eddie

sure we want to see that. none of us would be happy with fonte and yoshida for the whole season, just we've got time. realistically we couldn't have hoped for much earlier, if this is the most important signing. we waited until it didn't work out with toby, now we're giving it thought and serious consideration for the one key remaining position through July. Wouldn't be surprised at all if early-mid august something's been announced.

hm, that's interesting, no I completely missed that! Which newspaper? I know that a year ago we apparently 'enquired', though I'm not concretely sure what that means in terms of likelihood to sign in the future.

surely van dijk must now have the highest ratio of saints web posts : substantial transfer rumours ! I can find very very little out there on him linked with saints that's really ITK sources, other than the fact Koeman likes him and he was one of many people last year we were 'interested' in I think the fact is he is dutch, comes from a club we've bought from before, wouldn't mind playing elsewhere, we've looked at him before and he fills an obvious gap. I think he'd be excellent, really top quality, but he's no more likely to sign than a number of other CBs who don't have their own thread

exactly. so one plays in the line up, and the other in the live up. they are completely different positions

'pologies if this has been posted already, or lost in the thread, but does anyone have a link to a video of the full match of the groningen game? cheers!

agreed.

surprising how much yoshida has changed since the end of last season

not really at all. http://www.dailyecho.co.uk/sport/saints/news/13421343.Southampton_will_add_numbers_sensibly___Les_Reed/?ref=rss Echo just had this article about how they've intentionally not just bought random squad fillers, for exactly that reason. They want to be wise in the way the club is handling transfers so we aren't hanging the season and the happiness of the squad on whether or not we've got into europe and are playing regularly. At the same time, we're obviously building the squad up to the challenge of a packed season. I actually think the transfers have been pretty shrewd so far. To have steklenburg, soares and juanmi for 10 m is just absurd (I realise stekkers was loan). All this business about transfer 'vision' and club strategy is far easier said than done, and maybe Les reed is just talking hot air. But the club is at the very least talking and thinking strategically about these things. Gives me confidence.

Ah well, makes sense. I thought he had scottish parents.

see: http://www.saintsweb.co.uk/showthread.php?53873-Summer-2015-Hcdajfu-thread&p=2217219#post2217219

there's got to be someone who cares about celtic results.... surely... noone?

http://www.express.co.uk/sport/football/586755/Celtic-Virgil-van-Dijk-Champions-League-group-stage Summary: if they don't reach the group stage he'll probably leave. It's not exactly a short journey though, so there's still hope they will get knocked out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015%E2%80%9316_UEFA_Champions_League

hm. interesting article, thanks. I find it kind of strange since they basically say, in the last couple of years liverpool haven't had massive giants up front, like big lambert esq CFs. And when they did, they didn't get the kind of crosses because they weren't playing wide that often. Seems an odd arguement, if you spent 32 million on a player like benteke, or whatever he'd cost, surely you would try and adapt your system to fit him. Especially seeing as you've just spent money on decent players who like to play out wide like clyne who enjoys coming forward, and milner (not sure where firmino plays...).

Connor Armstrong ‏@ConnorArmstrong 20m20 minutes ago brilliant.

benteke I believe

completely different point, but I was interested to read on factmint that Pelle won the second most aerial duels of any player in the league last season...even 20 ahead of peter crouch.

I like the conspiracy theory. Maybe, spurs actually signed suarez, and alderweireld is still at madrid?

indeed. took me just under 22 minutes of watching the video to notice him bossing luis, though. Just put it on in the background as he basically played the full 90 minutes for intl, which I wanted to see

to be fair you've got a point, watching 21:42 minutes of a year old footbal match is probably 21:42 minutes which could have been spent doing other things

I only watched 21 minutes and 42 seconds of it....I thought that was clear from the time stamp? clasie vs luis is an enjoyable sight to behold

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5EIwdxa3Bs?t=21m37s 21:38. You are all most welcome.

Very useful, thanks. Suppose only really xavi, pirlo, de jong and modric have been used that far back regularly, just glancing quickly through the list. all the others play further up the pitch as no.10/11, or out wide. I'd be interested to know of players that sit above the back four where he would compare

I would really really really like to see Van Dijk, the celtic CB. I know there's been lots of rumours on here and a few elsewhere about him coming, and about celtic actually lining up a replacement, and it could easily just be hot air.....but the more I see of him, I really think he is top notch. Solid, ball playing cb with a good stride and can read the game well. Doesn't always pass back to gk as I noticed gardos and yoshida do far too often. I know that we've all been posting our dream transfers but I'm definitely hoping for the smallest grain of truth about this one!

didn't see the whole match to be fair, but the snippets I saw, gazza looked quite decent in salzburg. pulled off some fairly impressive saves

incredible