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The Premier League season is back. I can’t wait for 3pm Saturday, a St James’ Park matchday and to see Eddie Howe’s Mags back in competitive action.
Pre-season results have been solid and there’s plenty of reasons to be hopeful heading into the 2024/25 campaign, but it has been a bit of a chaotic summer on Tyneside so far, with a mad end to June’s PSR deadline – where we reluctantly sold Yankuba Minteh and Elliot Anderson – followed by the departures of Amanda Staveley and Mehrdad Ghodoussi.
After that came the arrival of new sporting director Paul Mitchell, who is yet to show his transfer acumen just yet but arrives with a superb track record. His first signing was Danish striker Will Osula, who arrives after Lloyd Kelly (free), Lewis Hall (£28m), Odysseas Vlachodimos and John Ruddy (free).
The concern is we’re yet to sign anyone who immediately improves our first 11, but we’re still working on a deal for Crystal Palace centre-back Marc Guehi (for now) and may also sign a much-needed right-winger. However, signings aside, there’s so much to be positive about in the existing squad.
Star trio Bruno Guimaraes, Alexander Isak and Anthony Gordon look set to stay, Sandro Tonali is back soon, key players we missed last season are fit again in Nick Pope, Joelinton, Joe Willock and Harvey Barnes, Eddie Howe stayed despite interest from England, James Bunce – our new performance director – will hopefully improve our recent injury record, Lewis Hall and Tino Livramento are top talents who are only getting better, Trevan Sanusi has had a breakthrough pre-season and the fact we’re not in Europe – which is a real shame – could benefit our Premier League form while other top six rivals attempt to strike a balance.
First up, we have newly-promoted Southampton, who are yet to re-sign Ryan Fraser but have former Mag Adam Armstrong in their ranks and a highly-rated young manager in Russell Martin, who likes to play out from the back and play a…
Source link : https://www.nufcblog.co.uk/2024/08/16/southampton-h-pre-match-thoughts-team-news-possible-line-up-and-prediction/
Author : Olly Hawkins
Publish date : 2024-08-16 16:32:43
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