Ronald Koeman spoke a few weeks ago about needing one more player for his perfect squad, with the addition of Romeu & now Virgil Van Dijk he now has that, however there are still issues.

Ronald Koeman will now feel that he has the perfect squad in terms of personnel available to him , of course he would like better quality players, every manager strives to do that, but Koeman knows in terms of what Southampton are able to get, this is as good as he could have achieved and in terms of what he has to hand it would be arguably the strongest squad in Saints history.

But in true Saints tradition nothing is simple, firstly there is the Wanyama situation and secondly the injury issues.

Some Saints supporters were up in arms about the results and claiming that the new signings are not up to standard, that was knee jerk reaction, so far this year Saints have played 8 competitive games, of which they have won 3, drawn 3 and lost 2.

That is not a bad record, but unfortunately we got caught with a crisis at the most vital time when we travelled to Denmark, its fine to criticise the squad, but the reality is that in Denmark we were missing key players through injury and sulking, Bertrand & Clasie through long term injury, Mane was not fit to play and Wanyama was sulking, that was four names who would have been on the team sheet and they could have made a hell of a difference. Add to that Soares who had to be left on the bench for a mixture of the head injury received at Watford and tactical at the back and the now arrival of VVD and our next league fixture could perceivably have those six back, now that is a big chunk of players to be missing.

This is the story of the start of the season, last season although we were a fledgling squad everyone was fit and we could slot players in as they arrived to the unit, this year we do not have that continuity and this has lead to a lot of chopping and changing to the core unit and this has not helped our cause.

Indeed the fact that we have mustered 5 points from our first four games and sit in 10th is testament as to how strong the strength in depth is now and indicates that with everyone back and fit there is no reason why we should not challenge for a top 7 place again and perhaps higher.

The Wanyama situation is delicate, much of the speculation is just that about what has been said and done, pure speculation, indeed shortly after it was announced one so called respected journalist announced on twitter that Wanyama was so incensed he was going to run don his contract rather than be sold, before realising that with two years left this was perhaps not an option and retracting that claim.

That goes to show how much of this situation has been stirred up by journalists, some briefed by other clubs and some not.

But going forward when he has everyone fit and ready Ronald Koeman will feel he has the squad to cope and the strength in depth will pay dividends over the course of the season, in every position he has options which is something he did not have in the second half of the season after injuries kicked in.

So those Saints fans who panicked a week or two ago should take a deep breath, Ronald Koeman did not deserve the vitriol that some aimed in his direction, having just steered the club to its highest league position in 30 years he deserved more than the cheap shots that some so called fans aimed at him.

Yes it was a very mall minority, but they made themselves heard and it was not pleasant, Koeman must have thought what was he doing here if that is how grateful some where for his efforts last season.

Saints are still a work in progress, we are trying to build something, but that is a long term thing, there will be set backs along the way and we have to be prepared for them, we have to trust our manager and board to get things right and so far they have not let us down.

Photo: Action Images

GeordieSaint added 09:59 - Sep 2 On paper this is the strongest squad ever. A squad full of full and junior internationals. Unfortunately this is the case at lots of other clubs and you have to run fast to stand still. Koeman is an absolute legend and I have total faith in his ability to make it work over the course of a season. Going out of Europe was really depressing but only a blip in the continued progress of the club.

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SaintPaulVW added 10:08 - Sep 2 Realistically something was going to have to give over the Season. No way were we going to achieve sustained success in Europe, the Prem and a decent cup run. Particularly given Injuries and exits have devastated the defence early season. Now he's got a good squad in place , most on long term deals, hopefully we can build for the future and a good league position to get us back in the Europa league next season. COYR!

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SonicBoom added 10:15 - Sep 2 Agreed. It is scary how fast people turn though. We have improved every year for the last five and the Leibherrs have been brilliant for us. Yet we looked dodgy for about 5 or 6 games and that was enough for some to start shouting about where's the money going -and even that Kat is simply "skimming" money from the club. Vitriol was aimed at Ralph for some of his comments and Les got all sorts of stick. Just goes to show, however well you do you are only a few games from so called "supporters" turning on you. Idiots.

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derbydog added 10:17 - Sep 2 Bertrand has not kicked a ball in anger all season, and Clasie not many, so they might not be able to come straight back in. Wanyama may have to serve a game or two on the bench in retribution for his petulance, so the next line-up may not be too different from the one which did so well against a poor Norwich side. Plus VVD one would assume. The smart thing to do with Big Vic is to tell him to play out of his skin for the whole of this season to earn himself a better move than Spurs next summer, a la Schneiderlin. That would suit us because we would get a Schneiderlin level of transfer fee and keep him out of the hands of Spurs, a club we should have nothing more to do with as WBA have pretty much threatened. Ward Prowse may be the readily available replacement by then too. It will be interesting to see who gets to play right back at WBA as both contenders made it on to the field last week, and we have Memphis to look forward to in a couple of games time. Cedric looks better going forward, Martina better in defence. May have to play them both!

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1970 added 10:52 - Sep 2 I'm not sure people were calling for blood, but it seemed to a lot of people that the players coming in for the players going out are shalll we say un-equal, Martina is a poor Chambers and Soares is half of Clyne and playing Yoshida in prem games completely backfired I like Yosh he gives his all in every game but for 3 or so minutes in every game he forgets where he is and the damage is done, also I'm not sure what's happened to Steven Davis but we had two great seasons when he was arguably player of the season but now he looks below average add that to Wanyama and Mane distractions and putting Targett next to Yoshida week in week out we will look relegation material but we made it to the break with a great team performance against Norwich and now we can look forward to Stek,Cedric,Bertrand,Fonte,VVG, Romeu,Wanyama,Mane,Tadic,Classie,Pelle sounds good to me with some very good options from the bench in JWP,Long and J-Rod but what would the fans opinion have been if we had of lost against Norwich? and yours Nick? coyr

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Bettwsresident added 12:18 - Sep 2 1970: We have the same first team. It looks brilliant on paper. I can't wait..... Saints, especially Koeman and Reed have been magnificent in the transfer market. The emphatic "no more sales" in the face of Man U and Spurs's dirty tactics was brilliant. We are a club with ambition. Lets enjoy the ride.
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SaintBrock added 13:27 - Sep 2 Talk about Pots and Kettles Nick, you do more U-turns than a bloody Boomerang! Still we'll let it lie. The only question really to be answered now is why none of our new arrivals attracted genuine interest from other top 10 clubs? We will find that out soon enough one way or another. We can all breathe a sigh of relief this morning. The door is shut, nobody is allowed out and fans can stop best guessing which positions need to be filled and who in their dreams should be brought in. Let battle commence an may the best side win and that had better be Saints COYR.

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DPeps added 13:37 - Sep 2 My perfect Saints squad would have another CF to offer competition to Pelle, and to step in if he gets injured. I don't think we were ever to going to splash £15million on Austin, and maybe just getting someone in on loan would have sufficed. Didn't need to be young, just needed to be willing to step up when necessary - Saint Rickie return? I'm not trying to be negative because I do think our squad is decent, especially when you consider the injuries, but without Pelle I think we'd be stuck for goals; plus our scoring record hasn't been great in 2015. Shane and Jay can play CF, but it's not their best position

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Hugh_Jarce added 21:57 - Sep 2 Any idea when Bertrand and Clasie are likely to be back?
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SanMarco added 23:31 - Sep 2 I have gone back from panicking to being quietly optimistic. If we play badly at WBA I may have to start panicking again. If we beat WBA I may become over-optimistic. So many possibilities. Do boomerangs actually do u-turns SaintBrock? I thought they went in a sort of big oval shape
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SaintBrock added 11:53 - Sep 3 ↪️😊
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