Cracking the top 4

Best match description ever :p Tough start but good luck, I'll be interested to see how you go seeing as my story is Southampton too :)
 
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Starting XI - Stekelenburg, Targett, Van Dijk, Fonte, Cedric, Clasie, Romeu, Tadic, Mane, Ward-Prowse, Pelle.

Much better! a classy performance gets us our first win, points and clean sheet of the Premier League season! We started slowly and looked nervous in the game but that quickly disappeared as Van Dijk tapped in his first goal for the club just before half time. The 2nd half was all us and further goals from Mane and Pelle wrapped up the game nicely.

[video=youtube;k9atz5clUqU]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9atz5clUqU[/video]​
 
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Starting XI - Stekelenburg, Targett, Van Dijk, Fonte, Cedric, Clasie, Romeu, Tadic, Ganso, Mane, Rodriguez.

Easy! Goteborg put up very little resistance as we walked past them and into the group stages of the Europa League which nets us a cool £1.7 million just for playing in the playoffs. Rodriguez and Mane scooped the goals with assists for Clasie and Davis. Two wins and two clean sheets in as many games shows that we are starting to put together some performances. Hopefully we can take some form and confidence from this run. A slightly disappointing night for Ganso who didnt play well at all and was replaced early in the 2nd half, but he is going to need some time to fit in to our way of playing.

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Not quite sure what to make of our group in the Europa League which was drawn after the match. Trips to Ukraine and Turkey could be tough but we have done fairly well to avoid some of the bigger clubs.
 
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Great story pal. Saints are my local side so I thought I'd have a look at this. Any more signings planned.
 
Tobey Mason said:
Great story pal. Saints are my local side so I thought I'd have a look at this. Any more signings planned.
Click to expand...

My local side too :) not expecting too much more on the signings front, maybe a few out and one in if we have the resources. The problem is playing time because Tadic and Mane have the wing slots pretty much held down, any new signings would be unlikely to play.
 
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Starting XI - Stekelenburg, Targett, Yoshida, Fonte, Cedric, Clasie, Davis, Rodriguez, Ganso, Mane, Pelle.

A resolute and dogged display as we tried to match Swansea at their own game of possession and managed to take 3 points away from Wales. Jordy Clasie scored the only goal of the match through a fortuitous deflection but the defence performed admirably to keep the clean sheet that meant Clasie's goal was enough.
 

Overall I think I have to say that we can all be quite pleased with our start to the season. We have achieved what we set out to do and qualified for the Europa League group stages and sit comfortably in mid table of the Premier League which was important, especially when getting used to playing midweek in Europe. The opening day loss to Aston Villa was disappointing but the Chelsea game had a hint of inevitability about it and the two wins and two clean sheets against Bournemouth and Swansea offer plenty of encouragement.
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Watford have flown off the mark and seem to be adapting superbly to life in the Premier League. Klopp is struggling to make an impact at 17th place Liverpool and Ranieri is having a tough time of it at Leicester.

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The Capital One Cup has given us a home draw against Swindon Town in the 3rd round which is going to be a chance to give some youngsters a chance in the first team seeing as the board have declared it unimportant.
Player of the Month​

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A really tough call this month but Virgil Van Dijk gets the nod. 8 Appearances mean he has played in every single match so far for us with a superb rating and a couple of goals, the lad is on fire. Shout outs for Sadio Mane, Jordy Clasie and Cedric who have all been superb as well.
Academy Watch

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Boy do we have some serious talent coming through the Academy. The youngsters who are out on loan have already been making an impression with Jordan Turnbull and Jack Stephens really impressing with averages in the high 7s. Sam Gallagher has made a positive start to his loan with MK Dons and Ryan Seager has already poached a couple of goals for Motherwell.

In the Under 18's, Striker Dan N'Lundulu has been setting the group on fire with 5 goals in his first 4 games and is being backed up nicely by Siph Mdlalose who has two goals to his name.

September Preview​
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September is going to be an entertaining month, starting with transfer deadline day and ending with a visit from Man utd with our Europa League group debut somewhere in the middle.
 
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10:50 - We can confirm that Ronald Koeman has arrived at Southampton's Staplewood Training Complex, fuelling the fires of speculation that suggest Southampton are going to be active on this deadline day.

12:24 - Southampton Midfielder Gaston Ramirez has left the club to sign for Hoffenheim in a deal that is reportedly worth £4 million. Ramirez signed for Southampton in 2012 and the Uruguayan made only 46 appearances for the club in his 3 year spell.

3:20 - Sky Sources understand that Southampton are in advanced talks with QPR to sign striker Charlie Austin, more as we get it.

5:00 -Southampton Striker Shane Long has rejected the chance to move to Everton, instead opting to stay at St Marys and fight for his place. Speculation has been rife that Southampton have wanted to move Long on as his game time will be severely limited due to the competition of Graziano Pelle and Jay Rodriguez.

7:25 - We can officially confirm that Charlie Austin has arrived at Staplewood here in Southampton and is ready to sign a long term contract with the south coast club.

10:00 - Southampton Football Club have confirmed the signing of Charlie Austin on a four year contract for a fee that we believe is £5 million, plus £3 million in add ons.

11:54 - Any deal now taking Shane Long away from St Mary's is now dead, he will be staying with Southampton at least until January.
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Starting XI - Stekelenburg, Targett, Van Dijk, Fonte, Cedric, Romeu, Ganso, Rodriguez, Tadic, Mane, Pelle.

A decent point against Leicester. We were absolutely not at the races in the first half and got thoroughly outplayed with our old captain Dean Hammond scoring against us. Charlie Austin came on at half time and made a huge difference as we started to dominate the play. Eventually we got the breakthrough as Austin chased down the goalkeepers kick which deflected off him and into the net. We hit the woodwork 3 times throughout the game so I am satisfied we were just unfortunate and the performance was encouraging.
 
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Starting XI - Stekelenburg, Targett, Van Dijk, Fonte, Cedric, Wanyama, Clasie, Rodriguez, Davis, Mane, Austin.

What a performance, watch out Europe! A near perfect performance yielded 5 goals and a clean sheet as each of our front four got a match rating of 9+. After scoring on his first appearance, Charlie Austin went and topped that by scoring a hatrick on his first start with three wonderful goals! a great start to our European campaign!
 
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Starting XI - Gazzaniga, Bertrand, Van Dijk, Fonte, Cedric, Wanyama, Clasie, Tadic, Davis, Mane, Austin.

How on earth can we go from breathtakingly brilliant to downright awful in less than a week. We could only muster 24% of possession and even the return of Ryan Bertrand couldn't spur us on to a half decent performance. There is much work ahead of us.
 
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