Diabolus Ex Machina

Good to see some actual discussion taking place. Not going to go through all the points from the original post but I do think you do Les Reed a bit of a disservice trying to discredit any input he may have had into the signings last season. We're happy to talk up '5 year plans' and 'black boxes' etc...when it suits the idea of long term planning but then disregard it and treat it as a single persons actions when we actually do something. The club has not steered us wrong recently and think they have earned the benefit of the doubt until a noticeable shift from our current direction. In terms of outgoing and ingoing players all I would say is that the players that have left have quite obviously not wanted to stay either for the extra money/Europe/'prestige' of playing for a bigger club (Clyne, Toby, Lallana etc...) or because we would not guarantee them first team football as our starters were better (Cork and Puncheon) the only one who I think doesn't fit into these two camps was Lambert. As for the incomings, we look to have covered all the outgoings and injuries position wise (including loan endings like Elia & Djuricic) with the exception of CB which has been compounded with the injury to Gardos, but with interest in Caulker and VVD (which seems to be held up on Celtics end more than anything) would lead me to believe replacements will come soon enough. Whether they are equal to the players they are replacing I can't say but if last Summers situation proved anything it's that you never can tell until the games are actually played. Anyway outside of that the point of discussion that interests me most is the one about where we can push onto and is where I think people are losing sight of things. A lot of talk recently seems to be about 'pushing on' and building or improving upon last season. I'll start by saying I think we over performed last season but the fact is we did what we did and ended with our highest ever prem points total. Having said that even with the squad we had, not having to play in Europe unlike Spurs, Pool etc...and with the other top teams struggling we still only finished 7th and needed teams higher than us to win the cups in order for us to get into Europe. When framed like that do people really expect us to overtake some of these teams this season? The extra european games for a start would have caused some issues even if we had kept the entire squad. 'Well we can strengthen the squad/add depth' people say. Well yes of course but this ignores the fact that every team above us will be doing the exact same thing making themselves stronger and you know what, they can pay a hell of a lot more money and in the case of the top 4 offer champions league as well attracting the better players. Basically if the teams above us take all the top players we will be reinforcing with inferior players to begin with. The fact that these bigger teams are happy to come poach our players is merely an extension of this (I consider this a case of being victims of our own success - the problem with having top class players is that the top teams will want them. I'm just happy that in a lot of cases we have got a good price for them). This also covers the point about how much money we have and the new T.V deal - all the prem clubs are getting the new T.V money and the teams above us all have much more money available to them so again how are we meant to not only match these teams but overtake them? The only real way is to improve our revenue streams which the club is actively trying to do. In the mean time trying to live within our means and be a stable club seems perfectly reasonable to me. The only way this changes any quicker is if we got a Man City/Chelsea type owner that is willing to pour 100's of millions into the club expecting no (immediate) return which I think we all agree is highly unlikely. Is top 6 impossible? Of course not I think we proved last season that we can at least challenge but it will take a lot more than just buying up more players to do it and I would expect it would come down to a bit of luck and (at least) one of the teams above us imploding somehow (I wouldn't put it past either Spurs or Pool to do this to be fair). I do think we are primed for a good run in at least one of the cups though and hey there's less games in the Europa league than in the Prem, might be our best shot at Champs League next season

New to posting but have read the forum over a number of years so am well use to the stylings of some of the regulars. I think the opinions of all fans should be taken into account whether you agree with them or not as it doesn't hurt to have multiple views on things. I myself am quite happy to be proven wrong on things as I believe that's a good way of learning new things otherwise you just get stuck in your own ways regardless of how things actually are. What I don't like is when people misrepresent, exaggerate or lie about what other people have said - at that point it's no longer about opinions it's about trying to discredit your fellow fans seemingly just because they don't agree with your opinions which in my mind goes against the whole idea of having a forum for discussion in the first place. As long as people are adding to the actual topic at hand in some way I have no problem with it regardless of whether I think they are 'right' or 'wrong'.

Perhaps you could do me the courtesy of pointing out one of these posts where someone says the squad is 'perfect' or that we didn't need anyone else so I can know who not to listen to. I did see SOG mention we have CB's still but saw no mention in the post that no more players would be needed. In fact I believe his post even mentioned we may bring 1 or 2 more in. As you seem so assured that people are saying these things i'm sure you can easily provide a quoted example or likewise. For the record I do agree that the likes or Stephens/Turnbull etc...are not ready for the first team even as a 4th choice and so replacements are required for both Toby and Florin ASAP.

Seemed like a good warm up for the team. Stekelenburg while not really challenged dealt with everything well and the defence looked solid. A lot of play seemed to go down the left which meant Soares didn't stand out as much as in previous friendlies but gave Targett the chance to impress which he did. Personally thought Clasie did ok. Did nothing wrong and seemed to be closed down very quickly when he did receive the ball, then again if there was one team that knew how dangerous he could be and how best to nullify him you'd think it would be the team we just brought him from! Fully expect him to start next game. Up front we're looking really strong. Mane is gonna be a handful for any team and Juanmi also looks to have a good eye for goal. Add in Pelle, Long and JRod with the likes of Tadic, JWP & Davis chipping in and you'd hope we wouldn't have too much trouble getting goals this season. The news of the long term injury to Gardos is a worry and i'd agree that 2 CB's may now be needed (neither Stephens or Turnbull look like they are Prem ready yet) and while i've already said i've got no problem with Yoshida starting games we really do need a CB good enough to step straight into the first team just to ensure we remain solid at the back in case of further injuries, suspensions etc... Still, a lot of positives to be taken and time to start looking forward to some competitive games

He also was on the pitch for 7 out of our 15 clean sheets and scored as many goals as S.Davis, Fonte and Toby combined Like I said originally, still need another CB anyway, just not seeing the panic in him starting if required - he did start 4/5 of our first games last season after all.

Starting to wonder if i'm the only one who wouldn't be too worried with Yoshida having a run in the team. Yes we need another CB but he performed admirably last year when called upon and Fonte has shown he can create good partnerships when given time with another CB. Wouldn't want him as first choice all season but would have no worries at all if he was starting the first few games. Also now one of our longest serving players with I think only K.Davis, Fonte, S.Davis, JWP and Rodriguez having played more games than him for Saints out of the current squad.

Seems a bit unfair, i'd say he's quite good at buying them as well. With the exception of Morgan and Jose weren't all our starters in our just gone best prem season recruited in the past 3 years - most likely with Les' input (Bertrand, Forster, Toby, Mane, Tadic & Pelle last year, Wanyama the year before, Davis and Clyne the year before that). Early signs for Cedric and Juanmi look promising (too early to tell though) while Martina clearly seems to only be there for depth/backup in an emergency. We still need another CB to replace Toby and a Morgan replacement when (if?) he goes and I still think we need a Cork replacement (neither JWP or Davis have particularly impressed me in that position and Reed is still on a learning curve). I am still interested in why the Toby deal went so tits up but i'm sure that's something he won't discuss in any detail. Apart fom that I would like to know where/when he thinks the academy players will be integrated into the first team this season - with League, Cup and Europa games i'd like to think there would be some opportunities for game time for some of them.

See this is what's confusing me. Everyone (media etc...) seem to agree that we had an option to buy for 6.8m and that Madrid could override/cancel this with a 1.5m payment (was even in the BBC story about Toby signing for Spurs). Between what's being said here and also from Saint Tony earlier, the deal between Spurs and Madrid has been in place for weeks now and that it was always Tobys preference to go to Spurs. In that case, why didn't Madrid just pay us the 1.5m at the start as it was the only thing that could have got in the way of the deal and has now left them open to a legal challenge? Also seems odd that if the club were well aware of the situation and that we wouldn't get Toby to let Koeman say there way still a chance only a day ago! Dunno, stuff just doesn't add up. Too late now though. See what compensation we are entitled to and find a new replacement ASAP.

Thanks for the welcome, been lurking a long time and thought i'd finally register. Also just to be clear I most certainly am not affiliated with the club in any way - just a regular old fan. To answer your points though - i'm not necessarily suggesting AM couldn't pay the 1.5m but if they could then why wait until after the deadline had passed? Thought I heard somewhere they were planning on using some of the Spurs money to pay us off or maybe they were waiting on the Turan deal with Barca? I just don't see why if they had the money they didn't just pay us straight away. Secondly I wasn't suggesting AM were rejecting a 15m bid out of hand more that the Spurs deal was already agreed and basically done so it didn't matter how much we offered at that point. The legal stuff is probably the crux of what's stopped us getting him. We were probably under the belief that we still had a legal right to buy him for 6.8m until we had been paid the release clause when what we should have done is put in an increased offer as soon as we were aware AM wanted to take him back. I can't help thinking the CFO leaving had to do with him giving assurances that the legalities were air tight not understanding that this wouldn't stop the player going elsewhere as has happened. Certainly it seems to me that the relationship between us and Madrid had soured quite early on as the level of comms between the two clubs seems minimal even before any threats of legal action.

Wasn't planning on using my first post on this saga of a thread, but not sure so much of the criticism of the club is justified. The way I see it is that Madrid have been the ones causing all the problems in this case - had they simply paid us the 1.5m buy out clause at the start then it should have gone to an open market and Saints and Spurs could have bid whatever they wanted for the player. An example of how things may have unfolded... I would have thought we would have let Madrid know relatively early on that we wanted Toby for the original amount of 6.8m. At that point Madrid would have said they would activate their buy back clause and we would have to wait for payment until we put in an improved offer *****il we were paid, the original agreement would still be in effect so why pay more?). Madrid however - perhaps not having the money needed to pay us - seemingly already started negotiations with Spurs and only paid us the 1.5m once a deal had been agreed (at least in principal). By this point though the deadline had passed and so we would believe that legally, the original agreement of 6.8m should stand. Madrid and Spurs push ahead with the deal anyway and we are forced to make the legal threat to hold it up. The problem comes when Madrid say the end of the loan period signified the end of the original agreement for us to pay 6.8m. The problem here is that if that is the case we would have had no chance to put in an improved bid before the end of this period as we had not been paid the buy back clause by Madrid (and until this happened we would believe the original agreement was still in effect) and after this date a deal with Spurs had already been made. Once it became clear that the Spurs deal was going to go through regardless of any legal wranglings with Madrid we put in an improved bid - the thought being we want the player more than any compensation we would have got from Madrid after the legal stuff was resolved. With the Spurs deal too far along we will miss out on the player and will have to make do with some form of compensation. The stupid thing being that with our improved offer Madrid would have got more money and so it is a case of them cutting off their nose to spite their face. In terms of Toby's personal preference, I honestly believe he was happy to go to either club as long as he gets to play (that is why he left Madrid in the first place after all). Mostly conjecture on my part but really it seems that we were well within our rights to believe the original deal would be in place until we were paid the release clause and Madrid deliberately witheld this payment until a deal with Spurs was already made preventing us from putting in an improved bid until it was too late. Just my opinion from what i've heard so far.