eddie

agree with all your points, he is a good player with a better history, ticks the box of being physical and would make us demons at defending/scoring from corners, what with Fonte, VVD, Pelle, etc. just don't particularly want to see him in a saints shirt, odd though it sounds. his personality on the pitch doesn't win me over and there are probably options out there that are cheaper, lower wages and a bit more likeable, but still quality defensive midfielders, know what I mean?

http://www.saintsweb.co.uk/showthread.php?45225-Southampton-s-5-Best-and-Worst-Transfer-Signings-of-the-Past-15-Years thought there was something like this already

Mark Draper. Not as much hype around his arrival, other than the price tag to some extent. Must be the most expensive single goal in saints history.

it gets better weather than the south coast all the rainy tuesday night stuff is nonsense, just spread to keep people away and house prices low

sods law, ended up going to the only game in san siro last serie A season that was goalless. bloody typical

crickey. get on the bus wijnaldum and townsend

Based on my experience: Inter is alright. There will definitely be space in San Siro, last time I went was a milan derby last season but still quite a lot of empty seats. Bilbao is in a fantastic part of Spain, was there in March. Such nice weather and a great atmosphere. Nice is also...nice. South France, good level of football. But for me the dream would be Athens Went in Feb during Olympiakos Anderlecht game. Whole city buzzing. And then somewhere in a new culture/bizzare - Khazakstan, Russian, Faroe Islands haha

It's not the content of the video that's alarming/reassuring. It's the fact that the club would put a video on their official channel on how contract talks were going with their manager. Who is their audience? It's not Koeman or the board. It can only be fans and press. Since when has any club cared that much about what is in the press - certainly no club goes out of it's way to clear up every possible transfer/management/player rumour there is. At best Les is using the video to stick a 'bugger off' message on Koeman to send to Everton, Arsenal etc. So it leaves us with the video trying to reassure the fans, which just seems bizzare. Bizzare timing, bizzare message to want to convey (not Les' words, but the video idea itself). Why do fans need to know this, but not for them trying to stir up a positive image of the club? I hope to God he signs an extension, I thought he would and still think he will, based on Koeman's character and past comments. But the video seems very oddly placed.

in two years maybe. not going to get that this summer for him though are we. I agree he is good, let's not let the Villa/City hattrick joys skew the whole season - there were points in the last year that we were all moaning about his attitude, finishing, workrate and general usefulness. he didn't score a single goal between October 25th and March 20th bar a couple in the capital one cup. that's five months. I like him, I think he has improved and provides a level of movement we are guilty of lacking at times, but if he goes for 20m+ and we get a player like denis praet/ziyech instead, I won't be complaining too much.

in fairness, Levy is the real villain of spurs. Don't have much against pocchetino, he wants to be reunited with his best players from his saints days at his current club. that's a complement to the quality in our squad that he believed our players could be part of a top 3 club. he really headlined saints being an 'attractive football' club, which however much it was part of our philosophy (arguable), became quite obvious under poch. just ignorant to say he didn't arse himself to learn english. he always spoke english, but he played the media very well, forcing questions through his translator. every interviewer got tired so quickly of the drawn out interviews that they never got round to getting satisfying answers for transfer rumours, speculation or other tabloid nonsense. Don't think it is a problem at all the fact that he's now a bit more confident in english and has got used to the media, so talks to pundits in english. by the way he still makes a ton of mistakes in english interviews, not exactly fluent.. to be bitter about toby is insane. a player that was on loan went somewhere else, but was happy to stay. he wasn't 'ours' and quite frankly, I am very glad he went. Fonte and VVD have been fantastic, and however much you compare the two, you can't complain about Jose's season, not least his character, love for the club, leadership and ability. the reason we dropped out of europe had nothing to do with wanyama. we played a back 5 with caulker, yoshida, targett, an early-doors martina and ward-prowse on his off day.

smoke and a pancake...! the bloke has 17 goals and 12 assists in the eredivisie this season! Never heard of him before your post and a quick browse on transfermarkt. sign him up.

apparently a lot of southeast asian fans are now 'dual-supporters' of leicester and a big name club like arsenal or Man U. Gotta love being a fly on the wall on the two games a season those clubs play each other

European place would be great. but to be honest, even if we don't get it I'm just relieved this season has finished with such a bang for once. nice to beat man city and spurs away in your last three games. that , coupled with virgil signing a new deal (which is probably evidence of a strategic move by the board to keep players and demonstrate fwd thinking, in order to possibly keep Ron for a couple years extension) puts me in a right good mood.

The lads over at man city forums were totally disparaging of sterling, you can see why. I think they'll have had their fingers burnt with sterling, no chance Mane will be off to city. I can see him off to somewhere like Spurs or Chelsea, if he goes at all. Man Utd could go for him, but then they've realised over the last two years that an academy/youth player (Rashford, Lingard) , or else someone from the cobweb closet (Carrick) is as likely to be a game changer as spending a ton on one who can't get a game/doesn't play well (Depay, Schneiderlin, Schwiensteiger). Spurs on the other hand have room for another decent forward, and I reckon one of their 'Class of Post-Bale 2013' (Erikson, Chadli, Lamela) will be off this summer. Been here three years, 'bout time for a move. Arsenal spent 30m on world class Alexis Sanchez. No chance they'll splash out the same for Mane. Chelsea are in for some big changes with all the talk about players not being happy (esp under Mourinho). A new manager combined with shifting dead wood means difficult to predict quite how they'll play it. Oh, and Liverpool can't afford another embarrassment.

I am in Switzerland. Might move to Jordan permanently in a couple months. I'd happily put you up in either place, and bring you watch local teams or else play in local games with Swiss or Jordanian lads that I play with.

watertight

better a fully fit zabaleta than a fully fit sagna, though. and a fully fit navas over a fully fit silva. same for bony over aguero, delph over toure, etc. I think we stand a solid chance at beating City's second choice 11. it contains about six players > 30, and players like delph and bony who last season were playing for villa/swansea..

great post, thanks for sharing. he really is a legend and his leadership skills have stepped up no end this season and last; maybe because of all the new players coming in the club really looked to him and Kelvin to promote the club and anchor the team a bit. He's a great individual and credit to him - he's even improved last two years despite being >30.

What's the deal? He's played well for us, had a great partnership with morgan and then added some stability/continuity to the midfield after he left last summer. His attitude strikes me as fairly relaxed and funny, every video/clip I've seen him he seems alright. To talk of always wanting to go to another club...who cares? I probably would if I was him - esp. in central africa where they grow up only having heard of Man U and Arsenal! I was in Uganda two years ago, everyone was a fan of one of those two clubs. So what's the deal - he wants to go elsewhere and has played for us, do you really expect every footballer who plays on SMS pitch suddenly becomes that Saints values and vision is the best and wants to be a part of the journey? Just doesn't happen, we may brand ourselves some kind of forward thinking family club that these players 'join' but they are at the end of the day working for us, for money. Not saying I don't want players who want to play for the badge, of course I do. And coincidentally most of the lads that have joined the last 2 years seem to talk positively about saints beyond the paycheck - that we are ambitious, good facilities, good atmosphere and team spirit etc. But in Wanyama's case I hold nothing against him. He's not played well for several games this season....isn't that basically the case for every single one of our players except the back 4 or 5?? All of our outfield players further forward than the defenders has had inconsistent seasons.

Although he';s part of a club structure that has a goal/strategy for the next few years, Pellegrini is leaving at the end of the season. No matter how much boardroom pressure there may be to favour a high league position (not really sure if this is true or not), at the end of the day he is picking the team. Surely he'd want to go out on a bang by having a good stab at champions league, rather than leaving the club in a good situation for next season when he will not even be manager anymore.. Chances are slim, but then again Real Madrid have to win the next leg if any goals are scored in the game. Athletico already 1-0 up but from last year's Porto experience when everyone said munich were gonners, Guardiola pretty much shut everyone up by thrashing them at home. So who knows - a home victory against bayern to go into the second leg might not mean so much. Still, better than RM having won and Munich having won in terms of city's cup dreams. I really do hope we manage to do oneon them. Kolarov and Zabaleta deserve to have a good send off from City by having their arses kicked by Mane/Tadic/Cedric/Bertrand. Hopefully Long can run the socks off 60m pounds worth of defenders and Van Dijk will show Bony that good premier league defending can contain players of his level. It will be cracking atmosphere sunday. bring it on!

reading the bluemoon forums is interesting - 50/50 as to whether they will win, and most in favour of prioritizing league over CL as many think it's their best chance of qualifying for next year. bit strange really to prioritize the league for next year, when this year you are already in the final stages of the competition that is the reason for priotirizing the league!

genius idea lean in really close and make sure you breath lots just to be certain

would wijnaldum come now newcastle are likely to go down?

No chance depay will past character profiling given the press about his attitude for holland, ajax and at times Utd. Ox possibly, depending on wages and price. For Wanyama I think it isn't definite that he goes, if he does, I'd love us to spend a bit in that position

having had a browse through whoscored, I was surprised to see how much tadic, pelle, long and mane contribute in terms of assists, goals, key passes and the like. It's even more impressive given the fact that none of them has been a consistent starter this season. I'd be tempted to play a younger, more dynamic team against city. they are an aging team with so many players over 30 y.o. that fielding players like cedric, mane, davis, long, tadic etc. might not be a bad idea - I'd even have a stab at playing JWP or Reed, at least bringing them on at 60 mins. I say leave pelle on the bench for this one and let players who can pass and run take them apart. looking forward to the game!!