Yes I know it is the so-called `closed season` in domestic football but here we are in early July and games are still going on - Rangers losing to some Luxembourg outfit in the early stages of the Europa League for example.   But it`s the off-field activities, rumours and speculation that seem to grip the starved minds of the football fanatics.

And I guess I`m no different, although being a Southampton fan, I might tend to take a more jaundiced, more bewildered view of what`s going on. A few examples have come to mind in the last week or so.

The first concerns our old friend John (The LegEnd) Terry, late of the parish of Chelsea and now apparently taking up residence in Birmingham.   Now Terry has a history of self parody which sets him apart, perhaps culminating in his extraordinary `performance` at a Champions League Final when, not having played or been on the bench for that game, he still felt it his place to tog himself up in full kit, go up the stairs, collect the cup and brandish it around for all to see.  Goodness knows what Wayne Bridge must have thought. Now Terry has arrived at Birmingham his early announcement that he sees his future as a manager of his beloved Chelsea again demonstrates the limitless nature of his arrogance.

I`ve been watching the transfer speculation and it seems that Chelsea and Manchester United (those well known twin impostors) are determined to recruit just about every player who might or even might not come on to the transfer market.  Today`s idiocy suggests that United are looking to spend £100,000,000 on one Romelu Lukaku whose claim to fame is that he seems adept, given half a chance, of burying the ball in the back of the net.   And Chelsea`s very own enfent terrible, Diego Costa, is demanding no less than £400,000 a week for the privilege of him staying at Stamford Bridge.   It`s all utterly mad and increasingly meaningless.

Turning lastly to matters closer to home, Southampton have dismissed French manager Claude Puel for finishing eighth in the Premier League and narrowly losing the League Cup Final at Wembley, but the truth is more that Puel`s style of play did not find favour with the St. Mary`s faithful, having been brought up on a diet of fast flowing, reckless, desperate relegation battles.

Instead of M.Puel, we now have one Mauricio Pellegrino, a 6`4" former centre back from Argentina, via the Spanish League.  Arguably our most successful of recent seasons was under the management of another former centre back from Argentina, via the Spanish League.  His name was Mauricio too.  I hope the Saints board were not under the illusion that they had managed to entice Mauricio Pochettino back from Tottenham, but in the bonkers world of football, you just never know.