Pre Season 2025 - Part 1

Hands Up If You Don't Know What You've Let Yourself In For

With the appointment of Will Still, just before last season ended, Saints signalled their intent to be organised for the new season and to try and enact that horrible cliché of “getting their business done early“.  There was another indicator of this with the early signing of Joshua Quarshie from Hoffenheim.  Quarshie is a central defender who is basically Usain Bolt in football form, in that he is 6 foot 5 and can do the hundred metres in about four seconds. Whilst I may exaggerate on the speed, the fact that he has these physical attributes shows the kind of team that we are trying to build.  At the time of his signing, I assumed that he would be a squad player and maybe even play for the under 23s but that point of view became somewhat redundant as the close season continued.

Quarshie - Hopefully Not the next ABK

Next came the publication of the retained list, or to be more accurate, the ‘not being retained’ list.  People get excited about it because they think it’s going to be a list of players we’re going to try and sell but no matter how much you want us to bin off ABK, it isn’t happening – not today anyhow.  What it did do was confirm that Kyle Walker-Peters would be leaving and though that’s a great shame, it was inevitable. Kyle has done more than enough for the club and the fact that he stayed the last time we got relegated and played the season in the Championship, a mere six months after he had been starting games for England, shows the integrity of the man good luck to him wherever he ends up.  How time has flown - Kyle has been with us for five and a half years, joining initially on loan in January 2020 before signing for £12 million.  Daniel Levy probably thought he'd got the better of that deal at the time but he didn't.  Kyle has shown Premier League quality for more or less the entirety of his stay.  He's been an outstanding attacking threat with his ability to carry the ball and quick feet to dribble past players.  There's been the odd occasion when defending wasn't at the forefront of his mind but in the main, when he wanted to defend then he could and he'll always be remembered for completely locking up Championship Player of the Season Crysencio Summerville in three games against Leeds in our last promotion season.  I really hope that Kyle gets a move to a good club as he deserves it.

Summerville Knows He Ain't Going Anywhere

On the other end of the scale, some of the deadwood got torched with the release of fourth choice goalkeeper Joe Lumley.  There’s not really a lot to say about Joe other than he somehow blagged a couple of games in the Premier League. The performance at home to Chelsea, which included flapping about with his eyes shut whenever a cross came into the box and then passing the ball straight to Cole Palmer on the edge of the box, kind of summed him up.  I will use the word ‘blag’ again to report that he has somehow blagged himself a contract at a Championship club with a move to Bristol City. One can only hope he is the first choice when we play the Robins this season.  Usually, you can bank on a returning player having a blinder against us, but I would say that in this case, this is incredibly unlikely.  

Also out with the deadwood but not in remotely similar circumstances, we saw the retirement of Adam Lallana.  As someone who came through the Saints Academy as a kid of course, you have to look at his career as a whole and say that we gave him the grounding to go on and have the success he had with Liverpool and England. There are many out there who would kill to have had a career like he has had.  As far as we are concerned, Adam was as important as any who played for the club in our rise through the leagues from 2009 to 2014.  Last year wasn’t great however, when we all knew he would struggle to play many minutes because of his body failing, and so it proved. I think that if you sign a golden oldie for your squad, it needs to be someone who has a track record of playing regular games and being fit most of the time. If a player has always been a little bit injury prone then by the time they are 36, they are usually completely knackered.  Once the dust settled on his announcement, Lallana revealed that he was to be a first team coach for us next season, which is probably the role he should have had from the start of last season.  No full page ads in The Echo this time please Ads and at least you've left with a bit more class than last time.

There hadn’t really been any word out of the upper echelons of the club since relegation, but then owner and chairman Dragon Solak changed all that with a wide ranging interview with local media which was very candid, very honest and surprising in its content.

Dragan Reacts to Another Mention of Rasmus and Henrik

There was lots of stuff about Sport Republic and the fact that we’ve had two relegations in three seasons and he didn’t shy away from the fact that things are not gone how he wanted them to go and that mistakes had been made. He directly addressed Rasmus Ankerson and Henrik Kraft and that he felt he could still work with them, but it was right that they were moved aside. Henrik is still part of Sports Republic and Rasmus is virtually isolated in Goztepe, though he still retains the ear of the owner with regards to selling players.  There was very heavy hints that the non-replacement of Jason Wilcox was the final straw, seeing as it sent us into last summer with a recruitment team that just wasn’t up to it for our attempt to stay in the Premier League, which of course, was doomed from the moment that transfer window ended.

The wider sports media were not shown in a good light when the story about the club being up for sale, put forward by Simon Jordan on talkSHITE, was firmly rebuffed. Solak is quite happy to talk to anybody with something worthwhile to say about potentially becoming an investor in the club, but he’s not looking to sell, and whilst everything has a price of course, it seemed a very believable statement.

My favourite line of the whole thing was that he takes full responsibility for every wrong decision that has been made since he arrived at the club. There are so many in football who do not take responsibility for anything but as anyone knows, admitting your mistakes is the only way of getting better at what you’re doing.  To that end, he made mention of the fact that the club would be trying not to rely on loan players as much this season as we did in our last season in the championship. This is a clear sign of learning from last summer when we had to spend about £50 million quid out of our budget just to retain the players that got us up and keep the squad at the same level as the one that got promoted. It’s also arguable that we even did that.

There was also some mention of some of the stuff which is in Johannes Spors wheelhouse about how we need to reduce the size of the squad, but he had given permission to spend money in three key areas. Joshua Quarshie was one of those, implying that he will be a first team player and I think we can safely assume that another one of them will be a striker.  The funny thing about trimming the squad is that that is Rasmus Ankerson‘s job, which in some ways is like someone shitting their pants and then putting them in the wash. It would obviously be better if you didn’t shit your pants in the first place but having done so, the least you can do is clear up your fucking mess.   Mention was also made of Aaron Ramsdale, who we obviously would love to keep if we possibly can.  An option is being explored in loaning him out for a season which I personally cannot see working but it’s good that they’re even trying to find a way to retain one of our few decent Premier League level players. It also turns out that the need to bring in a load of money is not as great as we initially thought it would be.  Since the interview, the prospect has arisen of a loan to Rangers in Scotland.  Why Rangers?  Well, read on.  There were other bits and pieces mentioned like future development of the area around the stadium and maybe even increasing the capacity, which is really saying the quiet bit out loud.

"If You Haven't Shit Your Pants, Consider Shitting Them"

So, to Rasmus and his mission to unshit his pants.   Oddly enough, some of the players rumoured to be first out of the door were those recruited during the Rasmus window of January 23.  First on the chopping block, it looks like Tall Paul is going to move on to Trabzonspor in Turkey as they have agreed a £7 million fee.  Getting the money out of them will prove to be much more difficult however.  With Rasmus being the chairman of Goztepe in Turkey, it’s another example of the strangeness and conflict of interest that multi-club models brings and so you have the chairman of a Turkish club selling a player to another Turkish club on behalf of the parent club.

They’re not strictly relevant to Saints anymore, but regardless, it has been amusing to see some of our ex managers failing upwards. Russell Martin has got the job at Glasgow Rangers (see previous reference to the Aaron Ramsdale potential loan) and the main point of interest there will be if their fanbase has the patience to weather the inevitable passing of the ball to the opposition centre forward on the edge of their own box.  Seriously though, I think he will do very well there, given that Rangers will in the main, have better players than whoever they are playing against.

Ivan Juric, after one win in fucking ages for us, has managed to snare himself a job at Champions League qualifying at Atalanta in Italy.  On the face of it, this is absolutely staggering and it seems that Atalanta have grown tired of the overachievement they’ve had over the past few years. Now, we can’t knock this at all because Juric is possibly doing his best days work for Saints by mounting a raid on his previous club and the player that he wants is Kamaldeen Sulemana. As I write it looks like he has persuaded someone on the board at Atalanta to part with near on £18 million quid for a winger with zero end product.  If that comes off, we could well soon have a statue of Rasmus Ankersen next to Ted Bates outside the front of St Mary’s and he will have gone some way to unshitting himself.

Completing our 'Failing Upwards' Triumverate of ex-managers is Ruben Selles.  Maybe the new Sheffield United manager could do us a favour by taking up their option on Ben Brereton Diaz but I have a feeling that that won’t happen for five main reasons – one is that they didn’t go up, two is that the fee was a laughable £10 million, three is that it was an option rather than an obligation and they’ve seen him play, four is that Chris Wilder is no longer there and five is that he is shit…. Or is he?  Can he really be as bad as he showed?

Yuki Sneaks in a New Player

The end of June saw the players return and the fixtures were released and we don’t have very long to wait for the visit of them down the road.  The social media of the players returning was centred around pre-season testing and the only notable surprise was Kuryu Matsuki being involved.  Maybe last seasons loanee to Goztepe will be with us this season.

As for the fixtures - well we have the ‘picked by the media’ fixture of Ryan Reynolds at home – which will at least make for an interesting episode of the Welcome to Wrexham documentary.  Then we have Ipswich away, then the Skates at home. My advice to Will Still is “win that one“. No one wants to be the first Saints manager since Harry Redknapp to lose a league game to that lot.

Things should start to gather pace now with July 1^st being here and that’s the day that contracts end and bonuses get paid for the previous year.  Expect movement and lots of it.

 

Pre-Season Part 2 - Preparing for the Race for 17th

Pre-season games started with a nice friendly neighbourhood trip to take on our only local rivals worth a shit – Eastleigh, which saw Saints take a large squad to the Silverlake to take on Kelvin Davis’ side. More of a fitness exercise than anything but with first half goals from Adam Armstrong twice and Will Smallbone, then second half efforts from Sekou Mara, Ryan Manning, Yuki Sugawara and Charly Alcaraz, we strolled to a 7-1 victory.  Because it was a fitness exercise, Adam Lallana and Ross Stewart didn’t play.

With the squad getting off to Spain for a training camp and a couple of behind closed doors friendlies, news came through that Che Adams was signing for Torino in Italy. There seemed to be this train of thought that he might be a Saints player next season despite the fact that he officially left the club three weeks ago. To me, his situation was no different to Stuart Armstrong’s in that he was in the last year of his contract and had never indicated an intention to sign a new one. Good luck to Che and it’s a brave move for him and I hope it works out.

A lot has been made of the fact that after we got relegated, he posted that he would stick around to put things right and get us back to where we belong but let’s not kid ourselves here or rewrite history - he would’ve been off last summer if anyone ever wanted to pay £15 million quid for him, which no one did.   There’s no point in being cynical though and he did prove to be pretty useful in the Championship but as the season wore on, I formed an opinion that I wouldn’t be that bothered if he left given that he has never exactly said the Premier League alight before, though we do of course have to replace him.

Che was always maddeningly inconsistent, quite often within the context of one game where he could look like the best player in the league one minute and then the next, look like someone who had never kicked a football before, wearing his Adidas Trampolino boots.  If he could play it at his best level for 80% of the time, instead of the 20% he currently manages, there is no way that someone wouldn’t have paid for him last summer.  Che was often given the thankless task of playing up front for us on his own, making up for a lack of height and pace with a physicality which often battered bigger defenders around.  When he played well, Saints tended to play well and his partnerships with Danny Ings and then Armando Broja brought some decent reward.

The Legend of Che

It’s a bit of a strange move from Torino‘s point of view because they can’t have been too impressed by him doing shuttle runs for Scotland in the summer. As I said though, good luck to him. He has provided us with some brilliant moments in his Saints career – the long-range goal against Manchester City and the chip against Watford being two of the most memorable. The catalogue of misses from ridiculously close to the goal also stick in the mind and the handball header against Wolves from six inches out with no goalkeeper in the goal, will always be legendary.

Moving on and the Spanish training camp and friendlies against Bordeaux and Montpellier. The Bordeaux friendly was against the backdrop of the French club going into administration. If you remember back a couple of years, we paid the transfer fee for Sekou Mara upfront to give them a stay of execution but it seems that years of mismanagement of caught up with them and it did look for a while at the friendly was not going to go ahead but go ahead it did, with Saints running out 3-2 winners. There was some bright attacking play along with some shambolic passing across the back but Tyler Dibling forced an own goal before Sam Amo-Ameyaw curled in a brilliant effort from the edge of the box and Mara himself got the third with it having been put n a plate by Dibling . We got our first real look at Mateuz Lis in goal and he started well and made a couple of decent saves before inexplicably turning into a complete shambles in the second half, fumbling one simple save onto the roof for the net and eventually conceding a shocker with a flappy punch and then getting beaten at the near post. Not great and the goalkeeping department still needs upgrading. The very next day however, Bordeaux officially went out of business which is fucking sad whatever way you look at it.

Up next after a few more days training were Montpellier, who were a step up in class and who were right bunch of arseholes. Playacting and leaving the foot in, in a preseason friendly is not what you want. 1-0 up early with Sulemana showing what he’s all about by grabbing the ball to take a penalty and rolling a pathetic effort straight at the keeper, who was so surprised he just threw it straight back out to him so in the stats it goes down as two shots on target for Suladjenepo.  Ronnie Edwards made another decent appearance at the back, partnering the returning Jan Bednarek and Edwards it was who played a beautifully flighted ball over the Montpellier defence for Dibling to run onto and cement his status as the star of pre-season season so far.  After conceding direct from a free kick to get Montpellier back into it, we saw the game out with Yuki Sugawara floating a free-kick onto the head of THB who couldn’t really miss. There was still time for Saints to win another penalty when Sam Amo got chopped down and Sekou Mara showed that anything Kamaldeen can do, he can do as well by rolling a shocking effort straight at the goalkeeper but this time there was no such luck with the rebound. Absolutely garbage. Honestly, it barely would’ve reached the goal even if the keeper hadn’t have been there.

Overall it was another good workout and positive results never do any harm and it reaffirm to my belief that if there were two players I would least like to take a penalty for my life, then Mara and Sulemana would be right up there.

Replacing Chele with Chile

At the end of the Spanish trip, Russell Martin gave an interview where he hinted that we were still looking for a midfield player a striker and a winger and upon our return, that one man transfer breaking news machine that is Fabrizio Romano, revealed that a deal had been agreed between Saints and Villareal for the signature of Stoke born Chilean international Ben Brereton Diaz, last seen in this country scoring a few goals for Sheffield United at the tail end of them getting relegated out of the Premier League. Prior to that he was at Blackburn and was prolific up front when replacing a certain Adam Armstrong. Brereton Diaz is a 6 foot 1 striker/left-winger and on the face of it seems a decent addition. As I said, he has a bit of pedigree at Premier League level and banged in goals fun at Championship level so it’s another striker who will be wanting to prove himself at a higher level. This looks like a good signing at £7 million quid. If it was £15 million then I would be questioning it a bit more but Brereton Diaz appears on the face of it to have what it takes to make an impact at Premier League level, having already proved this to a degree playing for a terrible Sheffield United team. Research has taken me to a few Sheffield United fan videos where they basically talk about how good he was.  Not sure that this should be our only recruit up front though.

Back home in a short trip up the A34 to play at the Kassam Stadium in Oxford and to be quite frank, the less said about this game the better. The team was largely second string with Alex McCarthy in goal and captain for the day. Now I get that Alex has been told that he has to pass the ball out short but Jesus Christ. Three times in the first half he just presented the ball straight to the Oxford attackers. We were already 1-0 down when he passed it straight to a guy who then rolled it wide of an open goal. Absolutely ridiculous for a player of his experience especially when he was the captain and he had two very inexperienced centre backs in front of him in Edwards and Wood.  Ronnie Edwards started the game okay whereas Nathan Wood was erratic but it was Ronnie who dropped a bollock for the second goal passing it across the top of the penalty area straight to Oxford striker Rodriguez who easily beat McCarthy. There was a complete lack of energy about the whole performance apart from Sam Amo who tried to make things happen but he couldn’t do it on his own. The second half was only marginally better when the first team players appeared and overall, it was one of those preseason games where you really wish you hadn’t bothered with the only consolation for the many who travelled, was another ground ticked off.

A few days later and a visit to the New Den to play Millwall and a 1-0 win with Adam Armstrong scoring at the second attempt after Millwall‘s goalkeeper had failed in an attempt to pull off a very simple catch from Will Smallbone’s cross. Arma went full Che Adams and tried to head into the net from one yard but missed the ball and still had enough time to hoik it into the roof of the net with his left foot from 2 yards. The most interesting thing about this game however was the fact that it was pretty much our first choice 11 from the start. With Jack Stephens on the team sheet I expected us to play three the back like we did in the playoff final but instead of that, Stephens looked almost permanently stationed in the centre of midfield.  Maybe it's because we were dominating that he didn't have to worry too much about defending but as we know, it’s one thing arriving in midfield from centre back and making an extra man but it’s another thing all together to for that be your actual position.  Ryan Manning had played there against Oxford so what exactly are we doing?  Maybe this is Russell’s way of showing Sport Republic that we desperately need a midfield player.

The attacking play in this game was incredibly half arsed, only livened up when Sam Amo and Tyler Dibling came on with Dibling doing more in his 15 minutes than any other attacking player had done in the whole game.  Ben Brereton Diaz made his debut and didn’t really have time to contribute anything much which is not a cause for concern at this point. More signings still needed.

We're Running Out of 3rd Kit Colours, so ....

The home friendly against Lazio saw the full debut of Ben Brereton Diaz and also saw the debut of this year‘s third kit which is pink. Not one for the traditionalist but I’m sure it will prove very popular. To be fair, we are running out of colours to use as the third kit. I will repeat my old man moan that I have every year in that there seems absolutely no need to have a third kit when nothing is going to really clash with both our predominantly red home kit and yellow away kit. We are not playing away from home against Galatasaray this season, nor rocking up to play Roy Race and Melchester Rovers any time soon (Note: Cultural reference that will be lost on many young people).

Anyway, a largely fringe line-up took on Lazio and took an early lead when Brereton Diaz scored what is, judging by his YouTube compilations, a trademark goal, cutting in from the left along the top of the penalty area and then smashing into the far corner of the net with his right foot. Saints maintained the lead despite some dubious decision-making and passing from the goalkeeper and back five but could do nothing about the spectacular overhead kick that made it 1-1. In the second half both teams had chances, with Lazio’s coming exclusively from the chaos caused by Alex McCarthy with his ground passing and Saints nearly won in the last minute with Sam Edozie wriggling past two players and bringing an excellent save from the goalkeeper.  The story of the game though was the big punch up on the hour mark win some Lazio players took exception to a Shea Charles robust challenge and then Charly Alcaraz piled into redress the balance and ended up sparking a brawl involving nearly all the players and the benches of both teams.  All good stuff for a friendly and I would suggest all triggered by the fact that Lazio were being wankers from the first minute. It’s a shame for Alcaraz because he was playing well.  The move to Lazio that was being rumoured before the game may now be a little bit further away from the truth than it probably was anyway.

The last friendly the season was against Getafe at St Marys and Saints lined up with exactly what I would expect to be the team against Newcastle. The only slight surprise was that KWP was making his first appearance of pre-season, playing at left wing back with Sugawara on the right. Brereton Diaz was up front with Armstrong and the rest of it was as per the play-off final. The game itself was pretty tedious with Getafe proving to be an even bigger bunch of arseholes than Lazio were. Mind you, what can you expect from a team that were happy to give Mason Greenwood a game last season. From a Saints point of view, what screamed at me was a complete lack of creativity and attack and 0-0 was nailed on for pretty much the whole game.

Tactically, it was strange in that the two strikers seemed to be playing very wide so at times it resembled a 5-5-0 formation with absolutely no one in the middle.  It all went very surreal in the last 15 minutes when Tall Paul was thrown on but instead of playing to his one strength, we played him in a false nine position and expected him to link play up. Not that really matters but once again, we are worrying about the things he can’t do rather than focus on the thing that he can do. Sam Edozie offered a bit of life in the second half because he can actually take on and beat a player but when he gets in front of goal it all goes to shit.

So, where are we?

With the friendlies now finished it’s time to take stock before the trip to St James’s Park in Newcastle next week. I cannot imagine for a second that we are done with incomings but whether they will be done quickly enough to make the starting line-up for Newcastle is another question altogether. As it stands, the team and formation that played against Getafe will play at Newcastle.  We are still several signings away from what would be ideal going into the first game with a Number 9 striker, a creative midfielder, a goalkeeper and a winger being the positions in question.   If Russell Martin does spring a surprise and go with a back four then one of the centre backs will drop out and either Tyler Dibling or Charly Alcaraz will play as a false 9, in my opinion.

The main good news from pre-season has been emergence of Tyler Dibling as a genuine first team option and Sam Amo will be a useful bench option alongside him. Ronnie Edwards looks to be a decent player and I would suggest he is ahead of Nathan Wood in the pecking order to step in the defence should it be needed.  Wood passes the ball well but seems very lightweight when it comes to actual defending and gets pushed around too easily.  Yuki Sugawara looks like he’s got a decent shout of being a very good player this season.  When McCarthy is not giving the ball away at the back, the back half of the team looks solid and decent and we knock the ball about nicely but everything in front of Flynn Downes is a cause for concern. 

Lallana - "A little tightness"... 4 weeks out.

The bad news has been that Adam Lallana (rolls eyes into back of head) picked up an injury on that long coach trip from Staplewood to Eastleigh before the first friendly and Ross Stewart has not been anywhere near making an appearance. This is a major disappointment to me because I held out hope that Ross was going to be the striker we needed and we wouldn’t have to pay through the nose to get him as he was already here.  One can only assume there was yet another setback after his brief appearance in the play-off semi-finals.  He may get fit one day and he may contribute but it’s getting on for two years since he played regularly and it’s a major reach to hope he scores goals in the Premier League.

The main worries are the goalkeeper and the attacking play.  The McCarthy issue is obvious regarding his passing but for me the biggest concern is that we don’t look like we’ve got a goal in us against decent opposition with a lack of cutting edge and a lack of creativity in midfield. The midfield balance is going to be crucial in the Premier League and I cannot see Aribo and Smallbone functioning in the same midfield three as they are both very similar.  Both good players, tidy on the ball, average defensively, neither plays with any pace and there’s not much creativity.  The four most attacking players in the line-up and the four that have to produce are Smallbone, Aribo, Brereton Diaz and Armstrong and you'd have to be very optimistic to expect enough creativity and goals at Premier League level from those four.

Other questions remain over KWP, who has still not moved anywhere and his options of a Premier League move elsewhere are gradually disappearing with West Ham looking elsewhere, so its beginning to look more and more like he will still be here. ABK has been linked with a move to Hoffenheim and Tall Paul to Trabzonspor of course.  As said, Charly was linked to Lazio before he punched one of them.

Russell Martin has changed his tune over transfers recently and has sounded a note of caution to control expectation, suggesting that we need to sell before we can buy.  If this is true I see a certain amount of brinkmanship coming our way with regards to foreign clubs bidding for our players and trying to get a last minute knockdown price, which of course does not help us in our quest to sign players of the calibre of Matt O’Riley for over £20 million quid.  PRS compliance will also be playing a big part in determining our recruitment, as it seems to be doing with every club this year bar Chelsea.  It was always hard enough anyway to come from the Championship to the Premier League and be competitive but now it’s even more so.

If you think about our last Premier League season and where we were at this stage of the season, we had a difficult opening fixture at Tottenham.  The goalkeeper situation is similar with Bazunu then and McCarthy now.  Defensively, we are better now, with the Spurs game featuring KWP, Valery, Bednarek, Salisu and Djenepo as the back five.  Our midfield against Spurs was Romeu, JWP and Lavia, which I would suggest is stronger than Downes, Smallbone and Aribo though it has a similar lack of creativity.  Up front against Spurs we had Aribo and Adam Armstrong so probably slightly stronger now though not much.  For me, this illustrates that as it stands, we are struggling.  The ‘as it stands’ is important through because there is still time to rectify the situation, which is what we didn’t do two seasons ago – in fact we made it worse by letting the experienced Romeu, Forster and Stephens all leave.  We have to get the end of the transfer window right this time.  One thing we do have over two years ago is a better team spirit and I have more faith in Russell Martin than I did in Ralph at that time because he was a busted flush by then.

So, here comes the Premier League and The Race for 17^th.  It’s going to be ridiculously tough and ‘as it stands’ you'd be hard pressed to be optimistic.  It’s important we as fans stay behind the team and remember that these are the players that gave us that day at Wembley a couple of months ago.  We have to be realistic and know there are going to many bumps in the road.  Staying up this season will be an even bigger achievement than going up last season.

Up the fucking Saints.

Pre-Season Part 2 - Show Us the Money or F**k Off

 

"The Good News is that a Prem Team Wants You... the Bad News is.... not that much"

The pre-season games started with what was basically training exercise at St George’s Park against Benfica. We acquitted ourselves fairly well, considering we had loads of youngsters in the side and it was the first game under the new manager and we tried to play his way. Sure, we had a few scary moments trying to play out from the back but most of those were caused by players who you would hope were nowhere near the first team this season like McCarthy and Djenepo. The kids acquitted themselves well with Jayden Meghoma and Sam Amo-Ameyaw being the stand-outs,  They both looked very good on the ball, if a little lightweight in the physical challenges. We lost 2-0 with the first goal being us getting caught with too many players forward and the second goal was just before half-time with the Benfica left winger advancing to the edge of the penalty area, and before James Bree seemed to realise that he needed to stop backing off and actually close to him down, he belted a diagonal shot across McCarthy and into the far corner.

However, of course the result didn’t matter as it was all about minutes in the tank it was nice to see us trying to play with a bit of confidence and good to see other youngsters and near youngsters like Tyler Dibling, Kamari Doyle, Tino Livramento and Will Smallbone.

Transfers started happening with Ibrahima Diallo joining some club whose name I have forgotten in Qatar. It's a kind of an ignominious end for a player who is only 24 but has never ever showed the right level of consistency to be a regular player in the Premier League and I would’ve said there was absolutely zero chance that he would’ve been any better in the Championship. Like with Mislav Orsic, this doesn’t even register on the Give-a-fuck-ometer. I remember Diallo having a decent game on his debut against Liverpool when he overshadowed Thiago Alcantara for a lot of the game but more recently, he’ll probably be remembered for coming on as a sub against Arsenal when we were 3-1 up with five minutes to go and within three minutes we had let in two goals as Diallo did an amazing impression of a fucking training cone.  He was sold an absolute hospital pass by the twat in the polo neck but even so, his dreadful showing was a bit of an indication of where he was at.

Diallo Leaves

The next pre-season game saw us a visit the far-flung field of the Sport Republic Empire, with a trip to Izmir in Turkey to play against Goztepe, who are currently in the equivalent of the Championship, in Turkey. I didn’t really realise much about their history until just before the game. They were Turkish champions in 1950 before falling on hard times financially and disappearing down into the equivalent of non-league with four relegations in five seasons due to being under a transfer embargo and all that good stuff. They have since turned around and began their journey back to the Super Lig in Turkey. Sounds very similar to ourselves and even Portsmouth as a matter of fact - until you remember that Pompey were never really punished and haven’t made their way back anywhere yet.

Pre-season results are in the main meaningless but performances or not.  It’s not just about fitness as it’s also about style of play and whether the players that we have are suitable for the system that we are trying to play. I never understand getting too hung up on results and I have in the past thought the pre-season games didn’t really matter much at all but after last season I’ve change my mind a bit. In the friendlies this time last year, we looked fucking crap - shaky in defence and with nothing much going on in attack. That definitely came to pass when the season proper started so was hoping to see something today.

The first half was very similar to the Benfica game in that we looked tidy in possession but then ran out of any idea when we got to the attacking third. It was hard to remember Che Adams having more than one or two touches of the ball.  Defensively, we looked a bit worrying with the full-backs exposed and you could especially tell that Livramento was feeling his way into the game. The centre back pairing of Lyanco and Stephens is one of interest because they are probably the least likely to leave out of the six central defenders that we have on the books at the moment. When the opening goal from Goztepe came, it was a complete calamity for Bazunu, who had been rightly getting praised for his solid performance and one spectacular save against Benfica. Goztepe got away on the left and Bazunu was anticipating a cross pulled back towards the penalty spot but the striker just passed in the near post into the big gap. Horrible goalkeeping.

The second half continued in much the same vein for the first 10 minutes or so until Sekou Mara was tripped in the box to give us a penalty. Up stepped JWP and the shit pitch under his feet gave way meaning he hit the penalty at the Izmir moon. 5 minutes later we made an army of substitutions after we had won a corner. Over it came, not very well cleared and Alcaraz smashed it first time on the volley into the corner of the net. The rest of the second-half showed promise, mainly from Sam Amo-Ameyaw, who came closest to winning it when he tricked his way past a couple of players from the right wing before rolling narrowly wide of the far post. The central defence of Bednarek and Salisu looked have a lot stronger than what we saw in the first half and what a difference Romeo Lavia made at the base of the midfield.

Teams Line Up for the Sport Republic Anthem

There were a couple of minor experiments which to be honest, weren't particularly successful. Will Smallbone started the game as a number six behind JWP and the game kind of passed him by without him making any sort of mark either with or without the ball.  Adam Armstrong was deployed deeper in a three-man midfield and for five minutes he enthusiastically got himself on the ball and started knocking it around but after that he completely disappeared. He also played this position against Benfica, implying it’s not something he was doing just to make up the numbers.

Surely we win the third friendly – it’s against a team managed by Ruben Selles who has somehow blagged his way into the Reading managers job which of course is his second position after his first one ended with a record of one win in fifteen games. He must interview well and have a good agent.

The clouds of doubt seemed to lift a bit with Saints showing me a lot of what Russell Martin football was all about. A Bednarek header from a corner for 1-0 after five minutes was added to on ten minutes as Tino got down the right, Adam Armstrong stepped over it and JWP took a touch before knocking it into the net.  Liquid football with triangles and third man runs and people moving ahead of the ball. What the fuck is this? Ruben must’ve been wondering where our rest defence was and the answer was that it was fucking nowhere as Bednarek made a mistake on  the halfway line and Reading broke through two on one. A simple pass sideways to take out the last defender and with Bazunu obligingly standing far too far to the right, the Reading forward just rolled the ball into the centre of the goal. Fucking hell that was bad.

Half-time and back out there and very soon it was 3-1 with a quite brilliant goal with KWP coming off the left, feeding the ball into Alcaraz’ feet and he laid it off first time to Adam Armstrong who swept into the net with his right foot from the edge of the box. What a fucking goal that is.  There was another equally superb goal after that with Sam Edozie burning two players on the left hand side before pulling the ball back and after an Adams step over, there was Joe Aribo almost breaking into a jog before sweeping the ball into the net. There is still time for another fuck up though and this time neither Caleta-Car or debutant Shea Charles covered themselves in glory and the eventual shot should’ve been saved but it went under Bazunu, who squashed it into the net.  Yes, the goalkeeper situation is very much still a clear and present danger.

Next up came the most tone deaf friendly in the history of tone deaf friendlies, with the visit of Bournemouth to St Mary‘s. Because they are incredibly tinpot, Bournemouth sold out their ticket entitlement instantly whilst most right-thinking Saints fans pondered the wisdom of arranging a home friendly against fucking Bournemouth. Russell Martin rotated and we didn’t get anything that looked remotely like a first choice team on the pitch at the start. Lyanco was playing, fresh from a broken-down move to Besiktas, and was partnered by Shea Charles, once again playing out of position. You could tell it was a fixture that Martin didn’t particularly want because Djenepo was starting and Sam Amo was crow-barred into a three-man midfield which was obviously going to be very lightweight. Romeo Lavia started despite Liverpool leaking their latest bid just before the game. £37 million apparently, instantly turned down. When will they understand that there is very little advantage and no need for us to sell a player for a knockdown fee if the player is not on huge wages, which Romeo isn’t going to be.

With Romeo playing like his mind really wasn’t on it, we started okay but conceded the first goal in about 15 minutes when Ouattara was allowed a free header in the box with Lyanco and James Bree seemingly totally unaware that there was any danger. We were knocking the ball about at the back with some confidence but then Shea Charles attempted a ridiculous ball from the left back area to an area in front of the right centre back and despite a clear foul on Sam Amo, the referee allowed Bournemouth to play on and on they scored again easily.

At this point it was looking like this might turn into an absolute fucking nightmare but we rallied, won a free kick from Ouattara’s third tactical foul in the first half and Ryan Manning’s delivery was powerfully headed in by Charles at the back post to make it more respectable at half-time.

With Will Smallbone on for Lavia at half-time, Saints looked better and the first incident was caused by the clown show that is Djenepo, diving in the penalty area to get everybody riled up. Not that Adam Smith needed riling up as he had already trashed through the back of Edozie and was all shirt-pulling and late tackles, even in a friendly. Yet another foul by Smith on substitute Jayden Meghoma, gave us a free kick which was tapped quickly infield to Stuart Armstrong who took a touch before burying it under the Bournemouth keeper to make it 2–2. It’s nice to have the lesser spotted Stuart Armstrong back in the fold, even though he pissed me off last season, when he seemed to phone it in a lot of the time.

With both teams making a load of subs as the second half went on, we had a chance to go ahead through Tella but he was blocked by some committed defending before we got done on the break and David Brooks ran through to score the winner, sending the Bournemouth massive into raptures and giving them a slightly undeserved 3–2 win in their Cup Final. Good luck in the Premier League lads.

A couple of days after the Bournemouth game saw another leaked bid from Liverpool for Lavia, this time for a total fee of £45 million. Just pay the fifty lads or run the risk of Chelsea coming in.  Jason Wilcox gave an interview in which he basically said that players would only leave for their true value and that only players that both he and the manager wanted, would be arriving.  Nice talk and so far, the actions had backed this up.  More evidence of our stance came with news of us rejecting a £20 million (yes, you read that right) offer from West Ham for JWP.  West Ham's idea of 'add-ons' was probably a bag of dildo's from David Sullivan's lock-up.  Again, much crying because we are asking too much apparently.  Who would have thought that we value our captain and our best player over the last 5 years or so.  

Having been quiet for a few weeks, Burnley started making noises about Nathan Tella who, unfortunately for them, is now our first-choice wide player, so offer us a ridiculous amount of money or fuck off. Again, there is no advantage to us selling Nathan on the cheap because he won’t be a particularly high earner and he is a vital member of our first team who we would have to replace should we decide to sell. Also, you wonder where Burnley will be this time next year. They are going to be finishing in the bottom six next year and it’s just a case of whether it’s bottom three or not? Will Vincent Kompany still be there?  Regardless of all that, I would suggest that their £9.5 million alleged bid is probably less than half of what we would accept.  In a bizarre twist, the Burnley owner, retweeted a campaign by his daughter to free Nathan Tella and let him join Burnley.  No issue with a teenager posting it but Alan Pace can fucking do one.  Put your big boy pants on and give us £25 million if you want to make your daughter's wish come true.  I would have said £20 million but I've now added a Burnley Tax.

Nathan Tella Delighted at Not Living in Burnley

If the Bournemouth game painted a picture of the upcoming season as being one of kamikaze attacking and even more kamikaze defending, the AZ Alkmaar friendly showed a bit of a more of a pragmatic approach. The midfield of JWP, Smallbone and Alcaraz was much more disciplined but as a result, the free-flowing attacking didn’t really happen. As an exercise it was a very worthwhile performance but for entertainment it was not great as we lost 1-0.

You can see the Sheffield Wednesday starting line-up taking place. Charles and Stephens are the starting centre backs if Bednarek is injured. Ryan Manning will start at left back and it will be one of Tino or KWP at right back, depending on who is still here. The three forward places are more up for grabs.  Nathan Tella will undoubtedly be one of them but there are still question marks over who will be the second winger and the central striker.  Edozie and Adam Armstrong seem favourites at the moment.   Of course, the picture could all change before the Sheffield Wednesday game and it will certainly change before the transfer window closes.

On that score, we got got shot of another one that doesn’t register on the Give-A-Fuck-ometer with Mohammed Salisu leaving for Monaco for about £16 million, which is good money for a player with one year left, especially one who didn’t give a shit last season.  He had been a surprise inclusion for me in the Benfica game and in the early season training videos. I didn’t expect him to show up at all in the same way that he didn’t show up at the tail end of last season and hasn’t strung together three good games in a row for a year and a half.  The shame with Salisu is that he’s got it in him to be a really good defender but he appears to thinks he’s better than he is but the truth is that he hasn’t developed in the way the club thought he would – in fact, he hasn’t improved at all since he got here.  Good defending is all about consistency. When he was signed, it was assumed that he would be a player that would be transferred in a few years for £50 million or so but not to be.

Another centre back went out the door with Duje Caleta-Car leaving on a season long loan to go back to France and play for Lyon.  I feel that the guy could have been as asset in the Championship but I guess that he doesn’t want to be here.  Loaning him out seems a bit strange.  Are we going to take him back of we go up or was this the only offer on the table.  I guess that with multiple years left on his contract, we can afford for him to go out on loan for a season without his value dropping.

So, pre-season is done and the opening Championship fixture is upon us.  Hillsborough awaits.  Of course there is no real way of predicting how Saints will fare this season as the squad will probably look a lot different in about 4 weeks time when the transfer window closes.  Liverpool may have found a few more pennies behind the sofa to tempt us into selling Romeo Lavia, likewise West Ham with JWP and Newcastle with Tino.  We might bring in Joel Piroe from Swansea or we may have Kamaldeen Sulemana getting his head down and getting on with it in the Championship.  I’m really looking forward to it and judging by the increases season ticket sales, many more are too.  After 3 years of ‘mainly shit’, I’m just looking forward to some decent football and the club turning itself around and heading in the right direction once more.  It is however a lot to ask for us to suddenly click, having spent the last 3 years being ‘mainly shit’ and so fans are going to have to have a bit of what fans never usually have – patience.

Bring it on and Up The Fucking Saints.

Pre-Season Media and Big Club Bullshit Wars

 

£50 million... We Demand You Sell Him For a Tenner

For the first time since 2016, Southampton FC have a number of players who are in demand by those further up the football food chain.  Of course, owing to the fact that we got relegated at the end of last season, there are now twenty clubs higher in the food chain, instead of just the usual six or seven.  Even though we are seven years further down the line from 2016, I still get annoyed during the part of the year where the vast majority of football is on holiday.  It is of course slow news month, so you can guarantee that much of the stuff you read is made up. You will read stuff on mainstream media that will basically be speculation and you will also read stuff on fan-based accounts that you have to just ignore.  Even the previously reliable and credible Fabrizio Romano has taken to tweeting out photoshopped pictures of a players head on a rumoured new clubs shirt.  It's embarrassing.

Outside of Romano and the usual suspects, there will be all of the Super League clubs and fans thereof, making up a figure that Southampton are asking for and then saying that that’s far too much and Southampton should therefore sell their players to (insert big club name here) for about half of that. This player has a three-year contract remaining and Saints wants £50 million for him and that’s ridiculous - they should sell him to us for £25 million. Fuck off!

In any transaction, the seller sets the price and the buyer decides whether they want to pay for it or not. Unless there is a clause in a contract, it has always been this way and it always will be. The assumption of course is that because you are in the Championship, you must be desperate for any crumbs that are thrown your way.  However, as seems to be the case with us, if the relegated club isn’t desperately in need of the money, then why should they sell on the cheap?  Yes, Saints probably do need the money but not to the extent of for example, Leicester and Leeds who are both completely in the brown stuff financially if you believe what’s written about their brushes with FFP.  All of this is completely obvious, but you have to remind yourself sometimes to just ignore most of the shit and let it play out.

There is a course an issue with the fact that we have been relegated and in the case of JWP, it’s more than just about whether we need the money or not. We could do what we did with Oriol Romeu and just agree to the move that he wants, even if that is to Liverpool and they are only offering £25 million. I would suggest not doing that.  Depending on exactly  how much we need the money, I would be tempted to have a figure in our heads now of say £40 million but once the season starts and we get closer to the end of the transfer window, the price goes up to £50 million.  In reality, the only way we will get decent money quickly for JWP or any of these players who think they belong in the Premier League, is if there are more than one team interested.

It leaves me wondering what we do in August when our season starts and maybe we still have all these players who have not left. In all truth, apart from JWP and Romeo Lavia, I wouldn’t start any player who is likely and is wanting to move by the end of the transfer window. None of the others are significantly good enough to warrant it, not KWP, Salisu, ABK.  Che Adams is an interesting one because he is still undoubtedly our best striker.  To be honest, even though he has only one year left on his contract, I'd be telling him that he's staying no matter what rather than selling him for £12 million or whatever and having to find a replacement.

We of course have a new manager and the story behind that maybe tells you where we’re at regarding being pushed around, with Saints and Swansea City embroiled in a ridiculous argument over where the Saints were a Premier League club when we appointed him. Swansea are arguing that they are entitled to more compensation because we were still officially a Premier League club when we approached Martin.  However, Russell Martin‘s first game in charge of Saints is not going to be in the Premier League and never was, and approaching someone is not the same as appointing someone.  It really was in Swansea‘s interest to get the deal done because at the end of the day they were still paying the salary of a manager and coaching staff, who were not going to be there next season.  Saints weren’t paying anyone to be manager in the close season, so it didn’t really matter to us.  It wasn’t as if Russell Martin wasn’t putting some input into things with Saints anyway.

Please be Better Than the Last Two Twats

Time went on, civilisations rose and fell throughout it all and the impasse between Saints and “the Welsh club" continued.  He said, she said, embarrassing bullshit over the compensation figure owed. You would think that two football club boards of full-grown adults would’ve been able to find a compromise figure somewhere between the two figures to let everybody move on but not to be. As it turned out Russell Martin eventually came through the door St Mary‘s two days before preseason training started, closely followed by the coaches.  Hurrah

The first day of preseason training brought the first interview with the new boss and on the face of it, it sounded very good as he set out what he aims to achieve. I have learned over the years to listen to these things and take them at face value because talk is cheap. Nathan Jones spoke quite well at the start, as did Ruben Selles but ultimately, they were both shockingly inept and just delivered a horrible relegation.  The key things I took from Russell’s interview were regarding the style of play, the ambition to go straight back up and the fact that they are preparing for losing players just before the window shuts.

On that score, the lowball offers for our players keep on coming in. Newcastle became the latest to try, using their sport-washing client journalists (who are probably scared of the way their owners have been known to treat journalists) to put out there that they were interested Tino Livramento for £12 million.  Big club again setting the below-market-value price that we should sell for.  The good news is that Tino seems to feel that he owes the club for getting him fit again so he’s unlikely to throw the toys out, which of course is what Newcastle hopes he does.   Mind you, we said this about Virgil van Dijk. 

Liverpool used the same tactic as Newcastle when they put out that they would not pay more than £25 million for JWP – another player who is not going to throw his toys out.  Liverpool are soon going to leak to the press what they are willing to pay for Romeo Lavia so I look forward to that one with eyes rolling in the back of my head.  It just feels like a time to mute certain words on Twitter, those words being Arsenal, Chelsea, Newcastle, Liverpool, Saudi, Manchester United, Mason Mount, Mbappé, Spurs and Tottenham.

Theeeeeeo.  One of the Good Guys

Before we worried about incoming players, we needed to get shot of some of the unwanted players we had in our bloated squad.  At the start of the break, we waved goodbye to the on-loan Ainsley Maitland-Niles, who was generally useless last year.  He was going to replace Oriol Romeu as the experienced midfield option and was simply not up to it either in ability or attitude.  Arsenal have let him go but I wouldn’t even want him on a free in the Championship, so I hope we go nowhere near.  Also leaving were the out-of-contract Theo Walcott and Mohamed Elyounoussi.  At the time it was announced that Walcott was going, I kind of thought it was a shame and that he could do a job next year but as time has gone on and I see he’s likely to join Reading in League 1, I do wonder if he felt himself that he was reaching the end of the road.  Not only that, Ruben Selles is Reading’s new manager.  The man who masterminded zero victories from our last ten games has clearly found someone gullible enough to fall for his ‘results don’t matter long term process' bullshit.

Walcott did well in the second half of the season compared to our other attackers and while that was a low bar, he at least tried in every game and did is best.  The same can also be said for Elyounoussi, who was trusted by every manager to play, even though he did nothing with the ball.  The fact that both of them largely stayed in the team, tells you a lot about why we got relegated however.  It looked for a bit like Willy Caballero was going to stay another year but the opportunity to be Assistant Manager at Leicester was too good for him to turn down at 42, so off he went.

Oh look, something actually happened - first out the door, perhaps unsurprisingly, was Mislav Orsic who signed for Trabzonspor in Turkey on a very generous tax incentive no doubt. We will simply never know with this guy. It was a relatively cheap £6 million gamble that spectacularly failed to pay off and we have accepted about half of that fee to get his wages off of the books.  Well, I assume we’ve got his wages off the books and we’re not subsidising it for the remainder of his contract. This one doesn’t even register on the “Give-a-fuck-o-meter”.  When we signed him, I pushed the facts that he was 30 and had never played league football outside of Croatia and South Korea, out of my head because I of course, wanted him to be good and for the transfer to be a masterstroke.  All he proved though is that if something seems too good to be true, it usually is.

His fellow January arrival, Tall Paul has been linked with various European clubs and Romeo Lavia with everybody but that’s about it.  There's been not much about some of those you assume would want to go like KWP, Salisu and ABK.  The only incoming rumours seem to be about Manchester City youth players with a young goalkeeper Josh McNamara ready to join along with a midfielder, Shea Charles. I have no issue with this as our new Director of  Football Jason Wilcox has to be trusted, but as per last season, it’s the experienced players we need to sort out.

Talking of which, Joe Aribo has popped up to say that it was a disappointing season last year and that he didn't get given much of a chance to impress but he’s cool with it because it was all part of God’s plan. Can’t help but feel that he is somewhat abdicating responsibility for the fact that he barely raised to jog last season and was complete shite. I hope that the voices in his head tell him that it's time to leave.  By the way, he had plenty of chances but if they were farther away than a couple of yards, he couldn't be bothered to run for them.

One of the things to come out of Russell Martin’s first interview and that was that players are going to have to run, in order to play his style of football.  As far as Joe Aribo is concerned, that tells me that he is either going to 100% have to change the way he approaches things or he is going to be leaving the club. Martin’s desire to play possession-based football, for me also cast doubts over players who don’t have terribly good first touch who are not very good at retaining possession.  There are a few that spring to mind that category with Adam Armstrong and Ibrahima Diallo being the most obvious.

Rampaging Left Back Ahoy!

As I was about to hit ‘send’ on this, we signed Ryan Manning on a free, having played the last two seasons under Russell Martin at Swansea.  A left back who at 27, is the right age and is also used to this league.  On the face of it, a good signing given that Perraud is our only real left back option and he’s injured and rumour has it that he wanted to leave anyhow.

The first friendly is a ‘behind closed doors’ effort at St Georges Park when we play Benfica.  Pre-season is about to move up a notch and so will the incomings and outgoings and so will the volume and thickness off bullshit coming from the ITK’s.  Be aware.

Are we all Ready?: Pre-Season 22/23 Part 2

 

Hey Joe!

So after the first part of pre-season – new signings and cautious optimism and all that – comes the visible side of actually playing matches and hopefully, give us some confidence that issues apparent at the end of last season are going to be corrected.  Our issues at the end of last season were that we were crap, everywhere.  Our defending was crap, our defending in midfield was crap because the wide players didn’t contribute and of course, we were crap up front and not scoring any goals or even looking like we were going to unless JWP did something.  Overall, a pretty comprehensive list of things to fix.  The first couple of pre-season games are only ever about fitness and then of course, you hope to see improvements as you get towards the start of the season and you don’t lose 4-0 at home to a below average German side or whatever.

So, off to Austria we go and a chance for the more reactionary keyboard warriors to lose their minds as we have a friendly against Ralph’s old team RB Leipzig and for those looking for pointers, it was interesting that we lined up in a 3-4-3 formation, which is a formation that we have never played well in so far.

The first half team had Gavin Bazunu in goal with a back three of Bella-Kotchap, Bednarek and Salisu with KWP and Moussa Djenepo as the wing backs. The two in the centre of midfield were Romeo Lavia and Ibrahima Diallo and three up top being Elyounoussi, Tella and Joe Aribo. Leipzig for their part had all their big guns playing including the star players from both Hungary and Sweden, Szaboszlai and Forsberg.   Bazunu looked incredibly confident right from the start and pulled off a brilliant save to tip a Szaboszlai rocket over the bar. Bella-Kotchap looked comfortable in defence and Lavia showed up well in midfield. Overall, we looked pretty decent.  At the other end of the pitch it was a different story however with Elyounoussi repeatedly succeeding in picking out a Leipzig defender whenever he tried to cross the ball, Aribo hardly being involved and Tella switching between right wing and centre forward with the equal lack of success.

On 60 minutes the whole 10 outfield players changed to join Alex McCarthy who had gone in goal on 45 minutes. With Stephens, Lyanco and Simeu in defence and only one defensive minded midfielder in Romeu, we looked a lot more open and Leipzig took the lead for a free-kick from the edge of the box where McCarthy lined up his wall, took a step behind it and then got beaten in the other corner. Poor goalkeeping it has to be said. We had made a slight adjustment in the second half in that we now had three in midfield and two central strikers with Adams and Adam Armstrong.  Consequently, we looked more of a threat going forward but Smallbone and Stuart Armstrong didn’t give her my much help with defending.  Smallbone at the attacking out of the pitch though was having a good impact and his superb cross from the right was flicked in by the head of Adam Armstrong to put as level. Shocked as we were with scoring a goal, we immediately conceded one before conceding again with a couple of minutes to go as no one closed down the Leipzig left winger who absolutely smashed one into the top corner. There then followed a rather bizarre extra 15 minutes which allowed us to give debuts to Mateuz Lis who did ok and Diamond Edwards, a winger from the academy.

Talking in general terms, it was interesting to see a back three and it’s probably a clear indicator of where we’re going to go this season. The worry for me is as mentioned, we have never played well in that formation, mainly because we don’t seem to have any progressive passing within it and any way of really scoring a goal. You could see that new players were definitely needed at the front end of the pitch. Positives were the performance of the Bazunu, Bella-Kotchap, Bednarek, Salisu, KWP and whisper it gently, Djenepo was decent at left-wing back. Lavia looked very lively in midfield but it’s the top end of the pitch where we’ve got the problems.

The result doesn’t matter and that it’s purely about fitness but to my mind, fringe players who are not definitely in the starting 11 have to be putting it in from the first minute of the first game, so I was a little disappointed in the slightly lacklustre performances by the likes of Stephens, Diallo, Lyanco, Tella and Elyounoussi

The problem is at the top end of the pitch show themselves in full glory again in the second friendly against Klagenfurt, who featured a certain Patrick Hasenhuttl, son of Ralph. Will Smallbone hit the post, Diallo hit the bar and Adam Armstrong missed a penalty in the second half. We also missed some absolute sitters through Djenepo and Adam Armstrong again. Of the attacking players, Will Smallbone and Stuart Armstrong looked half decent and Joe Aribo showed some nice touches but again, all the positives were in the back half of the team.

Bella-Kotchap, Bednarek and Salisu again looked very good and Yan Valery was decent on the right hand side of the three in the first half.  In terms of ability, Valery should be ahead of Jack Stephens but with Yan only having a year left on his contract and Stephens having signed a new one, the situation is complicated somewhat. Also, we can only pray the Roman Perraud is fit for the start of the season because Thierry Small is too naive defensively to play Premier League games and the reality dawned in this game that Djenepo is Djenepo. Romeo Lavia is clearly going to start in the Premier League in the centre of midfield.

20 Goals This Season Please.

In the build up to the third friendly against Watford, the Bordeaux Twitter page announced that they had agreed to sell striker Sekou Mara to Southampton.  This caught everyone on the hop a little bit because Saints clearly weren’t gonna announce anything until all of formalities were sorted. The backstory is that Bordeaux are very close to going out of business and so they wanted to announce that they’d agreed a fee of about €11 million, to I assume stave off their creditors. Unsurprisingly, it’s another youngster with Mara being only 19 years old. The feelgood factor in this story from Saints perspective is that we have paid them a decent transfer fee for the player which probably enables them to stay in business. Allegedly, Newcastle and Everton were waiting to see if Bordeaux went bust so they could pick Mara up for nothing. I can understand it from Everton because they are widely thought to be skint and they are having all these FFP problem at the moment but Newcastle? Words fail me.

There was more transfer news with Will Smallbone joining Stoke in the Championship for the season.  Yes he’s looked good in these pre-season games so far but regardless, I think is an excellent move for him.  Ralph clearly didn’t see him making much of an impact on the first team this season and going to the Championship for a season is absolutely ideal for Will and it will hopefully toughen him up. If he can get about 30 games in, then it will serve him massively well for the rest of his career.  Thierry Small also departed for a season in League 1 with Port Vale so maybe he and Smallbone can share a flat seeing as the two clubs are only 15 minutes’ drive apart.  It’ll be really interesting to see what Port Vale make of Small.  I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see him turned into a left winger.

Back at base, lack of international clearance meant that Sekou Mara wasn’t in the line-up when we played Watford (in Wealdstone) but it did provide more pointers towards what Ralph thinks is his best side at the moment with JWP making his first appearance of the season in the centre of midfield with Lavia.  Perhaps unsurprisingly, we didn’t score again and it was a rather turgid 0-0. Everything comes with the caveat of it being pre-season and the game being played at a very slow pace but I can’t help be worried by this formation. When we play against teams that we should be beating, we just don’t seem to create anything and this seemed to be the pattern that emerged at the tail end of last season as well. There is no real pace in the forward line, which is I guess is why Adam Armstrong his preferred to Che Adams, who I genuinely think Ralph just doesn’t rate much.

Also, surely if we are going to play full-back back on the wrong side, it is better to play KWP on the left and Valery on the right. Djenepo is an absolute disaster waiting to happen when we play a decent side.  Talking of which…

We returned to St Mary‘s to play Monaco and this was a proverbial game of two halves with us being terrible in the first half of Monaco being decent and then the roles completely changing in the second half. We got stronger as the game went on because we brought on our better players who are more likely to be starting the first league game, whereas Monaco seemed to stop pressing and allowed us to stroll to the edge of the penalty area before they made any sort of challenge. There were some very encouraging patterns of playing in the second half and important thing is that you can see what we are trying to do in terms of attacking.

In what was a dull first half, we went behind just before half-time with another goal that Alex McCarthy won’t be looking at with any affection as he was beaten at his near post. If it was a competition between our two goalkeepers where they start at 0-0 and then get a point for every great save and lose one for every cock up, The pre-season score is currently Bazunu 3 McCarthy -3.

In the second half we got back into it with a bundled goal by Adam Armstrong but it was when the likes of JWP, Stuart Armstrong, Joe Aribo came on that we suddenly clicked into another gear, with Aribo creating the second goal for Stuart Armstrong and JWP rattling in the third on the break after possibly the most hilarious dive by Monaco player in a penalty area, which was what gave us the ball in the first place.  It was nice to win by a relatively comfortable 3-1.

Pushing Romeu slightly further forward is a really interesting development because it shows how good he is on the ball and it enables him to win the ball much higher up the pitch. He has basically swapped roles with the more dynamic and quicker Diallo who had a decent game at the base of the midfield, but that position will be taken by Romeo Lavia.

Oriol Iniesta

The striker situation is also going to be really interesting. One of the two is going to be Joe Aribo and the other one could well be someone else push further forward than usual in the shape of Stuart Armstrong. We’re gonna be like Spain when they won the Euros with Cesc Fabregas playing as a striker.  It was good in this going to see Roman Perraud back from injury and he had a fairly solid first half at left back before he was replaced with Moussa Djenepo in the second half.   Though he was half decent going forward, the fact that Moussa decided to try a nutmeg on the edge of his own penalty area tells you absolutely everything you need to know about the prospect of him playing in the Premier League. Absolutely horrifying.

After the game, Ralph let it be known that we were still looking for two more in the transfer window and reminded everyone that there are 36 days left of it.  After the sensible season or two where the transfer window ended before the first game, we now have it ending 5 weeks after the season starts.  Whether this is because of the World Cup in November or because of some reason that benefits the bigger clubs, I don’t really know.

The final friendly was against Villareal at home and we lined up with the majority of what will playing against Spurs. In the first half, Villarreal basically were too good for us and we went in 1-0 behind, but the second half will be remembered for the Joe Aribo picking the ball well in his own half and he went full Sofiane Boufal as he dribble past about four players on the edge of the box before calmly slotting it past the goalkeeper. A superb goal which served purely to irritate Villarreal who went straight up the other end and went back in front. Both of the goals that we conceded looked preventable with Bella-Kotchap getting skinned down the line for the first goal and Bednarek finding a reason to fall on his arse for the second.

Overall, I guess it’s been a normal preseason. There have been some performances that have been very dodgy in terms of entertainment and there have been some parts of games where we’ve looked decent.  After 45 odd years of following Saints I still have no real idea what constitutes a good or bad pre-season. No one appears to have picked up any injuries which is of course a good thing.

Ralph has been very decisive from the outset that we are going to play with three central defenders. I feel that maybe in his heart of hearts he would like to partner Salisu with Bella–Kotchap in a flat back four but at the moment, that pairing would be just too inexperienced, hence why he wants a third defender in there. It looks like Bednarek will be the man in the middle of the defence but rumours still persist about whether he will still be at the club at the end of the transfer window.  I’m not a body language expert but I do wonder if he really wants to be here.  Elsewhere in that department, the one who was really stuck his hand up in pre-season is Yan Valery.

The fullback situation is one that we have not really addressed as the season arrives and we won’t be bringing a player this week who will be pitched straight into the starting line-up against Tottenham at the weekend.  KWP will obviously play and it looks like Moussa Djenepo will be at left back, which is not ideal.  What you want from your defenders is solidity and for it to be a surprise if they make a mistake. For example, it would be a shock if KWP made a mistake that led to a goal against us. If Djenepo did it, it would be the most unsurprising thing in the world.  I trust him about as far as I could spit a rat.

In midfield, Romeo Lavia has added some dynamism and we have seen one formation which set him up as the sole defensive midfield player with two number eights in front of him in the shape of JWP and Oriol Romeu.  The configuration of the midfield seems to be up for grabs though because in other games we’ve gone for Stuart Armstrong as the third member of the midfield.  At other times we’ve just had two in there and then we’ve had two number 10s behind a lone striker.  I guess that this is where Ralph will tinker depending on our opposition. 

Joe Aribo will obviously be one of the forward players but none of our out and out strikers are particularly looking like the real deal at the moment. Che Adams seems to have been relegated to the role of bit part player, Adam Armstrong has to of course, do a lot better than he did last season and he is not suited to playing as the main striker.  Sekou Mara is clearly not ready yet and nor should we expect him to be as a 19-year-old kid newly arrived from France.

One thing that can’t be denied is that the new owners Sport Republic have backed the manager and refreshed the squad and as I write, we have not had to sell a player to do it. We have had a couple of hefty wage earners leave in the shape of Forster and Long but no one has left for a transfer fee. There is still time for this to happen however.

I feel that line has been drawn under last season with us likely to have at least four new signings in the starting line-up for the first game of the season. I also feel that line has been drawn under the season regarding Ralph who under normal circumstances, would be under pressure with the run of results we had at the tail end of last season. I believe that he will have until the World Cup break in November to try and get a tune out of the squad of players.  We have to hope that we can perform above expectations in this opening run of fixtures and then the youngsters can hopefully perform without any added pressure that a bad start would bring. We undoubtedly have a couple of issues still, namely full-back and striker but I approach this season with a cautious optimism, same as usual.

Up the fucking Saints.