ADutchSaint

Think its more a personal preference on what kind of midfielder people like, instead of amateur or professional opinions. I dont really rate JWP, he's just not the type of midfielder i like to see. Same goes for players like Clasie and Davis.

Dont think Bazoer would be too expensive atm for us, just dont think he would be willing to come to Southampton. He would be a cracking buy tho cause i think he's going to become world class in the future, a loan wouldnt make that much sense tho since we got plenty of players on his position. Ajax is like candyland atm tho, so many great talents: Tete, Bazoer, Ziyech, Dolberg, De Ligt etc etc but chances are slim to none that any of those will come to us in the future.

Being dominant doesnt say anything when the oppositions lets you, Sparta is fine with us playing the ball around where we cant hurt them. Especially with 1-0 cause all they need is a draw and they are through. And with all the possession of the ball we havent been able to create one good chance which is even sadder really. Its pretty poor what we are seeing atm, not that thats a surprise with so many changes.

That kid is going to break the transfer record for the Dutch league. Been a while since i've been this impressed by a player in the Dutch league, we have seen plenty of good and even great talents in the last few years but this guy is something else.

No thanks, ill take Dolberg tho. Man that kid is good..... Ajax has some serious good talents walking around atm, probably going to win the league if you ask me.

Lucky to get the draw from that one. Pretty poor overall performance, especially our midfield was non-existent at times. The back line, Romeu and Forster did good but otherwise not impressed at all. The most simple passes and touches went wrong today, play this match 10 times and you lose 7 of them the way we played today. Its ok to get outplayed by a better team but especially in possession of the ball it was just dire at moments today.

Koeman was on a Dutch talkshow on Sunday and they asked him a few things about what happened. He just said what we already heard, he wanted to stay and like finish his current contract, the club wanted him to extend his contract but he didn't had a good feeling about that offer so the club wanted him to go basically and then Everton came along with a better offer. He also had doubts about extending with Southampton because he had the feeling it could only go worse in terms of results. That's basically all he said about it.

Of course it matters that Stones is English. As a English team you want the best English players cause just like a lot of people here, most fans prefer "own" players above foreign players when possible. There arent a lot of those so that jacks up the price, plus clubs in England have to deal with the homegrown player rule, which jacks up the price even more in comparison to other leagues. And sure in general players in England are worth relatively more and more to English clubs because of the high revenues. High revenues and high wages and selling to your opponent who you compete directly against jacks up the price but saying it doesnt matter if a player is foreign or not just isnt true, it doesnt make sense if it didnt and Stones wouldnt have been more expensive as for example Sané, who came in as a world class young talent from a club with a higher revenue as Everton and just like Stones had a contract until 2019. Just because Schalke doesnt play in the same league as Everton should not make Stones as a defender worth more then winger like Sané, that makes no sense. Not a chance City would have paid 50m for Stones if he wasnt English and a homegrown player cause why would they? There's no reason to do so, so its a factor and it makes sense that it is a factor.

Van Dijk is good, really really good even but he's not that good that he should become the most expensive defender in the history of the sport, lets be real here. 35m, around same fee as what guys like Bailly and Mustafi were sold for would be a good fee and a ****load of money for a defender. Stones is just a exception cause he's English.

I highly doubt it and i doubt it even more that Koeman is willing to leave Everton. The Dutch FA is currently even a bigger mess then Inter so i dont think someone in the position of Koeman is going to give that up for the national team. If they sack Blind, which they wont do anyway, its going to be a manager without a current job and everybody in Holland will be screaming for De Boer in that case.

Doesnt matter, they threw out Mancini a few weeks before the league started and now they throw out De Boer because the whole team is a mess. Well no ****... De Boer just made a stupid mistake by going there, you should never step into a club who throws out the manager right before the league starts. That club is a mess. And Inter made the mistake of appointing De Boer, who didnt speak the language, didnt know the club and doesnt exactly suits the culture the club or players are known to but thats also on De Boer himself. He clashed with a lot of players at Ajax, all players who had a attitude. Yeah great idea to work at a club then where its a mess inside the club and then put a no-nonsense manager like De Boer in charge of guys like Icardi, Brozovic, João Mário etc. Dutch managers dont do good in south of Europe in the first place, mentality of Dutch managers just doesnt suit those countries. Just like a lot of Dutch managers have issues with players from South America. When i read that De Boer signed at Inter the first thing i thought was well he's going to be home before Christmas, which wouldnt be a bad thing cause all we need now is the Dutch FA so sack Blind. I still have my fingers crossed.

Moussa Dembélé (the one who's at Celtic) or van Ginkel

Van Dijk has the qualities to be great on the ball. In the past i've seen him giving long passes and through balls that are world class but atm i only see him giving short easy passes, which every decent defender on earth can do and thats not something big clubs are going to pay a ****load of money for. Now in his defense we dont play with wingers anymore so those long passes arent really there but there's still plenty of opportunities to skip for example Romeu and pass the ball directly to one of the forwards and skip the deep laying midfielders. And if Virgil wants a big move in the future and wants to eliminate the doubts people in Holland have about him, he needs to show more on the ball, more then he currently does. Prove what? Its a fact Ajax and PSV were visiting every game Virgil was playing at Groningen but both bought other young defenders instead and both were asked why they didn't go for Van Dijk when he did good at his first year at Celtic in the Champions League. And its not a mystery why cause Virgil has the habit to switch off at moments when he's not getting pushed. And when i see him walking on the pitch right now and compare it with last year then im not sure how hard Puel pushes him but Puel doesnt know Virgil yet as good as Koeman did from the start so maybe that will come. Im not well connected, i've just been following Virgil closely for years and then you see and hear a lot about a player.

Virgil would seriously need to step up his game cause the way he plays now there aint a chance Barca would be in for him, Barca demands a bit more then just winning your personal duels. Im not saying he doesnt have the qualities but he will have to more on the ball then he currently does. I also expect more from him now then 'just' winning his aerials and having a ****load of clearances. Yes defensively he's a beast but i cant say i like the looks of him atm, yesterday he also had a few very sloppy moments on the ball and it reminds me of his second year at Groningen and Celtic where he also became very sloppy at moments and at Groningen it cost him his place in the national squad U21 and every club in Holland had doubts about buying him. I know Koeman regularly gave Virgil a kick in the ass for those moments and was constantly on his back for it so im hoping Puel does it as well otherwise ill predict we will see Virgil doing some silly things this year.

People blow this way out of proportion, these kind of things happen and they shouldn't but it takes two to tango and its silly to blame it on all on Tadic. At the end it worked out so shall we move on?

Good win with a very good first half, all tho have to say that was a pretty **** poor team we played against. Hope this win gives the team some more confidence maybe then my mind will change about this system but so far i still dont like it.

He was really, Koeman tried to get him even before Alderweireld. Why you think Alderweireld was signed so late?

Poor performance really, first 20 min or so were good, dominated on the pitch and created a few good chances but as soon Sunderland figured out you should give Redmond and Tadic a lot of space it was all over. We got lucky thanks to the keeper but the second half all we did was shooting from distance and created nothing cause we are all trying to go through the middle if the full backs dont go forward. This system aint never going to work. Højbjerg is a great player on the ball but he also aint the physical powerhouse who covers big distances on the pitch and who covers the gaps the fullbacks leave behind, neither is Davis and when the opponents fullbacks go forward our entire team is all over the place. Austin isnt the striker for this system as well. And i tried to pay some attention to Puel on the sideline today but has anyone see him instructing players or talking to them or what ever? All i see him doing is raising his arms because of decisions from the ref or i see him staring into oblivion. Things need to change and fast. If Puel persists on playing this system we need 2 new midfielders otherwise its going to end in tears, im 100% convinced about that now.

Good start, Sunderland was clueless how to pickup Tadic but soon as they figured that out we looked pretty terrible. The thing i hate the most about this bloody system we play in (besides it just doesnt suit our players) that there's no pressure on the ball at all. Sunderland is allowed to play it around far too easily. This doesnt going to end well if we keep this up.

The EL pointless from financial point? Not really true, you can make decent money in the EL if you get far. Sevilla made over 20 million in total with 9 million just from tv rights. West Ham out is good news for us cause it means we get a larger share of the market pool for English clubs. If we would do good and reach like a semi final then we would easily make over 10 million in total, which aint too shabby and would cover quite a few places down on the table. Plus a good EL campaign is good PR for the club and gives fans something they don't see everyday. All positives if you ask me.

I don't see as well how we could place both Tadic and Boufal in the 4-4-2 diamond system. The only way would be putting either Tadic or Boufal as one of the two strikers, otherwise one of the two would have to do a lot of defensive work which aren't their strongest qualities. It will be interesting to see but I think it would be a shame if Tadic would end up on the bench. All tho you kinda could say the same when it comes to Long and Austin. Funny tho how a system is able to make such a big difference

Where do I say you can pick up Pröpper for 9 million euro? He maybe, well probably, has more potential then Wijnaldum but Wijnaldum had a ****load more experience with 6? years at PSV and Feyenoord, a World Cup etc etc. Pröpper only played one game for Holland so far and one season at PSV, all factors why Pröpper won't fetch as much as Wijnaldum did. And then he aint much more expensive as Ziyech and well within what we can afford.

Twente is asking too much and Ziyech is pretty picky on what clubs he wants to go to. According to a journalist, who spoke to him and his agent, there's a lot of interest but they are all waiting until the last day cause Twente has to sell him and they think he will be cheaper at the last moment of this window. And another problem Ziyech has is that he choose to play for Morocco so he will be gone for like 2 months with the Africa Cup in the middle of the season. Not really ideal if you want him as a key player. Jansen had a good season and did good in the friendlies with the Dutch national team, where every club in Europe was sitting in the stance cause we played with the youngest national team ever (Wijnaldum was the oldest guy on the pitch with 26 or some). Ziyech just made two bad decisions in a row when it comes to his career, going to Twente while they already were in financial troubles and not having the patience to get called up again for the Dutch squad. And it will cost him. He will become a classic example of bad advice.

Not really true if you ask me. There are more players in Holland atm who could be really good in the PL and who we could afford. Pröpper for example would probably be the best option for us, even a better option as Ziyech for the diamond Puel wants to play in. Unless we switch back to 4-3-3 there really ain't no use in buying Ziyech. And then there are quite a few other players who would be interesting and affordable for us. I do agree on Haller tho, I don't see it either in him.

Hope they paid attention to Henriksen from AZ then, seriously good player. Big, strong, decent pace and can score. Has only one year left on his contract as well so wouldn't be very expensive.