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trousers

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Professor

Professor

Posted
Posted
10 minutes ago, RobM said:

11th again. Not because we haven't improved, but because most other teams have as well.

Improved like Liverpool have?  Or Man City? Buying players for a lot of money  did buy success but there's no guarantee that it always works or that it lasts.  We can all think of highly priced players who have flopped.  We can expect that some of this month's big buys will do the same.  Southampton know this only too with some the costly purchases the club have subsequently struggled to move out.  We have the advantage of a settled and successful team from the post lock-down period still in place but with more strength in depth. Even the transfer of Hojberg doesn't affect that because he'd already been dropped for lack of commitment to the club.  

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RobM

RobM

Posted
Posted
1 minute ago, Professor said:

Improved like Liverpool have?  Or Man City? Buying players for a lot of money  did buy success but there's no guarantee that it always works or that it lasts.  We can all think of highly priced players who have flopped.  We can expect that some of this month's big buys will do the same.  Southampton know this only too with some the costly purchases the club have subsequently struggled to move out.  We have the advantage of a settled and successful team from the post lock-down period still in place but with more strength in depth. Even the transfer of Hojberg doesn't affect that because he'd already been dropped for lack of commitment to the club.  

There's 38 games in a season, Liverpool and Man City will be OK at the end of it. They weren't the sort of team I had in mind when I made that point.

Everton have clearly improved and we finished ahead of them last season. I'd be surprised if we finished ahead of them again. But on the flip-side, I can't see Burnley or Sheffield Utd finishing as high as they did last season, so it balances out at bit and may leave us in a similar position.

Other teams like Newcastle look better. I doubt they'll finish ahead of us, but it's not a certainty and I think they'll push us all the way. We haven't improved to a significantly greater extent than them, so nothing suggest we'll run away from them this season.

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RinNY

RinNY

Posted
Posted

After our bad start last season, once Ralph got things figured out and sorted, we were easily a top 10 team. We have retained all of our key players except Hojbjerg, and improved in two key areas by bringing in KWP at right back and swapping Walcott in Boufal's place. Barring any significant injury disaster, I can see us finishing around 8th, plus or minus one or two places (i.e., as high as 6th, as low as 10th). Everton and Villa look stronger this year; Sheffield, Burnley, Crystal Palace and, to a degree, also Wolves look weaker.

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tajjuk

tajjuk

Posted
Posted

Top half just, if everyone stays fit maybe a cheeky run at 7th if we can show the form after the re-start or generally the 2nd half of the season.

I have a sneaky feeling that Diallo might turn out to be a bit of a star and we might be fending off bigger clubs for him.

Honestly though its very difficult to make any predictions from here, just look at the results that have happened. I think this extends to team's current form. People are raving about Villa for example but their other two games have been against an underperforming Sheff Utd and a terrible Fulham, plus they did well no doubt against Liverpool but Liverpool were uncharacteristically terrible and 3 of the goals were big deflections. For me their defence still looks poor, same with Everton, good start and run yes, but their defence still doesn't look much cop with a very dodgy keeper behind them.

Whereas we've seen previous years teams like Palace and Burnley start terribly but finish comfortably mid table (as did we last year). (Didn't Palace lose their first 7 scoring no goals in the process only for Roy to come in and take them to like 13th or something?)

Everyone was raving about Leicester but they got easily beaten by West Ham, Man Utd are a shambles but could easily sack Ole and go on a run. 

Man City look shaky but have had Laporte, Aguero and Jesus missing for the first two and have add Dias who looks quality, so you could see them get Aguero back, look more solid with their new centre-back pair and they win 15 on bounce again. 

We've all been here in the summer raving about other team's summer signings, only to see many flop or start well and fade. Whereas we know from our 2020 form we have very clearly a solid first eleven that is a good organised team, with potentially more balance and depth now, one of the best strikers in the league and IMO one of the best managers in the league. 

Will say though I think an Ings 3-4 month injury and we'll be flirting with relegation. 

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Dusic

Dusic

Posted
Posted

Considering the spending and quality of some of the teams outside the traditional top six (Everton, Leicester, Wolves), a top half finish would be a really fantastic achievement. The middle portion of the league is far stronger than when we had the flurry of 7th and 8th finishes.

I think we will have our moments, both good and bad runs but ultimately we don't have enough quality or depth in certain positions to be top half.

11th - 13th IMO.

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Hodgey

Hodgey

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Posted

I think we’ll be 14th, 11th if JWP / Ings or full backs don’t pick up a month out type injury. 
confident we’ll end up above Fulham, West Brom, Palace and Sheff Utd. Confident we’ll be below city, pool, Utd, everton, Chelsea, spurs, arsenal, Leicester, Wolves. Think we’ll also end up behind Leeds, West Ham, Newcastle and Brighton...

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ErwinK1961

ErwinK1961

Posted
Posted

Won’t finish above City, Liverpool, Chelsea, Utd, Spurs, Arsenal, Everton or Leicester.

Leeds, West Ham, Villa and Wolves will be very tough.

Newcastle, Palace, Brighton we should be aiming to finish above, but could go either way.

Got to finish above Fulham, West Brom, Sheff Utd and Burnley. 

So in answer to Trousers simple question... No. 12th

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Saint Keef

Saint Keef

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Posted

Based upon the madness of results in the past 2 weeks.....Villa put 7 past Liverpool, Leeds draw with Citeh, Chelsea held 3-3 by West Brom, Man U beaten 6-1 at home, West Spam win 3-0 at Leicester......and any others you can think of...........compared to Saints, two wins, two clean sheets (home!!!! and away), plus added to the European commitments of some clubs and a bit of Covid spread around,  I'd say we're nailed on to be CHAMPIONS......remember, you read it here first.  😉

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Jeremy

Jeremy

Posted
Posted
7 hours ago, Saint Keef said:

Based upon the madness of results in the past 2 weeks.....Villa put 7 past Liverpool, Leeds draw with Citeh, Chelsea held 3-3 by West Brom, Man U beaten 6-1 at home, West Spam win 3-0 at Leicester......and any others you can think of...........compared to Saints, two wins, two clean sheets (home!!!! and away), plus added to the European commitments of some clubs and a bit of Covid spread around,  I'd say we're nailed on to be CHAMPIONS......remember, you read it here first.  😉

YES, stunning form from the Villains. My mate from Birmingham will be rapt.

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John B

John B

Posted
Posted
13 hours ago, Ted Bates Statue said:

Anywhere between 9th and 12th - we haven't done enough to improve on last season but I don't believe we'll get significantly worse either. 

Yes 9th is 12th is a good call but lots of players have improved from the first part of the season 

 

Much depends on whether Adams can score regularly in my opinion

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Mr X

Mr X

Posted
Posted

A lot of clubs have heavily invested the top six will be the usual suspects and in a separate league to us! I feel we have some very good players but not quite the squad depth needed for top ten, we are a couple of higher class players short of that. I predict 11-14th again.... 10th would be an amazing achievement! 

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SNSUN

SNSUN

Posted
Posted

Liverpool

Man City

Chelsea

Spurs

Arsenal

Man Utd

Everton

Wolves

Leicester

Newcastle

Southampton

Leeds

Aston Villa

Crystal Palace

Brighton

West Ham

Burnley

Sheffield United

Fulham

WBA

Is how I roughly see it, maybe with a few swapsies of teams close to each other, but predominantly I think we could finish 10th, but more likely 11th/12th. I do think there are at least 7/8 weaker teams than us in the division so if we finish 13th or worse we've had a bad season. Any higher than 10th and it will have been a great season, as I think the top 9 in that table are all ahead of Saints squad-wise.

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jamesfp1

jamesfp1

Posted
Posted (edited)

We are about to go on an unbelievable run from now until Christmas where we end up top of the league, pundits will start asking 'can they qualify for the champions league?' etc. Meanwhile we'll become every neutrals favorite team after collecting a few scalps from the big 6 home and away. Then we'll tail off a bit around march after picking up some injuries and getting knocked out of the FA cup. In the end we finish 5th, just missing out on the champions league, but what a season and into Europe we go.

Edited by jamesfp1
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