jambowambo - Comments

Brilliant signing in Luke James, always looks a brilliant prospect to me so to get him for free is a great deal!

Best of luck for the new season and getting promotion

Doing brilliantly so far!

Any new signings?

Another good month, except for the draw with Huddersfield. Did really well to fight back from 2-0 down against City to win 2-2. I'm excited for next season with this team!

Here's the table:



Might be able to catch Liverpool and finish 8th!

Awards:



He's had a quality month! Same with Jack Cork - my two central midfielders have both been a rock in midfield. Bannon had a good month too, with three goals in four games.

Just got to the 24th so am uploading it now.

Sending to Jack again yeah?

He won't even start contract negotiations to try and reduce his wage. Looks like we'll have to wait until the end of the season for him to go.

We're out of the cup to Hoffenheim, but with TV coverage of this game and with prize money we got a vital £688k in the bank from it.

Jordanov is out for 6-7 weeks which isn't good news.

As for the transfer summary, here it is:



Not been able to sign Suljagic yet as we're still above the wage budget but Pfingstner should be on his way out soon.

Richter was a half a star youth player on £100 per week, not much I know but thought we could do without him.

I made just one change going into this game, with Quaschner missing out due to international involvement with Germany u19s.

Another good result and another clean sheet! Who says we need a new keeper? Muller is doing well so far.

Does anyone know how we can stop Muller taking free kicks?? In this game and the last one he's taken a free kick in the opposition half and we've nearly conceded in this game because of it!

A quite sensational way to start the season. We completely dominated, as you can see from the stats.

Top top top top top of the table!

Also, he's our 7th best centre back...

Do we need Andreas Pfingstner?

Our assistant says he's nowhere near 2. Bundesliga quality at the moment and will only be good enough for the 3rd division.

Out of all the goalkeepers available, these two are the only ones who come anywhere near our first team currently:

Patrick Platins



Eric Domaschke



I don't think we should waste money on either of these, despite them being free they won't do much for the first team I don't think.

Here's the main one with bags of potential that could be huge in the future:

Rastko Suljagic



Who do we think we should go for?

I've been desperately hunting for a new keeper, getting countless scout reports on any keeper available for free or for loan but I've only found keepers who aren't good enough or who have a lot of potential but aren't what we need right now.

May have to stick with our current youngster, Muller.

Right, I've sold Pekovic to Austrian club SV Ried for £80k but he demanded that we pay him £3.6k per week until the end of the season so we've only got £5k off the wage budget.

No clubs will offer for Litmanen, even for free and the board refused to let us release him for a free. I think we're stuck with him!

Before getting rid of players, I'd like to see what the other two think about it first.

I think Jari Litmanen is a bit of a waste of £4.9k per week, despite how influential he is and I think Pekovic is very overpaid on £8.5k per week.

Just looked at who the club's highest earners are and Jari Litmanen is on £4.9k per week.

Is he really worth that much?

Also, Milorad Pekovic is the highest earner at the club on a whopping £8.5k per week which I think may be too much for him.

To build the squad we may need to get rid of some of these highest earners in order to make room in the wage budget.

This keeper wants to join and is the keeper we need, but we're already way over the wage budget and can't offer him what he wants.

Ronneburg has gone - he went for free to Karlsruhe.

In the DFB Pokal, we've been drawn against Hoffenheim in the first round.

I've added him as our number 1 transfer target, hopefully he can join us.

Where do people think we need strengthening the most?



I'm looking for a keeper and maybe another quality striker.

What do we think about this potential signing?

Just loading it up now!

I play up to the 24th August yeah?

Didn't see the second post - the two wing backs will definitely be needed if we're sticking to the current formation!

And I'm surprised they've said no to a feeder club! Could have had some class players in on loan and had some income as well.

I'd say go for Adam Straith out of the two defenders, and go for Simon Czoimmer as well.

Maybe approach that striker if we need another striker, but not sure if we'd need him.

Are they the only ones who will join?

A difficult month but I'm disappointed we couldn't get a win from somewhere, especially the Arsenal game where we went 2-0 up early.

Here's the table:



Still 9th. Not much to talk about the table this season really.

Also thought I'd add that Eren Derdiyok got player of the month and Elliot Bannon got young player of the month (he may not have scored many goals, but he's been getting assists more than goals).

Need to work on our consistency. We are better than Watford and should have beaten them easily, and I think we should have done better against Reading also. We need to work on this if we are to improve for next season. Derdiyok is starting to clamp down a first team place after some good performances.

Here's the table:



Still 9th with 10 games left. Hoping to stay in the top half of the table.

One more signing since my last update - 19 year old Marcel Derwall has joined on a free transfer. The ex-Dortmund academy player, who played 4 games for Dortmund in the Bundesliga and scored 1 goal for them, can play right midfield and central midfield and should fit straight into the first team.

That's awful news!

Not got a back up file anywhere or something?

Some good results there, defence may need to be looked at to see if we can stop conceding so often. It's just 1 goal a game mainly but if we can cut that out we can get more wins.

Elliot Bannon's debut was against Tottenham and he scored a marvellous header, but got injured in the game against Man United and was ruled out for three weeks. He should hopefully return soon. We now have no realistic chances of winning a competition after Liverpool beat us 1-0 in the FA Cup so we can focus on trying to finish as high as possible in the league and build for next season. I always knew that this season would just be a building season so hopefully we can do well.

Here's the table:



Sitting pretty in 9th, which is a lot better than 15th place which was where we were when I joined. My main aim is a top half finish for this season.

I won my first manager of the month award in England which I was very pleased about!

There were a lot of transfers both to and from the club in the January window. First the players who joined:



Bannon and Jensen I've already said about.

Addy: A young German striker who can provide back up straight away and has bags of potential.

Lawless: Needed to try and steady the defence so signed this youngster from Hull for a bit more than I wanted to spend but I needed to get somebody in. At just 22, he can provide back up and hopefully challenge for a first team spot this season.

Pepin: A Spanish attacking midfielder with a huge future. I'll probably look to loan him out for the rest of this season and maybe next season and then see him start to come into the first team here at Southampton more.

Valdes: I needed a sub goalkeeper as all I had was Alnwick who wanted a way out and a couple of 16 year olds, who were talented but we were running low so I brought in Barcelona legend Valdes, now at Inter, on loan for the rest of the season.

Here's the players who left us:



Some deadwood already getting cleared. Sinclair was nowhere near the first team and I was happy to get £1.5m for him. Varty had no future and I accepted the offer received from Luton. I had many players better than Shelvey so didn't need him at the club and would rather have the £3m coming in for him. Knight again had no future so he went, as did Seagar. John Flanagan was being used purely as back up and when an offer of £5m came in from Fulham I couldn't say no. I was going to get rid of him in the summer anyway so just thought I'd accept it now. Finally, Nathaniel Daly didn't want to be at the club any longer and my old club Cowdenbeath were the only team to match my asking price of £5m so he went up there, probably to replace Bannon.

Expect to see some more deadwood cleared in the summer!

Now we need to build the squad for the 2. Bundesliga!

Is it possible to ask the board for a parent club? Maybe a major Bundesliga side could help us out.

Proper Hollywood finish then!

Best of luck in the last game!

So, this is the results of my first month in charge of Southampton. Need to try and pick up some consistency in order to try and be more of a threat in the Premier League, but this season I am just looking to start to build my team and see who fits and who doesn't. Against Liverpool we were completely outplayed and we have to step up.

Here's the table:



Sitting pretty in 11th, with pretty much no chance of relegation. This season will be very much a thrills-free season, aiming for mid table. Maybe we can do something in the FA Cup but we have Liverpool in the 3rd round so that may end short.

On the transfer front, I've already announced two new signings:



Jimmy Jensen has joined for £2.2m from Sunderland. He seems a good centre back and adds to my squad depth which was needed.

As soon as I joined Southampton, I signed this guy:



Not letting other people manage him! I'm very happy to get him here, although he cost me £15m which was a huge chunk of my transfer budget but I really hope he can guide this team to glory like he guided my Blue Brazil to glory!

Cheers man, a lot of work needed on the squad so will be a big summer for transfers again!

So, after Chelsea hired Vitezslav Lavecka from Spartak Moscow as their new manager I had the choice between Southampton, Newcastle or staying at Cowdenbeath.