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Comment | Southampton Board Split On Russell Martin Situation
at 16:52:21
Redwight - A good friend of mine works at Brentford and has said that Ankersen didn’t actually have that much to do with Brentford’s success but was very good at taking all the credit for the groundbreaking ideas and hard work put in by other people. From what he has said, a lot of people at Brentford, off the record, so to speak, were glad to see the back of him.
Dowater - What has happened is that the people responsible for recruiting the likes of Potch & Koeman are long gone as are those responsible for bringing in gems like Mane & Tadic or spotting developing the very top quality youth players - Dibling & Amo Ameyaw excepted. Most of those highly valued personnel have either been poached by bigger clubs or left to join them of their own accord.
IMO, when Markus Liebherr sadly died an aura that surrounded St Mary’s went with him and it has never really been rekindled since. Sadly I feel under our current ownership we will never rekindle that aura of success as SR not only seem incapable of running a PL club successfully, evidenced by their track record to date, but they show no signs of learning from their previous mistakes. I feel that Ankersen, in particular, is a total liability and once Solak gets to the point where he finally snaps I believe the best thing for the club would be to get rid of Ankersen along with Martin - let the oaf Ankersen go and ruin another club, Brentford & SFC excepted, there are plenty more to choose from… |
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Comment | Southampton Already Have Their Target To Replace Russell Martin
at 14:02:06
This story first appeared at roughly the same time on two websites - one of which was also running another Saints story linking Crystal Palace with a ‘swoop’ for Tyler Dibling!?!- yes, Palace plotting g to swoop for Dibling!! The author may as well have been Hans Christian Andersen so in all honesty I’m not losing any sleep tonight win, lose or draw… I am going 1-0 Saints on the UI Prediction League (having got last week spot on 🙂⚽️) |
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Comment | Southampton Put In BId For Feyenoord Keeper
at 13:33:41
Sounds about fight, top 20 world ranking, good with feet, age OK, plays in a League from which incoming players seem to easily adapt to the PL. Only possible concern might be fitness record but at the budget constraints we operate under I doubt we can do a lot better. Sounds promising. |
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Comment | Adam Armstrong Signs New Southampton Deal
at 16:08:29
Good news, he will give his all for the cause and should go into the new season with a far more confident and positive mindset than last time around. Fitting way too celebrate the new contract would be with the winning goal up at Newcastle - at about 16.50 ⚽️😀 |
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Comment | Saints Agree Deal With West Ham United For Flynn Downes
at 19:20:31
WanderingSaint - all PL players are insured against career ending injuries by companies like Pro Secure and as this is a new contract and therefore a new policy you simply would not get the insurance without a medical even though FD was here last season and It is highly unlikely anything has changed it will still have to happen. |
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Comment | Southampton Announce Millwall Friendly Suggesting That There Will Be No European Tour This Summer
at 20:35:49
Also, I think this season you have to factor in the alterations being made at SMS, that schedule would also have been squeezed a bit with the play off semi 2nd leg being the home game. Not only the safe standing and the new away segregation to undertake but also our new exterior Berlin Wall to be erected. Perhaps with that in mind the Club have decided to give the workers the maximum time allowable as of course it will all have to pass safety inspections so no room for mistakes - just a thought….
Now watch them announce a home friendly for the final free weekend 🙂⚽️ |
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Comment | Southampton Sell Out Wembley Tickets In Just Two Days
at 16:54:05
Picking up on Nick’s post, two words are responsible for a lot of those 15,000 seats - Club Wembley. There are Club Wembley memberships that have a kind of debenture facility attached and then loads of hospitality options on top of that, some for members to opt in to and the others for one-off non-members.
Club Wembley are offering one-off full hospitality Diamond Packages for Saints fans at £499 pp and private box options for 8 / 12 or 20 people at £599 pp.
A fair bit to fork out but might appeal to some - especially if you can put it on expenses 😀
Details here - https://www.clubwembley.com/events/2024/The-Championship-play-off-Final
Not sure what the FA / FL take for this but I’d say they should re-map Wembley for the PO Finals, in particular for the Championship PO to increase the Club allocations to 40,000 + per club as I am sure they won’t sell out Club Wembley in all categories so some decent seats could be put to better use minus the hospitality options.
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Comment | Hugh Fisher's 1976 FA Cup Winner's Medal Sold At Auction
at 16:52:57
Oops - missed the first paragraph off, it should read as follows:
That auction house charges a 15% seller's commission + VAT so they will take a fee of £1,800 + VAT (another £360) so Hughie will only receive £9,840 of the £12,000 hammer price.
In addition the buyer will pay a buyer's premium of 24% + VAT so an additional £2,880 + VAT (another £576) bringing the total purchase price of the medal to £15,456.
So, in total Hughie takes home £9,840, the auction house claws in an eye watering £4,680 in buyer's and seller's fees / commissions and the VAT man gets £936.
In days gone by they used to say you never saw a poor farmer, more recently that has been changed to vet and dentist - think you can add auctioneer to that list if this example is anything to go by...
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Comment | Hugh Fisher's 1976 FA Cup Winner's Medal Sold At Auction
at 16:40:13
In addition the buyer will pay a buyer's premium of 24% + VAT so an additional £2,880 + VAT (another £576) bringing the total purchase price of the medal to £15,456.
So, in total Hughie takes home £9,840, the auction house claws in an eye watering £4,680 in buyer's and seller's fees / commissions and the VAT man gets £936.
In days gone by they used to say you never saw a poor farmer, more recently that has been applied to vets and dentists - think you can add auctioneers to that list if this example is anything to go by...
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Comment | Nottingham Forest Mulling Over Move For Saints Star
at 12:58:29
I am sure CA will be vital in the next few weeks let alone months. If we beat Watford next week we will have 11 games between now and March 9th. We will need all hands to the pumps to maintain our current form in what will be a relentless 5 week period and beyond that as well. I just hope we tell Forest thanks but no thanks - and make sure you win enough games to ensure Burnley get relegated 🙂⚽️🙂 |
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Comment | Magnificent Southampton Away Support Now Needs To Be Replicated At St Mary's
at 16:02:23
This might be an interesting exercise to undertake; the Ticket office must have the details of all the supporters who purchase away tickets throughout the season - take the magnificent support at Millwall for example - why not write to / email everyone who purchased a ticket and ask if them if for next season they would be interested in moving into a dedicated ‘home end’ as a group and replicating that level of support at every home game. I would suggest it would be the Chapel as I doubt the police will be happy to see the away fans moved very far from where currently reside. I am sure that a database could be built based on the details of away ticket purchasers that could identify at least a couple of thousand away regulars who could be potential candidates to establish a new home end next season. If established, it could lift the atmosphere at SMS. Of course, there is no guarantee everyone would want to move, at away games you don’t have a choice, you go where you are put. At SMS as a home supporter you do have an element of choice. Might be worth investigating though - who knows? |
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Comment | Southampton V Leeds United The Preview
at 14:48:51
hMuch has been said in recent weeks about the way RM insists the team plays and the need for flexibility in his approach to help stem the number of costly errors that have led to us conceding goals and also making us somewhat easy to play against. On Saturday we have Leeds coming to town with a certain Joel Piroe on board, a player I really wish we had signed, but that’s not the point I am trying to make; in Piroe not only do Leeds have a top class striker at this level on a good run of form but they also have a player that has lived the ‘Rustyball experience’ first hand for the last couple of seasons - he will therefore be able to give the Leeds coaching staff all the inside info on exactly how RM sets up on top of what they already know. Therefore this would be the PERFECT time for RM to throw Leeds a complete curve ball by mixing it up tactically and ditching the tippy tappy in favour of a more direct style of play especially in our defensive half of the field - it might just work wonders as Leeds won’t be expecting it… |
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Comment | Tottenham Wing Back Linked With Southampton
at 14:25:21
Underweststand I know exactly what you mean about Levy, I would not trust him as far as I could bench press an elephant. Although Rupert Lowe isn’t exactly high on my Christmas card list, he gets credit where it is due for one quip he made about Levy back In 2001. In the aftermath of Spurs poaching Hoddle from us then Dean Richards we made an official complaint to the PL about their conduct. Lowe had been quite vocal on the radio and in the press prior to the hearing labelling the Spurs board “a bunch of North London yobbos” and calling the relatively newly appointed Levy “another cowboy in charge” (with previous reference to Alan Sugar). He got told to apologise for his remarks at the hearing which I don’t think went down well with Lowe. Outside of the hearing after it finished he was interviewed for radio by either the BBC or LBC and the interviewer asked him if, in a spirit of reconciliation, there was anything nice he could say about Levy. After a long pause, Lowe said “Well…. I must say Mr.Levy was immaculately dressed today, he had Spurs on his blazer badge, Spurs on his tie, in fact, I think he even had Spurs on his shoes”
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Comment | West Ham United Agree Deal With Southampton
at 17:33:19
Farewell JWP, gutted to see him go but totally understand the reasons why - Block 8’s post above pretty much sums it up. With £100k a week off the wage bill SR simply MUST now give Smallbone what he is asking for - and I’d offer Tella improved terms as well.
I’d invest the fee received for JWP in Piroe and Kasper Schmeichel (Nice want £9m for KS) - if we invest his fee wisely and repurpose a percentage of the savings on his wages on improved contracts for WS & NT then JWP will have done one last favour for all of us he has left behind here at SFC, a last favour that could help us in our quest for a successful season and possible promotion.
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Comment | Sheffield United Have Will Smallbone Offer Turned Down By Southampton
at 17:08:07
With JWP now going to West Ham that’s £100k a week off the wage bill, so, SR for God’s sake just give WS what he is asking for - and whilst you are at it, give Tella an improved deal as well. Show both of them you value them, show both of them (+ Sheff U & Burnley) that you mean business. RM has had nothing but praise for WS - so RM, you need to get in front of Wilcox and demand these issues are actioned immediately.
I’d invest the JWP money in Piroe & Kasper Schmeichel (Nice would take £9m for KS) and just prey that the rumours of Palace being interested in McCarthy, as mentioned in another post, are actually true! If Palace are interested and stilll want Che then we could do a Tesco’s offer for them, buy one, get one free - I’ll leave you to work out which one they get for free… |
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Comment | Southampton V AZ Alkmaar The Verdict
at 15:33:34
Spot on SanMarco, I agree 100% with your suggestion for the transfer window to go from the last day of the season to mid-July. All this nonsense with the likes of Lavia, Tino & JWP would be over and done with by now and we could all get on with proper planning and preparation for the forthcoming season.
Personally I’d go one step further with the loyalty bonuses - just scrap them altogether because with very very few exceptions there is no loyalty shown by the players anymore. If they must continue then pay them one week after the closure of a set number of transfer windows to run concurrently after the player first signs a contract then annually thereafter, again a week after the window closes.
Whist we are at it, scrap the Bosman Rule and in one fell swoop you’d cut out about 75% of the nonsense and faffing about that goes on in every transfer window. Bosman was a nothing player who if playing today wouldn’t even get a trial never mind a contract at Eastleigh. All well and good giving average non-League players freedom to move but to apply the same rules at PL and FL levels is nonsense. The player could still move when out of contract but for a market value fee. Any failure to agree a fee would either see it set by a proper tribunal or by multiples of the player’s current wages. |
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Site Scores| Forum Votes: | 55 | | Comment Votes: | 42 | | Prediction League: | 16 | | TOTAL: | 113 |
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