Southampton Banter Archive July 24 2014

24 Jul 2014 20:58:24
There is talk of forster replacing boruc, this would be a bad mistake, artur boruc won games for saints last season, wba home and away, liverhampton away and fulham away spring to mind, we only won one game in the prem without him in goal, it was no coincidence that when he got injured against chelsea our form went out of the window, he came back against wba and won the game for us with a great save in the closing mins, yes we need a better back up keeper but talk of boruc leaving is madness, forster has no experience in the prem, and forster didn't look very confident against chile, boruc is class and inspires confidence, don't keep going on about the arsenal mistake which was over confidence, and the stoke goal which was a fluke, talk about his saves against liverpool away or his save after lamberts penalty in the last min in wba away

Boruc is a good shot stopper but FF is a far better all round keeper and with DAve WAtson now on board I believe FF will only get better
Great business if we get him, great quality with both keepers vying for the first team spot it couldn't be any better

Were you at the fulham game??

but yeah boruc is class, whoever comes in will have to fight for the place

There's a lot better keepers out the than forster, just because he's English shouldn't be a reason to sign him. I don't mind if we don't sign one English player because we can actually produce decent English players ourselves, unlike a lot of other prem clubs. English players are overpriced, you can tell that by how we replaced lallana

We do need quality, not necessarily to replace Boruc but to compete with him. Gazza needs some experience, in the Championship ideally, to see if he can actually make the step up and give him some confidence. Kelvin is old and injury prone, granted a decent back-up keeper, but injuries have taken its toll on him and you can't rely on him to be fit week in week out.

I agree, Boruc was great last year but had no back up. (sorry but Kelvin isn't quite good enough).
We need competition and bringing in Forster would be a great addition.
Boruc made a few howlers but also some man of the match saves that won us three points.
Forster/Boruc would be a hard call to pick as first choice in my view but that's exactly what we need.

24 Jul 2014 20:26:56
So good to see some responses from editors again. Really good to see. Thank you.

Totally agree REET, their opinion and perspective is always helpful

24 Jul 2014 23:01:42
And needed in these uncertain times lol

24 Jul 2014 17:44:41
I think it's ed007 that is the Celtic fan? Any news on Forster and van dijk? Ideas on how much we would need to cough up to get em both?
Cheers :) Celtic fans must hate saints as much as we hate Liverpool

{Ed007's Note - Nothing will happen with either player until after the CL qualifiers are finished, then it's anyone's guess. I think if Forster gets assurances from Hodgson that he'll be in the England squad he might fancy staying another year for the CL experience and move next summer, that'll give him a season in England (or abroad) to try and force himself into the England No.1 spot for France 2016. Then again that could just be wishful thinking on my part :) I'll be surprised if he isn't sold this summer and with Newcastle due a % of the fee I think it will take a bid around £6-8 million mark to get Celtic even interested in a deal, we have a few million 'invested' in him with loan fees and transfer fees coming to around £4 million.
I think van Dijk is far more likely to leave this summer and I expect you will have rivals to fight for him with Sunderland the latest club to register their interest. At a guess I'd say around £6 million will be the starting point for bids. Don't hold me to that though, I would have been delighted to get £8/9 million for Wanyama and we got over £12 - how can we hate you for that? We know the score up here, Smirky, the way things are in football now we're always going to lose our best players but at least we are starting to get some decent money instead of the years of English clubs offering peanuts for players up here. Then we have the Ross McCormack transfer, one of the strangest things I have EVER seen in football, if he is worth £11 million we should be asking for at least £20 million for Forster and £35 million for van Dijk.}

Thanks ED7, good update.

Lol yeah I almost choked when I heard 11 mill for him on that Lallana should have been 40 and psg should have coughed up 100 mill for luiz, there is chat going around of 6.5 mill being rejected for van dijk and bidding around 8 for Forster, hopefully we are a better prospect than Sunderland even more so now with koeman in charge what better manager to have than koeman for a young cb, cheers ed much appreciated

24 Jul 2014 20:14:25
Ed007, would Celtic fans be happy with them going to us?
In your opinion (I know it's not going to be anything solid), would you think either of them would be happy to come to us?

I can see dijk earning you that much seeing as how many people are interested in him now.

{Ed007's Note - I can't speak for everyone but it wouldn't bother me in the slightest as long as we got top dollar for them. I would think both of them would be more than happy to join Southampton although they might see you as a stepping stone to a CL team, especially van Dijk, if he keeps progressing the way he is he is going to be a top, top player. Forster will see his chance to play in the EPL and van Dijk will see it as a chance to play in the EPL, a chance to work with Koeman and a chance to catch Guus Hiddink's eye for the Dutch national team, he was unlucky to miss out on their World Cup squad and van Gaal told him he was in plans for the future. I'm 99% sure that Koeman tried to take him to Feyenoord.
Nearly every EPL club had van Dijk watched at some point last season, he's been linked with Man City since January and with van Gaal being at Utd I would think he must be on his radar somewhere, he was with Moyes. Arsenal, Newcastle and Sevilla have all shown interest as well.}

Ed, any chance you would want Hooiveld back or is that asking too much?

Van Dijk, from the limited amount I've seen, does look like a very good player. But there are many very good looking young Dutch Centre Backs at the moment, what do you think puts him ahead of the likes of Martins-Indi, De Vrij or Kongolo (if you do think he is better, I am personally really struggling to work out which is the best prospect of the 4)?

Would love Fraser Forster to join Southampton, but I imagine he would come at a reasonably large price so Celtic would have plenty to reinvest. With Gordon signed on does that suggest to you Ed that perhaps Celtic anticipate Forster's departure?

(Also thanks for the feedback so far Ed, very interesting to hear the views of fans of the clubs these players are coming from, or potentially going to be coming from if we sign them).

{Ed007's Note - I think you can keep Hooiveld but I would take Boruc back rather than have Craig Gordon, I'm not impressed with that at all, he's the Evel Knievel (ask your dads) of GKs. And I think you're right, Gordon has been signed as Forster's replacement *sigh*
Van Dijk is better all round player than Martins Indi, he has more to his game and is a more cultured type of player. He just seems to cruise through games up here and never looks under pressure, he has pace but his positional sense means he doesn't need it too often. He's chipped in with a few goals in the air from at set-pieces and can also ping a mean free-kick himself. He's only been with us a year and IMO he is the best CB we have had since Alan Stubbs was up here, you can just see his class shining through.
I know YouTube isn't ideal but I might as well give my mate's wee brother's video of him a plug lol - I should be his agent after this!

24 Jul 2014 23:02:26
Thanks ed

{Ed007's Note - No worries mate.}

24 Jul 2014 15:11:32
just a thought
liverpool fc to saints fc
how much for lallana
saints fc to liverpool fc 25 million ono
liverpool fc DONE
saints fc you certainly have been
lovren next

What on earth does that post mean? Lol.

It needed some punctuation.

just a thought
liverpool fc to saints fc
"how much for lallana?"
saints fc to liverpool fc "25 million ono"
liverpool fc "DONE"
saints fc "you certainly have been"
lovren next

I had to read it twice.

Omg. what the hell was that about!

Thanks captain. now its quite a humorous text! Lol

Captain P, well done son. That post was gibberish till you went all ninja teacher on it.

24 Jul 2014 14:00:48
If saints let spider go then that is not showing any ambition don't think he would chuck his toys out the pram like lallana lovren think we could quite comfortably keep him?

Personally, I think our current squad is good enough to keep us away from relegation, without breaking the top 10 again. I'm not worried in the slightest about relegation this season. However if we don't strengthen this season (further) and we finish bottom half, we will struggle to attract the players we need to push us forward. I think we made such a rapid increase from league one to genuine Europa League qualification challengers, we had the hype. Unless we do something soon, I can see a spiral of decline, where our remaining players get attracted by the big clubs (not quickly but over a few seasons). I have every faith in the way the club is being run, but unless we re-assure the players that are still with us with one or two more decent signings, I may panic a little!