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Post by Deleted on Apr 17, 2012 19:12:40 GMT
Not too dissimilar to Nicola then. Agreed and already covered in this thread. You sound very liverish again
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Post by eusebio on Apr 18, 2012 0:17:54 GMT
YES YES YES
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Post by spot51 on Apr 18, 2012 6:17:30 GMT
Interesting views. So who is ready? Starting at the top: Cotese - very much so. He put in place a strategy to get us into the Prem in 5 years. Looks like he'll do that in 3. His main task is to refine and update his strategic plan and free up the necessary funds to strengthen the squad. He'll do that. Adkins - definitely. He is still a young manager learning his trade. Think we all recognise he makes mistakes but he has turned Cortese's plan into reality and that is what matters. Next season will be tougher - and he must learn to be. I'm sure he will. Infrastructure and Coaching staff: top notch. Everyone always said Saints were a "premiership side in waiting" and they were right. Keepers - short term Kelvin is good enough but I worry about Bart. There are some cracking young keepers in Europe at present (including one in Switzerland) who CDAJFU. Central Defenders - Jos is a winner. His career stats prove it. He'll do OK. Fonte and Martin are pretty sound but won't get away with individual errors in the Prem. Haven't seen enough of Seaborne to make a judgement but I'm sure our coaches have. Jaidi won't cut it in the Prem anymore. Another (proven) centre half would help. Full backs - not a priority. They'll do; but if we were to replace Harding with a good Premiership journeyman I wouldn't lose any sleep. Midfield - where matches are won and lost. Lallana, Spider, Guly, Cork, Chaplow should all stay. I like De Ridder so I'd keep him too. Time for Hammond to move on.(In January I said we needed an international quality striker and playmaker - we got Lee who is the former and Falque who seems to have disappeared without trace.) Our side still cries out for an established, international quality #10 to boss games. Accepting that Morgan could become this player I'd settle for a quick fix - experienced, foriegn, international midfielder looking for a last hoorah, please. Forwards - Lambert; yes. Lee; yes. Sharp; yes. Connolly and Barnard; thanks for your help. We need another and the rule of thumb must be the best we can afford but NOT a primadonna who'll upset team ethic. Again I'd be tempted to look abroad for someone of sufficient quality but our experience with Connolly and Reading's success with Roberts suggests an older British player might fit the bill, providing of course their head is right and they buy into our masterplan. I don't know enough about the current academy players to guess which of them will be in the first team squad. Suffice it to say, the rules on home-grown talent are getting tougher and Saints are better placed than most to do the necessary. I'm loving this!
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Post by channonite on Apr 18, 2012 6:50:46 GMT
Agree with all that spot.
The biggest disappointment for me is how error prone Fonte has become this season. Everybody else has pretty much performed as I was expecting. The nice exception to this was the impact that Lee made. I can't wait to see how Adkins utilises Rickie, Sharp & Lee.
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Post by choixkoix on Apr 19, 2012 15:50:52 GMT
For me, the difficult thing about promotion is that it potentially makes it much harder to integrate some of our promising academy players into the team. The Premier League is an unforgiving place for teenagers - surely now they'll have to settle for being impact subs, or for one or more loan spells in League 1 or the Championship.
For all the successes we've had with the Academy, there's been even more players who've needed time to develop who haven't had the chance.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 19, 2012 15:53:46 GMT
For me, the difficult thing about promotion is that it potentially makes it much harder to integrate some of our promising academy players into the team. The Premier League is an unforgiving place for teenagers - surely now they'll have to settle for being impact subs, or for one or more loan spells in League 1 or the Championship. For all the successes we've had with the Academy, there's been even more players who've needed time to develop who haven't had the chance. They could do worse than follow how Fergie did it in the early days. (I feel a bit unclean after saying that)
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