eddie

from the evening with ronald koeman: A whole stack of fan questions now… are you going to buy a striker in January? If we sign a new player, it will be a striker. Is it going to be Charlie Austin? He’s too expensive. not sure what expensive means, but he's clearly looking for something on the cheap

wombours is genius. uterus needs work

still, the caribbean though eh?

been thinking about this recently. yes I think that it's a shame we don't have more youth coming through in this years squad. however, what I realised was also that other than the youth team and steven davis, we really don't have any mature, proven or reliable premier league first teamers from the UK. not saying it's a bad thing, but the likes of sunderland, stoke, palace, leicester, all have british first teamers who have been around a while, proven themselves in championship or premier league for years. all our players in the first team are either not homegrown or else foreign. bit of a change these last two seasons in that regard

Midward-prowsery

I'd be inclined to agree. just that juanmi is a similar player to gaston and with similar flaws, but obviously similar good traits . trouble is those flaws set gaston back as much as they will juanmi - not having time on the ball in the prem, being physically weak to win 1on1 battles, not able to play his 'little CF' role like he did in malaga in the prem. where do you play him seeing as we're all agree mane is better as a number 10 in principle I think yes definitely give people a chance - all for that and with you 100%. I agree he deserves having time and I really hope the newspaper articles about him returning to spain in next transfer window are wrong, as I don't think thatw ould be a good outcome for anyone. mk dons and villa in the cup he was given a bit of a showing, and we played very well in both games. just not sure spurs (against dier, alderweireld and vertonghen and against lloris) is the kind of match suited for juanmi

I said he's been awful whenever he's made an appearance save for one game - read what I actually wrote

Why would you play juanmi? He's been awful (save for once when he was subbed for last 15 mins and looked OK) this season when he's made an appearance - let the game pass by him. exactly the kind of player we don't need. at least ramirez' appearance was half decent and he gotan assist for mane

that's a strange observation - I've actually found based on performance alone we've been in quite a few games we've lost recently. even away at city 2nd half, home to villa for most of the game, against leicester, in little bits against palace - in all of them we've played very good creative football, just never put the damn thing in the back of the net. trouble is it's not a whole game. I'm not saying it's been glorious or even excusable, just that i've enjoyed the football we've been playing in large part. can't say much for long/yoshida, who generally seem to get on my nerves and bring the overall 'first touch' quality / reliability levels down, but most of the other players have been, albeit low on confidence, playing alright.

I absolutely love this team. It's exactly the kind of sea change we needed to see what koeman is really made of as a manager, and also to demonstrate that we really don't have a 'first 11' - our squad depth is as much being able to replace like for like due to injuries as it is to have a flexible squad to play different types of football.today it's good old counter attack with 5 at the back to deal with bolasie puncheon etc and mane and long to get behind their slow defence! If we win, of course. Could go either way - but I'm happy at least that somethings changed

I think that's risky. you're now relying on your key position protecting the back 4 on three unproven PL players. clasie as he's not played in england, romeu as he's not played for a while, and reed as he's not played enough I think signing a Son type player (can play across the front line, incl as striker, but not too shabby out wide also), as well as a decent midfielder to replace vic, and possibly a full back , are priorities for Jan or the summer

oh when the saints?

i'll be disappointed if martina doens't stay on and become the new sammy saint

best signing.....of all players in PL at the moment? Or the best one of those that were purchased this summer? sadly schneiderlin has to be up there in the top 5

strange post. I feel the OP has already made up his mind....but here goes a counter argument for what it's worth what do you mean by reinvest? in who? either we go for - player from the prem; and people will complain because it'll require a lot of cash (his resale value + some more, if we're honest) to get someone who is an upgrade on long, in today's market, and already proven in PL - even if long isn't setting the world alight - foreign player; and people will complain they need time to adapt and they are unknown the club won't sell shane because we don't have any other pacey centre forwards/number 9's to stretch defenses. shifting around mane and rodriguez or bringing on juanmi just creates a problem somewhere else on the pitch. Juanmi can't play the position he played in spain here. so long is really the only guy we have for that and who else would you get? I think he's an alright bench option. Just, if we play him, we can't play the kind of football we play with pelle. I think RK overestimates his ability to play in tight nit gaps where he's closed down easily and needs to have a kind of first touch he'll never have. summary: useful player, and replacing better-for-like is going to be costly; which realistically isn't our priority position (more CM..RB...?) for spending cash see how long performs this season. last season - 7 assists 7 goals is fine for me. I'd love to have options in our squad like watmore (thought he was outstanding against us earlier in season), even people like (hate me, but) Kane/Wilson type players. in other words fowards who are actually capable of challenging for first team places. I'm willing to give targeet a game every so often, and very alright with reed to start - but other than the ever mythical gallagher/seager - is there anyone you'd actually trust to start for our front line who is young and hungry?

agree with this but drop JWP for ramirez. JWP been poor in recent games, normally a fan but feel ramirez actually more likely to pull out a decent performance than ward-prowse right now. davis then plays further back.

we will win villatalk forum makes for some amusing reading - basically admitting that there is literally no team you would rather bounce back against than villa at home right now. gots to get at least one win in before christmas period!

*a squad of players who can actually be trusted to perform week in week out to an alright level

I said playing a strong team was a good thing. It is. the performance was a level above us, and we got thrashed by two strong and fast strikers who had a good game. origi wanted to prove himself, and sturridge is coming back from injury. and we got bossed in midfield with lucas allen can. they were the better team, and we played a poor cb and took wanyama out of midfield. it was a good team to start from koeman (lets be fair noone knew whether caulker would have a good game), but poorly managed at halftime. good from the attackers but no point having a troublesome front 3 if 4-5 players behind them aren't performing well and have low morale. you know as well as I do that money doesn't guarantee results. it's the same liverpool side who were dire at the start of the season. 0 pounds spent since, but the new manager has got them performing well. so money isn't anything to do with it. we've bought very good players (mane, tadic, pelle, van dijk, even cedric, also romeu and clasie are good even if they need a bit more time) with that money, probably on average better than just the money we spent. if there's anything said of southampton, it's that they maximise player value and sell for more than they're worth. so that's alright. but come on. we lost. we lost badly against the team in the league....maybe along with leicester and spurs....who are totally flying with confidence and attacking flair. it was a drubbing, and we shouldn't have conceded so many, but hey. agreed mitjiland was a disaster. but for these defeats what are you going to do? hold them to account weeks later for it and keep it in your memory as 'the moment we lost it' or something? I'm not criticising your bringing some pinch or reality to the situation, I'm just saying what does it really change. I honestly that we've got a great team capable of having anyone on our day. we didn't necessarily play it or play like that level last night, and maybe with 1-2 new signings we could cement that situation (we say it every year for years this kind of thing - that just with a bit more splashed out we could really push on), but I wouldn't clear the squad or manager out just on that performance. it was poor. but almost the same team is the team we're praising at end of last season, or both legs against vitesse, or away at chelsea, or any other stand out victory we've had over last few months.

it's not a minor mishap, but he's right, we played our strongest team and took it seriously which is good. but even our strongest 11 just is not as good as other teams. that's the life of a saints fan. there's absolutely next year, or the league, or the fa cup. or any other bit of hope to give us something to sing about

If I can be a little bold... I was a little lost for words last night, considering the drubbing handed to us. However, the talk of 'alarm bells' is a little premature. for me stoke is the only disappointment over the past fortnight. I expected to go to man city and lose missing our best striker and playing a CB at RB and while I thought we might clinch it last night (and definitely did not expect such a big scoreline not in our favour), in reality we've all become used to getting knocked out teh cup especially as we were missing our captain/CB. villa's now an important game. I think if we win that and manage a draw at palace all will be well. we'll have lost two games we probably weren't tipped to win - and SMS isn't the fortress it was once I think the situation isn't so bad. Yes morale may be a bit knocked, and saints players seem a bit bemused at the moment , letting the match pass us by (city and later on against pool they seemed totally awestruck and making silly mistakes, not noticing people getting in behind them etc.), and we've had some injuries, but we've still got a good squad, well run club and an experienced manager who is fairly down to earth. had we had a better head and our settled first 11 for europe and the start of the season, we might be a lot higher in the table we march on

he's got a beard? counts for something at least

better team. liverpool are fantastic at the moment. can't be expecting to play caulker or muck about with wanyama playing at CB when you're playing against possibly the best attacking team , in great form, at the moment. they bossed the midfield also with lucas can and allen. clasie davis just ain't cut out for it.

seriously? he was furious last night and was also after the city/stoke games his only problem (or strength) is he puts a lot of faith in players. he stuck with poor performers last season even through the patchy periods where they weren't playing well. last night, he played caulker who was abysmal. he puts faith in them and they don't perform. maybe he isn't as ruthless as other managers, I don't know