A bit misguided of Ricky to say that I think. Whilst as a fan I cannot be certain either way of all the rights and wrongs the evidence I have available suggests the club is doing fine
He actually a says MP leaving showed the players what the ambition of the board was... These not so intelligent footballers are actually ****ing mind readers. Not one of them has said they were told what the boards ambitions were and didn't like them. I love you Rickie, but that's **** man, total ****. You've just told us what your interpretation was not what was said. Please just refuse to answer those questions now. I don't want to dislike you.
As I only got home from 2 weeks away yesterday can anyone give me a quick catch up with the Virgil situation I thought personal terms were agreed? And also I thought we were getting Ings and ended up with Long, didn't see that one coming.
The irony is of course that since Markus and Nicola brought us out of administration the financial buzzword in Southampton Football Club has been "sustainability". In what universe were we ever going to go from the N Power Championship to the UEFA Champions League in less than 3 years while maintaining financial sustainability and complying with FFP? The difference now, with Katharina's own hand on the purse strings, is that the growth will be controlled, but still going in the same direction as before. Rickie should have realised that rather than just jumping on the bandwagon with his fellow escapees.
Southampton were happy enough to let Rickie go or as they put it they couldn't stand in his way. The price was only barely acceptable for a PL and England striker, so I suspect he didn't feature in our future plans and his wages were a bit high. Personally, I would love a back up striker as good as Rickie, but Saints must have considered him on his way out.
After Gardos has come in, he'll be first choice with Fonte. Koeman confirmed that last week. Ings didn't seem to want to move, and seems happy enough to see out his contract and leave on a free next Summer. Long was a surprise, but a decent enough addition to the squad, with 1-2 more still to come.
We wanted another defender when Lovren was still around. Now that Lovren has gone, we replaced him with Grados, but we're still one CB short. One that will keep Yoshida or Hooiveld out of the squad. Would have been nice to have that one, but it's not a bare necessity. I've seen worse defenders than Yoshida, although he does tend to give me a few scares during the game.
saw that swindon are dubious about their chances of getting stephens back on loan. saying if he's going to be on the bench for his club then there's not much chance.
He was on the bench yesterday wasn't he? Hooiveld was too, but we shall see against Millwall how Koeman might use Stephens
I think we'll keep the current 4 (JF, FG, MY and JH) for this season, then Jos ends his deal and can leave. Then we sign a new one and keep the other 3.
Just had a check in the archives. Maya is indeed in his last year - as is Jos. José has three seasons to run and Florin has four.
I think Maya will get offered a new one as the club will see him as a good option for a third or fourth choice....I'm not sure he'll accept that being 26 though.
Would you expect the board to look you in the face as a player and say "Yeah, we plan to just pocket cash and finish 14th every year?" Of course they're not going to tell you the truth. I'm not saying the board actually planned to do that, but that would be the worry. Their actions certainly didn't look like they were going to try hard to contend. I think Lambert was pretty careful not to overtly criticize the club. I think his remarks were more to defend the players than lash out at Saints. It seemed that the brunt of the abuse was directed by the players, but when things break down usually there's some fault on both sides.
My only point here is that they have made a judgement based on NC then MP leaving ( reading Rickie's words )... Unless of course one of those two said something to them. Oh and "pocket the cash and aim to finish 14th? " Really. Haven't we spent 47m already?? Doesn't look like pocketing the cash to me. Their minds were made up and the only time they tried to contact the board was not to bother asking about ambitions but to ask for a transfer.
