Marked for Jonathan King
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Player ratings21 Jan 2036
Successful dribbles: 29. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad21 Jan 2036
Yukinari Sugawara was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Market21 Jan 2036
Only the photograph left for Umar Sankoh
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Umar Sankoh will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Southampton the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Match19 Jan 2036
10 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
Squad21 Jan 2036
Words at Southampton training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Shea Charles is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Match19 Jan 2036
A 1‑0 win over Crystal Palace, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
Player ratings21 Jan 2036
A performance of 8.37 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
Squad21 Jan 2036
Tom Fellows is in the form of his life
A season average of 7.28 with 5 goals behind it. Opponents have started planning around him, which is the sincerest compliment football pays.
Squad21 Jan 2036
The manager makes an example of Jonathan King
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Player ratings17 Dec 2035
Successful dribbles: 38. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match12 Dec 2035
0‑0 against Luton Town, and the road stops here. Cup exits are quick deaths — no second leg, no next week, just the league from now until May.
Squad17 Dec 2035
Gavin Bazunu is the hero from the spot
A shoot-out is remembered by its ending, and this one ends with Gavin Bazunu: 1 kept out, and a set of supporters who will describe every one of them for the next twenty years.
Squad17 Dec 2035
Jonathan King: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Southampton have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Market17 Dec 2035
Only the photograph left for Yury Maleev
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Yury Maleev will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Southampton the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad17 Dec 2035
Aaron Ramsdale was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad17 Dec 2035
Yukinari Sugawara falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Match15 Dec 2035
Shrewsbury Town left with the points after a 0‑1 defeat that will take some explaining on the terraces.
Boardroom17 Dec 2035
106% of the income goes out in wages at Southampton
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Squad26 Nov 2035
Jonathan King damages knee ligaments — 14 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 14 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Match24 Nov 2035
Rarely has this fixture seen a display like it: 3‑0 against Wolverhampton, and it could have been more.
Squad26 Nov 2035
A fracture rules Steven Young out for 32 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Southampton will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Player ratings26 Nov 2035
Two goals and a mark of 8.29 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Match24 Nov 2035
Momentum is a hard thing to buy and an easy thing to lose, and right now Southampton have 5 straight wins of it.
Player ratings26 Nov 2035
Age has not caught Cameron Archer yet — 7.98
At 33 he is supposed to be managing his minutes. Instead he was marked 7.98 and looked, for ninety minutes, exactly like the player everybody remembers.
Squad26 Nov 2035
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Southampton this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market26 Nov 2035
Umar Sankoh has one foot out of the door
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Southampton they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad26 Nov 2035
Words at Southampton training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Yukinari Sugawara is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Player ratings19 Nov 2035
Successful dribbles: 45. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Squad19 Nov 2035
Jonathan King damages knee ligaments — 21 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 21 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Squad19 Nov 2035
A fracture rules Steven Young out for 39 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Southampton will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Match17 Nov 2035
Momentum is a hard thing to buy and an easy thing to lose, and right now Southampton have 4 straight wins of it.
Squad19 Nov 2035
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Southampton this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market19 Nov 2035
Only the photograph left for Yury Maleev
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Yury Maleev will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Southampton the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad19 Nov 2035
Shea Charles falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Match17 Nov 2035
Three points for Southampton, 1‑0 the final word against Birmingham in a contest settled by the finer margins.
Player ratings19 Nov 2035
A performance of 8.00 does not come along often, and when it does the rest of the team becomes scenery. He was magnificent.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad12 Nov 2035
Jonathan King damages knee ligaments — 28 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 28 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Match12 Nov 2035
Southampton are in among the leaders
Position 1 and 29 points on the board. Nobody at the ground will say the word out loud yet, and everybody at the ground is thinking it.
Match10 Nov 2035
Ninety minutes of very little, and then everything at once. The winner arrived in the 89th, and Burnley spent what remained of the match appealing to the referee rather than chasing the ball.
Squad12 Nov 2035
A fracture rules Steven Young out for 46 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Southampton will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Match10 Nov 2035
Momentum is a hard thing to buy and an easy thing to lose, and right now Southampton have 3 straight wins of it.
Squad12 Nov 2035
Caspar Jander was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad12 Nov 2035
Words at Southampton training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Yukinari Sugawara is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
Match10 Nov 2035
Burnley made Southampton work for it, but the scoreboard read 1‑0 at the end and the table does not ask how.
Player ratings12 Nov 2035
Ninety minutes of Jay Robinson at his very best
Marked 8.13. Players have careers without a single afternoon like this in them, and he has just had one in front of everybody at Southampton.
From our football correspondent
Triumph
Squad5 Nov 2035
Jonathan King damages knee ligaments — 35 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 35 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Match31 Oct 2035
Sutura Kakay wins it after the whistle should have gone
120 minutes played. Sutura Kakay found the finish in time that only existed because of earlier delays, and Notts County went from a point to nothing inside one movement.
Squad5 Nov 2035
A fracture rules Steven Young out for 53 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Southampton will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Player ratings5 Nov 2035
No sign of nerves from Steven Smith at 20 — 7.66
The hardest thing about being 20 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Steven Smith did not need any: 7.66, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Squad5 Nov 2035
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Southampton may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
Market5 Nov 2035
“I have ambitions, and I would like the club to share them.” Nobody has asked to leave and nobody has been shown the door — but a player chooses that sentence carefully, and a boardroom hears it exactly as it was meant.
Player ratings5 Nov 2035
Successful dribbles: 21. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Player ratings25 Jun 2035
Successful dribbles: 55. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad25 Jun 2035
A knee injury of the worst kind for Steven Young
53 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Southampton lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Match23 Jun 2035
16 home matches unbeaten. Visiting sides arrive already talking about the atmosphere, which is usually the sign that they have half-lost before kickoff.
Market25 Jun 2035
Only the photograph left for Nathan Wood
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Nathan Wood will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Southampton the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Squad25 Jun 2035
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Southampton this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Market25 Jun 2035
Barrow AFC come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Southampton did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Squad25 Jun 2035
Jonathan King is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
Squad25 Jun 2035
Shea Charles falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Market25 Jun 2035
He is 19, and the scouting reports agree on the only line that matters: the ceiling. Signings like this are lottery tickets written by professionals.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Boardroom17 Jul 2034
The silence upstairs is getting loud at Southampton
Nobody on the board has said anything against the manager, which is the point — they have stopped saying anything for him either.
Market17 Jul 2034
The offer from Sporting CP for Damion Downs was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Squad17 Jul 2034
Mads Roerslev: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Southampton have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Market17 Jul 2034
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Market17 Jul 2034
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Southampton is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Squad17 Jul 2034
Aaron Ramsdale was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Squad17 Jul 2034
Yukinari Sugawara falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.
Squad17 Jul 2034
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Jonathan King is 19, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Boardroom17 Jul 2034
106% of the income goes out in wages at Southampton
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.