Yesterdays game acted a reminder of the difficulty of the task at hand this season. Compared to premier league clubs Leverkusen are better than the vast majority without the football and defending/pressing as a unit, but they lacked a lot of individual talents which you see here that could unlock our defence. A lot of fans and pundits from the outside are tipping us for the drop, but i'm confident that there are still players to come in and that Ron will have us organised enough to survive. I think when the dust settles we'll have a stronger depth to our squad, but ultimately our 1st eleven will not be as good and as much as managers/pundits say it's a squad game. Your 1st choice will always have the bigger impact on your league position. I'm far from doom and gloom and I think from my brief viewings of Taider & Tadic that we have players capable of being good premier league players, but they'll probably need some time to adjust to the game in this country
Ha ha. Come back when your his age! I work for a US customer and my wife has told me that the day I come home in a pair of them, she'll pack my case. The yanks love them.
I'm prepared for a bit if a struggle at times, but not relegation. It's difficult to know if the replacements won't be as good, as we have not seen them compete in this league yet. I'm concerned at a lack of creativity in the middle, and we certainly need to strengthen in the areas we all know to give the whole team the chance to perform, and give it options. I feel better than I did, and I think the board is slowly sorting itself out. Ron seems like a likeable and competent chap.
From the northern end it looked like Blowers had wandered in from Test Match Special. Someone hide his cravat !
Construction was started today on a dyke in front of my house, to protect against the tsunami of urine Southampton will suffer next sunday.
The real reason we have cause to be positive is that we are still keeping alive the dream of our saviour Markus Liebherr who passed away on this day in 2010. If it wasn't for him we wouldn't even have a Club. God Bless him.
I don't think it's as simple as that. It's one thing having the players, it's another thing having them playing as a well-oiled machine etc. It could take 2/3 of the season for Koeman to find the right formula etc.
Agreed, this is a transitional season and it will take time for a "team" to develop and is playing to its' full potential (remember early 2009/10). It is time to consign the departures of this summer to history, we will all have an opinion as to why they went, but significant money has been spent to strengthen and there is a promise to spend more on the right players to move the club forward. The fans will have to be patient, but I feel that we will see better results the longer the season goes on.
Having been at the game yesterday it was comforting to see that Saints look as though they will be competitive this season and with a few additions will only get stronger. There was something lacking yesterday, the crisp passing was not there but then we are in pre-season, and we do need assistance for Pelle up front. To some extent it was similar to last year where we had some good possession and lots of chances but failed to take them but am sure Ron is on the case!
We started brilliantly last season because we were ahead on development after a great preseason and caught teams by surprise. Compared with that we are unprepared this season which will show, especially with (hopefully) some more players to integrate. Patience is the word this season.
Pelle - Lambert Tadic - Lallana Bertrand - Shaw Rojo - Lovren Byram - Chambers Think all those signings are roughly as good as their replacements, apart from Bertrand, but think will still do well with a run of games. - Pelle may lack goals and vision, but is a lot stronger and better in the air than Lambert, who wasn't on good form until the final 1/3 of the season. -Byram should do fine as cover for RB, hope we get a winger or we may need him out wide at some point. -Rojo's as good as Lovren, especially with Lovren's end of season form. -Got a feeling that Tadic will be our best player, so would be a good Lallana replacement. Obviously they all have to gel, but I think with Taider and Forster in and maybe another CB, our squad is just as good on paper, but our 11 will be a little weaker. Really need a winger as well as a striker as when Ings or whoever plays RF, we'll only have Isgrove or Gallagher to bring on until Rodriguez gets back.
It's called style. It may be subjective, but Ron clearly has bags of it. Cream chinos > crappy beards.
I like Guardian's season previews, they usually contain some interesting views. Here we have fans' predictions for the coming season. http://www.theguardian.com/football/2014/aug/09/premier-league-2014-15-fans-previews-part-two Ben Gammon has us at 12th position, that's just about how I see it. But this guy from Sunderland is brilliant, he predict's a 10th place finish for them.
