They lost their manager to Tottenham. One of their strikers to Liverpool. A midfielder to Liverpool with a central defender about to follow after a medical this weekend. The most promising left back to Man Utd and now their 20 year old right back to Arsenal. Heading for a fall? They have a massive rebuild to do after that!
True but we have over £100m to do it with a CL manager and the best academy in the country. Exciting times
Problem is everyone now knows you have money so you clubs will ask for ridiculous price for players that you're interested in
but isn't it to late for that?...Liverpool Man utd and Arsenal have the snapped up cheaply some of the best...........
A friend of mine and a poster on here has a son at it. Can you close the one down in Bath and stop taking the best kids from around here and move it to the channel islands.
Got to hand it to Soton....they produce fine players on a consistent basis. They are the sort of club that we should aspire to be. What a shame that they cannot keep hold of their talent. Clubs like Soton should be winning the league, not just becoming an extension of the big boys academies.
Always enjoyed my visits to the old Dell when I lived in Andover, before I came to Canada, and remember seeing some pretty good players down there. Have only see their new ground from the air as I depart for the Canaries but they seem to have built up a fairly enviable system whereas we tend to stumble on from crisis to crisis with no firm plan in place. Forget the 5 pillars nonsense just a load of psychobabble. Remember traveling with the Southampton fans to a cup game at Ashton Gate which we won 1-0 and they treated me like a king on the way home despite the fact that the coaches windshield wiper system failed in a torrential downpour to delay our arrival by 3 hours. Nice memories and have always had a soft side for the saints and even refereed a game at the Dell in a county cup final. You are spot on when you say we should take a leaf out of their book Tampa because they just seem to get most things right including great support from the stands.
Funny, I came on to write something similar. I fear Saints will have a rough trot this season, a stream of players already gone and more tipped to go, and little sign of anyone in. Their problem will be in not getting ripped off (although some may point to getting £26m for Lallana as them ripping Liverpool of, so what goes around comes around) and getting players in and gelling as a team come 3 weeks time, big ask for any manager.
I went to The Dell when I was a kid (and saw myself on MOTD !) Saints beat Liverpool 1-0 with a Mick Channon penalty in the first 10 minutes Have also been to St Marys when we were top of the league in 2008 and blew it by losing 2-0 !
I started the thread because they had a distinctly average last three months of the season and to lose five major players plus Rodriguez serious injury, made me think that they are in for a season of real struggle. Yes, they have gathered in a tidy sum in transfer fees, but we all know that while money can buy quality, it takes much longer to build the relationship between players that earns you the points you don't expect or sometimes dont deserve. In fact, City could be just like that. We appear to have recruited well, but how long will it take for the bonding to take? While I believe we will be well and truly in the mix at the end, we may have a slower start than many are expecting.
I assume you mean City, BRR, and not Soton? I really do hope you are correct but the natural pessimist in me wonders if it will or will not happen as we all want it to.
