every year. But it will make it harder for any one of them to do so consistently. And good management is something that can go away just as easily as good form for a club or a player. We are not guaranteed to always have good management. Les Reed could have a bad year or he could be hired away and his replacement could underperform. There is no "stashed away" transfer profits. That is not how it works. If the stadium is going to be expanded it will have to be done by Liebherr putting the money directly into the club (which is perfectly acceptable under Financial Fair Play rules). Borrrowing the money is probably too risky, but the loan payments would drain off too much money that would be needed for things like players to keep us in the Premier League. Will she do this? My guess is no, but anything is possible. Why not just go bankrupt and drop all the way down to league two and then become a fan controlled entity. I hear that is a popular thing to do. That way plastic American fans like me will be unable to follow the club and everything will be like it was in the good old days.

Without trying to justify his complaining, has he really underperformed. Making the Champions League every year is not easy and with all the money Chelsea, Manchester United, and (more recently) Manchester City had to spend this past decade did Arsenal really have a chance to win? Is there some potentially available manager who would have been highly likely to do better. Color me skeptical.

I just posted "Southampton 2016-2017 Premier League/European Squad/Roster Update" http://redsloscf.blogspot.com/ http://redsloscf.blogspot.co.uk/

keep in mind that this is before the FA Cup final so some players may not be available. Also, does the testimonial mean the Kelvin is definitely retiring at the end of the season or can you keep playing after a testimonial?

Is the question "Why isn't Sheffield United signing Ryan Seager from Southampton so that Spurs can sign him in two years?"

Yes it is. The question is whether we are trying to do it and failing, not finding anyone good enough to move here who isn't taken by someone like spurs, or not trying at all.

Keep in mind that, by football standards, Fonte is about to start getting old.

With the new TV contract we could afford to pay a few players 100K a week. However, I am not sure this management team would do that until relegation was mathematically impossible.

I think Rodriguez and Wanyama were both record signings.

The Spurs are going to have a new stadium. I can see a future where that, combined with their presence in London and all the advantages that brings causes them to become a regular top four club. They will need to get more money through world wide sponsorship deals--like Man U does now--but that is doable. But if they start (continue?) doing sensible recruiting it is within their reach. Man U's financial strength should allow them to continually be at or near the top, but they are forced to pay more for player transfers and to pay their players higher salaries. If they don't recruit the right players that turns the financial strength into something of a disadvantage because it becomes impossible to get rid of their mistakes except at a big loss. Of course, if Man U hires Poch away from Spurs this summer (and Paul Mitchell follows) all of these statements are inoperative and Man U will return to the top--at least until Poch moves on to Barcelona or Real Madrid or LA Galaxy.