Southampton Defender Linked With Move To Championship Rivals

One thing is for sure this summer and that is that the size of the squad is way too large and there has already been movement out, but it seems that there could be more departures on the way.

The Daily Echo is reporting that Charlie Taylor could be on his way to Norwich City, at least according to the local media in East Anglia who are saying that after missing out on their first target Aaron Cresswell who has left West Ham to join Stoke City, they will pursue Taylor.

The defender arrived at St Mary’s from Burnley last summer and soon found himself out of favour with Russell Martin and neither Ivan Juric nor Simon Rusk played him much either.

That seemed strange as Taylor seemed to have the experience that was clearly lacking in the Saints defence and when he did play he showed that he had quality, as was highlighted in the final game of the season against Arsenal.

But the back four (or three or five) is vastly over populated and it seems cuts will have to be made, this made it even stranger why the 31 year old Jack Stephens was offered a 3 year deal.

So it seems Taylor could be out of the door soon, which would be a shame, I would expect that Southampton won’t be demanding much of a fee, even though he still has a year left on his deal, it will be more about getting bodies off the books and also wages.

Coventry City news from CoventryLive as Frank Lampard’s assistant head coach Joe Edwards outlines the mentality in the Sky Blues camp this pre-season

Coventry City will need to raise their game this season – because that’s exactly what their opponents will be doing. That’s the verdict from assistant head coach Joe Edwards as the Sky Blues continue their countdown to the new Championship campaign.

Edwards joined boss Frank Lampard and fellow assistant Chris Jones in helping revitalise City from just outside the relegation danger zone to a place in the play-offs, only for Sunderland to wreck their Premier League dreams.

But Edwards says last season’s experiences will drive the squad forward this term. He revealed a video of the highs of last season and highlighting the areas to get better had been played to the players on last week’s training trip to Portugal.

“There is an absolute determined mentality that we have to go again,” he said.

“We started this trip with a meeting where we reflected on all the things we did well and we watched a video of it and looked at pictures of it, but we spoke about the things that need to improve. Now there is a driven mentality about it every day in everything we do that we know how good we can be and we know what it needs to look like and what we want to be about. But it takes work every day and it has to kick on levels from where it was last season.

“All of our competitors, the teams around us in the league and the teams that did have disappointing seasons last year and fell below us, they are going to be even more determined, so we have to be ready for that. I think everyone is looking forward to it, but there is a focus and for that reason we are pushing every day.”

The Sky Blues ended their training trip with a behind-closed-doors friendly with Portimonense at the Estadio Municipal de Portimao.

The hosts prevailed 2-0, scoring two second-half goals, but City fielded two different elevens in each half to ensure the players got valuable minutes under the belt. Summer signings Kaine Kesler-Hayden and Miguel Angel Brau both featured for 45 minutes in the second half.

Edwards said the trip had focused on fitness and cranking up the intensity.

“It’s been good, it’s still fairly early on in pre-season so it’s still primarily about the conditioning side of it and getting fit and getting intensity levels up so we’re ready to go and hit the ground running, not ease our way into the season and have a slow start and have to claw points back,” he told the club’s media team.

“We want to come out of the traps, so intensity is key to that and getting that right from the early stages is important.