Southampton Banter Archive December 13 2013

13 Dec 2013 13:30:12
I saw a stat that said Saints have scored more headers in the BPL this season than anyone else, that could possibly be down to JWP I suspect?

Definetly, he's probably one of the best crossers in the league, so much potential in our team!

He had a shocker against Villa, corners didn't get over first man and it's not as if he's played every game. Usual let's get carried away with ourselves post.

JWP's set pieces haven't been perfect all season. It is fair to say that when they are working it's a great weapon to have though.

At the end of the day, JWP is only just 19 yrs old, and works hard to improve his game.

His set pieces have been a feature of Saints play this year, and is certainly one reason for the increased goals from set pieces. No he hasn't been perfect in every game, but then who has?

Far from perfect today against Newcastle, too much, too soon again. Bogging young players up well before their ready.

'far from perfect again today' how many players do play 'perfectly' every week?

we have half the team out injured and have gained draws against a team chasing the league in Man City and a team chasing Europe in Newcastle, if that's less than perfect then I can't wait to see how good we are when we are 'perfect'

I was trying to be polite to the lad "far from perfect" what I should have said is he had another shocker. He's being billed as the next big thing based on a couple of decent games and a few decent crosses and more to the point we won't make the champions league this season or next. Apologies to are the dreamers for bursting their bubble

I was trying to be polite to the lad "far from perfect" what I should have said is he had another shocker. He's being billed as the next big thing based on a couple of decent games and a few decent crosses and more to the point we won't make the champions league this season or next. Apologies to are the dreamers for bursting their bubble

JWP has had a good season, occasionally he has off days in terms of his crossing, as does every player, but his work rate accross the field more than makes up for it.

"I was trying to be polite to the lad "far from perfect" what I should have said is he had another shocker. He's being billed as the next big thing based on a couple of decent games and a few decent crosses and more to the point we won't make the champions league this season or next. Apologies to are the dreamers for bursting their bubble"

i'm guessing you don't make it to St Marys often then?

We probably won't make The CL this season but you can't fault anyone, players and management included for trying

I don't think the champions league is far off, if you look at our team, we have the ability to hurt anyone on our day, when we have the strength in depth that when we have injuries we're not bringing in error prone players who cost us, we will be up there not sure how long this will take but I think 1 maybe 2 seasons and we'll be up there

Manchester City, Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool, Everton. Just six teams, we must finish above at least three of them for champions league. Then there's the middle order, Newcastle, Spurs, Villa Swansea, oh blooming heck. All the money and a guarantee of champions league football at the "Big" clubs, yeh we'll be there next couple of years competing with PSG, Barca, Munich, Real.
I'll have a pint of whatever he's been drinking!

The way some people are thinking on here we would still be in League 1, Newcastle were in Europe last year so it is not beyond us to get into Europe.

We just require the squad to be able to cope with it when we do.

If we want European football we will have to spend quit a bit of money sooner rather than later. A good example of this being Lallana, who fills his shoes when he's out?

Who would have thought 3 years ago that we would have been within a game of going top in the BPL, no one, so don't put limits on us please as some dreams do come true.

13 Dec 2013 05:11:27
Life long saints fan here, also have a near encyclopaedic knowledge of football. Anyone else here getting extremely frustrated by the other 'big' clubs fanbase thinking they can just sign all our players for whatever coin they can throw at us?

I mean firstly there is Cortese; he is a shrewd harsh business man in the best sense, he won't let any player go which doesn't meet his valuation, which itself will be massively inflated due to the fact we don't actually need to sell.

Then there's the team mentality, some of these lads have spent years in the saints academy and are playing now alongside their mates in the first team - they're committed and love it here and know they'll get a chance, why move?

Lallana: being touted with a move to Liverpool and United, yet none of these fans realise he has stuck by this club for so long and more importantly the club have stuck by him, especially during the health scares early in his career. The boy is loyal and I can honestly see him finishing his career here.

I'm just sick of going on tv sportsday or twitter or wherever and seeing these moronic fans saying "Oh just sign Shaw, Lallana, Clyne etc". As if it's that simple. Southampton are not that selling club anymore, we're actually trying to compete, wake up to the new reality.

Side-note: I can see Shaw leaving in a year or two, probably to Chelsea who he supports. He'll want to go when Cole retires or when they declare interest. Doesn't mean we can't pick up a ridiculous paycheck for him though.

Hi TJ.

The "big" clubs continue to have the press fixated on them and will keep trying to show that they control what happens within football. MP has stated that Luke is not for sale, and if the media and certain clubs want to waste their time, then they can but in the meanwhile Saints will just quietly get on with their own business so can't see we should be too worried.

Chelsea is just about the worst place Luke could go to at the moment, with Cole trying to keep his club and country place, and will be backed up in this by his pals-Terry and Lampard. Can't think of a more toxic situation for a player like Luke and he will be well aware of that.

Similar situations will keep happening with envious attempts to sign the rest of our good young players but whilst that continues I am a happy bunny. It just re-enforces that these other clubs are still short sighted in developing their own youngsters and continue with a sign and hope approach. £30m for Lamela who then has problems integrating into the team and the Premiership?

The model that NC is pushing is working and I really can't see him wanting to change his approach to bank some profit.

Saint Martin

The way you say Luke is a Chelsea fan is like he is not a Saints fan, wasn't he at the Portsmouth game earlier in the week?

Hi -tj, i couldn't agree more, and made a similar point in one of my articles a little while back.

cortese is such a shrewd character, and i find it remarkable that he was talking about premiership football, and having 50% of the first team having come through the academy shortly after marcus took over the club.

at that time he highlighted that this would help install into the players an added infinity for the club.

interestingly, cortese recently spoke (at the leaders in football conference) of wanting 80% academy players in the first team, although one presumes that this is the target for the next 5 years.

so i suppose the next few years we'll see several of our kids being linked with the so called big clubs, and fewer big buys coming in, although the quality of the players that do, will bring additional quality to the team.