Southampton Rumours Archive May 27 2013

27 May 2013 09:25:42
According to the corriere dello sport, southampton and inter are interested in signing Nainggolan from Cagliari and our bid of €18m ( around £15m) will be difficult to turn down

Mini-saint

Personally, I think Nainggolan is a very good player. However I think £15m is a lot for a CM when we already have cork and Schneiderlin as well as sufficient cover with JWP and Davis. It's great to see we are placing high bids for decent players, but I think £15m should be spent on other weaker areas, such as RM, CB or a striker

Mini-Saint

I agree with Mini-Saint, CM isn't as much as a priority as CB, LB or RB, defence needs reinforcing first as it's been our weakness all season

Jack cork is not a europa league player people who support saints and think our squad as it is is good enough for next season are deluded. Yes we do badly need to replace hooiveld as he's poor BUT our midfield isn't exactly quality still a lot of areas for improvement.

I think this would be a suuuuperb signing. As I've said elsewhere. I think we need a creative playmaker to sit in front of spidy and cork. Davis has been really good this season and will be a great player to throw on if we're defending a lead, but I'm not convinced he's technically proficient enough to play the kind of football we're going for. Before anyone says it, I think Ramirez looks better out wide.

COYR's!
MSSaint

I think they do need nainggolan to take them to the next level. cork isn't special, he's ordinary. Nainggolan and Schneiderlin would be quality.

Would you rather have Wanyama or Nainggolan?

If this is true, I would love it to happen. Nainggolan would be another Marque signing.
I agree that CM isn't a priority for us - we need a Striker, strengthening out wide, and a quality center back, but if we signed Nainggolan I for one would be very excited.

I don't think splashing out on a CM is a bad thing. We could certainly do with strength in all areas. We do only have Cork and Schneiderlin who are quality at CM. Davis can fill in. Generally leaves us a bit thin if injuries are picked up.

I don't think such a deal will detract from our focus on defensive/striker requirements. Hopefully we can get Nainggolan on board then crack on with some more signings. If we spend £15m on him then I would like to see another £15m on a quality finisher and another £10m on a couple of defensive players. £40m spend overall not too much to ask?

I thoughy nainggolan was a winger not cm

I'd rather take Wanyama personally, all day long! Cork and Schneiderlin are great CM's. if they get injured we have Davis and JWP. But what if Lambert, Clyne, Shaw, Boruc, Lallana or Yoshida get injured? Who do we have? Nainggolan is very good but do we really need to fork out around 1/3 of our budget on a CM when we need to strengthen in other areas?

Mini-Saint

Radja Nainggolan would replace davis role. who floats between the centre mid and left mid, wouldn't replace spiderman or cork

Cork is a great young English talent. Great player to have in a squad and very committed to our club it seems. He's been a good asset along side Schneiderlin this season and their chemistry has been amazing. Cork will easily be good enough for us next season and possibly in Europe. Really we need to focus on other areas to move forwards because right now Central Midfield is where we are strongest in my view. The main places we need work on are in the Centre of defence and with a striker to play instead of Ricky when he's on a dry spell and when he's tiring because a Premier league season is difficult to play right the way through. Also would be nice to get some cover for Shaw and Clyne which maybe should be where we look to the free transfer market. We came off with some great free's last summer (although minor compensatory payments for Clyne and Davis) and I think we can do so again this time around.

Apparently, according to the same page, Inter and some Spanish teams are in for him.

I hope we do sign him, if anything just because everybody needs a token Belgian in their side now.

Much rather see Wanyama sign for Saints.

Whilst I agree that other areas are probably more of a priority, why should we not be after players like this? Doesn't mean we won't sign players in the areas we need does it?

Plus, people talking about budgets haven't got a clue. How do you know how much we have to spend? Simple, you don't.

The best thing about our squad, and players like Cork is their age. These guys are just going to get better and better with experience. Add a few quality young, hungry players, and watch as the team goes from strength to strength.

Cork is an England U 21 International and will be a fully capped player it the not to distant near future. He gets better all the time and whoever said he is only ordinary frankly hasn't watched him play. Cork coming back into are team early in the season was the catalyst for our upturn in form and his energy, passing and defensive attributes would be an asset to any club. Cork and Schneiderlin will continue to hold the midfield next season as anyone who actually watches us knows they are two of the stand out players from this season. However I think Pochettino is planning on an buying a more attacking central midfielder to play in front of them. I think this area will be where our major investment is this summer.

Those knocking Cork on here are absolutely clueless. He is vital to us. He provides the perfect link between defence and attack. Do you think it is a coincidence that as soon as he returned from injury our defence and overall form improved drastically? Doesn't get the credit that Morgan does but he is just as important. Really good player.

At the end of the day we need as many players as we can get to keep a healthy squad all year as well as do the extra games needed for champions football! Cork and schneiderlin are awesome players but both have said they struggle to play week in week out! Jwp and Davis aren't at the level yet that we need to push for those places!

Morgan and Saints weren't that great without Cork at the start of the season. Remember 4points from 10 anyone?

We may need as many top players as we can get to maintain a top healthy squad but it will be difficult if we're bidding £15million a piece to sign too many of them.

Nainggolan would not be bought to sit in the cdm /cm role he would be playing Cam/lam/ram either of the 3 cork and spidey have a great partnership ward prowse can do a job there only going to get better how can any of yeah slate cork all the play and break up play starts with either him. or spidey our style of football we play they are proberly the hardest postion 2 play

Last post. totally uninformed.

His favoured position is CDM. He can play CM if needed. He's not a RAM/LAM though. He's an out and out central midfielder who prefers to play a holding role.

I think there's a chance he might adopt a similar role to davis and be a slightly pushed forward holding mid to link our front 3 together.

Or we could adopt playing 3 CDM and have a more fluid system where they pressure the ball all over the pitch and are free to rotate.

When has Jack Cork ever had a bad game? Mr consistent, without him we look frail, he allows Schneiderlin the freedom to be the player that he is. I don't think we should disrupt the arguably the Premier league's most promising CM pairing.

Last post. Well informed. Thought Morgan seemed to be pushing further forward as season progressed as well.

Well I think we will play 4, 3, 3 pressing next season so to have 3 across midfield would be a great idea imagine Cork Spider and Nainggolan all across the midfield :o that sounds like a brick wall! And I reckon gaSouthampton will be put on right wing with lallana on the left with jay rod and lambert sharing the striking spot with the new striker, which I hope we do sign and then to defenders and Lb and Rb cover and we will have a very very strong side.

LudacrusS