Nordic Saint

Based on the previous sales of Shaw and Chambers, Kat and Les are probably hoping they can make a few bob on Sims and McQueen fairly quickly.

According to various paper reports today, van Dijk's said he'd prefer to go to Man City so he can play for Pep Guardiola and Saints have set the fee at £40 million. That's about £20 million less than we could have got for him.

"The greedy clubs". Let's face it if Kat & Les want to sell a player, nothing is going to stand in their way. They'll already be counting the money they're going to get from Man. Utd. whether we like it or not.

I had one of those mugs on the left. I preferred our traditional 3 roses badge to the modern one. But, I guess I'm in the minority now as younger fans have grown up only knowing the new badge so the traditional badge would mean little to them.

I think the away fans have quite a big influence on events on the pitch at their end, especially getting free-kicks for their team and yellow cards for ours, which is why away teams always seem more motivated kicking towards the Northam. Although the Chapel end is pretty quiet, at least it doesn't have away fans dominating it so our players obviously prefer attacking that end and so score more goals there.

Superb today, I thought: a class above the likes of Stones but probably on less than half his wages.

Yes, but we need someone to score goals.

Not forgetting the 90+ minutes of defensive genius from Fonte.

Juanmi scored the winning goal against Valencia today.

I don't know about personal friends but many seem to worship her like she's some infallible goddess almost on a par with the all powerful god Les Reed. in the past, we used to just support the players and managers and have no interest in who was on the board. I could reel of the Saints' teams and managers of the 60, 70s, 80s etc but can't even remember who was on the board of directors. Rupert Lowe was the first 'celebrity' director/owner I can recall. Nowadays, some fans seem more interested in them than the team.

Fair summary, Stan. The downgrading looks set to continue when Fonte and van Dijk are sold to be replaced by Kevin Wimmer (the defensive equivalent of Nathan Redmond). Factor in the fact that Puel is under orders to play Les's latest signings and players from the Academy as much as possible, then I'm not sure that any manager could do much more than he has. He's on a hiding to nothing.

And it sounds as though our best 2 defensive players, Fonte and van Dijk, are going to be sold next, which will leave our defence as weak as our attack.

Who is looking forward to the Middlesbrough game on Sunday? I'm a season ticket holder so I'll be there and I think I'll be happy if we scrape a 0-0 draw because without our one and only real striker now that Austin is injured that is about as much as we can realistically expect. At least it will be a point rather than getting knocked out of a competition. A 1-0 win and I'll be over the moon. I'm adjusting to our new level of expectations already. But, the next level, when Fonte and van Dijk are sold won't be so easy to swallow. I'll probably still keep turning up though.

Virgil made his own decision to become a striker tonight because he knew without Austin we didn't have one. He has a better footballing brain than Puel and Les Reed combined so he'll be off to another club next year and Les and Kat will already be counting the money they're going to get for him so at least they'll be happy.

You are joking? I've never seen him win a race for the ball with anyone. Have you? His lack of pace is one thing that has really held back our attack this season. When we attempt a swift counterattack, and look to play the ball through, he's still lagging behind the halfway line. As for a 5 yard sprint, defenders and goalies can give him a 2 yard start and still beat him to the ball easily.

I get the impression Les isn't that flexible when it comes to negotiations with players and managers. It was more likely a take it or leave it and the club offer.

Best to ignore the turncoats on here. Once they turn against one of our players, they really turn against him, no matter how good he is.

The way the club's PR spin works on players sales, they could just as easily have offered him a derisory 10 quid a week pay rise just so they could say to the fans he turned down a pay increase, when the truth is they'd already decided to sell him.

Perhaps he wasn't offered a big pay rise or a new contract and the club just wants to sell him, and have kept him out of European games to increase his transfer value to Man United.

Excellent post, and that's how I see it too.

"If he has a strop...":lol: If you really think any player other than a few madmen like Osvaldo would be prepared to commit career suicide like that, you are very naive. A more realistic way of looking at is that the more of their team mates you sell, the more you unsettle the remaining players, apart from the few fringe ones who wouldn't have got into the team otherwise.

The irony is that if she'd waited a bit longer before selling the players, she would have made a lot more money. We often seem to sell players before they reach their peak value so the buying club benefits from getting the best years of their career and can still sell them for a big profit if they want to. It's that policy which makes us look like a club which is overly keen to cash in on its players as soon as we get an offer. Mane, Clyne and Wanyama are improving all the time and already worth a lot more than we sold them for. The ones we retain, like Long and Clasie, are usually the ones whose transfer values are falling. Ultimately, although our scouting has been good in the case of players like Mane and Wanyama, I'm not sure our overall transfer policy is as astute as some people think it is.

Shane Long has always been an average striker who has averaged 1 goal every 4 games throughout his career. His one exceptional asset was his pace and although he is still faster than Redmond, he is 30 now and seems to have lost a bit of it this season and can't outsprint defenders the way he used to. That's not going to get any better but he should still score a handful of goals this season. Next season his days as a Premier League striker will probably be numbered. Maybe we could sell him to a top Championship club or even a newly promoted club in the summer and recover some of the money we paid for him.

Mane and Pelle didn't only play in league games last season. Mane was our top scorer last season with 15 goals followed by Pelle with 14.

You must have an incredibly short memory. It was last season's team which got us into the group stages of the Europa League.