The Lander takeover looks pretty much done now premier league approval has been secured. Part of the takeover was that the current board would remain in place. I'm sure what saints can reveal in private is a lot more than is currently in the public sphere
I think the players that we buy in the £8-12m region we seem to do pretty well on - Mane, Pelle, Tadic, Bertrand, Lovren, Wanyama. Its when we stretch ourselves a bit more in the £13m+ that we come unstuck - Osvaldo, Ramirez and the jury is still out on Boufal and dare I say it Gabbadini
Skybet are the least reliable bookies from my experience when it comes to transfer/new manager odds. They chop and change so much as there is a massive conflict of interest there. Don't even know how it is allowed tbh, so if Vieira was favourite there first then I wouldn't read too much into it.
Apart from Redmond we took our time signing the other players. I don't think we replaced areas that we needed too. We all knew that Austin would be injured at some stage and that Jay was coming back from long term injury, so what did we do, we waited until almost the end of Jan to buy a striker, and tried to play a non-striker as a striker before that
I agree he did very well in his first 4-5 matches but when he came back from his injury he didn't look like the same player. I don't know if it was a combination of very limited chances created for him, or the opposing teams sussing him out, but he didn't score any more goals when he came back.
Long is actually a striker If Gabbiadini was the number one pick then I'd sooner we wait to get the right man instead of settle for someone just because they're available. We should have had enough to get us through the group stages of Europa. We didn't and that's sport.
I was one who did not think Puel was the right man , to an extent I still don't , but sometimes better the devil you know .
£12m is the new £7m though. Whereas a couple of season ago the most common transfers fro first team squad players was around the £7m mark that's changed dramatically. Here's a list of premierleague players bought in that £12m bracket last season: Tomkins, Musa, Berahino, Baston, Success, Townsend, Van Aanholt, Brady, Perez, Schlup, Mason, Chadli, Nolito, Snodgrass, Ibe, Hendrick, de Roon I think, on blalance we've done OK with the four mentioned above. If we were to sell them now I think we'd get at least what we paid for for all but Boufal, that's not a bad track record. Puel didn't fit for tactical or possible inter-personal reasons but I don't think it's tright or fair to blame what he did in the transfer window (if indeeed it was him making any of those decisions) as a reason for his sacking. He was backed about the amount I'd expect a manager of Southampton to be backed (and a little on the low side for a club hoping to challange for a spot in Europe)
I made this point to someone just yesterday when they asked who I wanted. I politely said I don't think there's a lot out there but seeing as he wanted him out so much maybe he should tell me who he wants Though like Graham says, it doesn't matter who it is if the issues in the squad aren't addressed.
They do it just so they can report "another story". Wouldn't surprise me if they place the bets to influence the odds. It's not like they are short of a bob or two.
http://www.dailyecho.co.uk/news/15353655.Pellegrino__ready__for_Saints/?ref=mrb&lp=2 Here's a piece about Pellegrino just in case, like me, you'd never heard of him.
It's the fact that they also run the biggest sports news channel in the country. What is stopping them having a "BREAKING NEWS" story about Vieira in the verge of getting Saints job, people see this and head over to Skybet to place a bet, as this is where a lot of people get their sports news from. I just can't see how it is allowed
Sounds quite improbable to me. I would imagine sky news and skybet are run as two separate businesses for a start.
Long a striker - easily overlooked I'm afraid. When I mentioned Gabbiadini I did prefix it with 'dare I say it'. I think he is looks good, but in the run up to the end of the season he was out of the game a lot. Probably not his fault I agree, but he didn't look as good as he had earlier.
This is just a theory, but just suppose you owned several news outlets on various media platforms. Then you could potentially release several conflicting stories which might encourage people to place bets. Just a theory, I doubt anyone would be allowed to monopolize the media in such a way
