SOUTHAMPTON are to bid for the Premier League using the concept of homeopathy.

With every player under the age of 50 or below 18 stone sold to rival teams, manager Ronald Koeman believes that the effectiveness of the remaining players will increase exponentially.

16-year-old trainee Kyle Stephenson said: “I’ve been told I’ll be starting up front next season if I can manage to train for less than three seconds a week and not even look at a football in my spare time.

This has come as a particular shock because I’m actually a trainee groundsman but the gaffer said my experience in dealing with plants will come in handy for preparing tinctures. I haven’t the heart to tell him that turf isn’t really ‘plants’.

Southampton enjoyed their best finish in years last season, which the board credited to increasingly diluted quantities of Gareth Bale and Theo Walcott.

The success of their youth academy was credited to the training ground still containing microscopic amounts of Le Tissier from the one time in 1988 when he jogged around on it for a few minutes before going for a pint.

Koeman said: Conventional football is just a conspiracy to help make money. You’re going to see a more holistic approach to the game when we field a small photo of our 1960 league three winner’s cup.”