Nordic Saint

One major improvement since Reed left is that we no longer get the devious PR 'leaks' designed to turn the fans against players who are about to be sold.

I think it's true that he would have gone to a top six club, although he wasn't forcing the issue, but he didn't really want to leave Saints and certainly not to go to West Ham. If Reed had made any effort to keep him here, he'd have happily stayed. But, instead, Les Reed made it clear to him that he was no longer welcome at the club and got the fan base on his side with his usual PR 'leaks', saying the player was disruptive. The words 'Billy Big Boll--ks" were clearly straight out of Les Reed's mouth and then got repeated on all the Saints fans forums, when, in fact, Fonte is a more modest character than either Reed himself or most top flight footballers. Anyway, it's all worked out well for Fonte, as he has had the best spell of his entire career at Lille, captaining them to the Champions League group stage, with the best defensive record in the French League, and winning another major European trophy with Portugal.

I'd add Vestergaard to that list. We should try to get rid of him in January to free up a place in the squad for a new central defender. But, one wonders about the quality of our scouting and recruitment when they waste so much money on so many players who are obviously not cut out for the Premier League.

Whilst I agree with you that we were aiming high when we sold him, it will be interesting to see how many goals he scores in the Premier League this season. He is a hugely popular player wherever he goes and I wish him well.

To be honest, I really thought we'd do what we usually do against Burnley and get a draw and I think a lot of other fans expected that too.This is our biggest defeat against Burnley since we lost to them by the same scoreline in our 1973/74 relegation season.

I agree to a certain extent but he's not as much of a defensive liability as Vestergaard is.

I hope that's the last we see of Vestergaard and Stephens but unfortunately it won't be. We need to get Yoshida back and buy another experienced central defender to play alongside him in January.

It's already happened. It's called the UEFA Champions League.

I'm very happy with the Che Adams signing because I've seen him play and he's a good player. Apart from his sub appearance in a pre-season friendly, I've not seen Djenepo play and I've never seen Danso (in fact, I'd never even heard of him before) so it's hard to judge either of them yet.

Although Augsburg had the worst defence in the Bundesliga last season, they seemed to do better when Danso didn't play.

This was his best season so far: https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/kevin-danso/leistungsdaten/spieler/263236/plus/0?saison=2017

I agree. He won't play 30 games for them and Wolves know it so they are basically wriggling out of any obligation to buy him.

The rumour is that it will be a youngster from abroad on loan. Personally, I'd have liked to see us buy Dael Fry from Middlesborough.

I've seen a rumour that we are almost certainly bringing one in on loan as we can't afford a transfer as well as the wages for a new cb until we have got more money from sales and reduced the current wage bill. To be honest, as long as we have a good CB this season, I don't really care how we do it.

I remember seeing him play against us for Vitesse Arnhem and he wasn't all that marvelous.

Jay Rodriguez scored both goals in Burnley's 2-0 win v Parma: https://www.lancashiretelegraph.co.uk/sport/football/burnley_fc/news/17814307.match-report-burnley-2---0-parma/

A word: I don't believe it's simple but, judging from your posts, you may be.

The problem seems to be that we need to field 3 of them to do the job that 2 competent central defenders would normally do, which leaves us short in midfield, so selling 2 of them and buying 1 competent central defender would make sense.

I remember when we had Clyne alternating with Chambers at right back and felt we had to let one of them go. Instead we let both of them go. Cedric has been OK but his lack of height has consistently been exploited by teams who play high crosses over his head. Chambers was Fulham's Player of the Season this year and won the vote by a country mile. I know they were relegated but he's still only young and I think he could do a job for us again. Clyne's 'lifestyle issues' as well as his injuries make his future prospects look less promising.

Absolutely. Not only will most our away allocations sell out but I predict this will be the 12th of our 12 top flight seasons at St Mary's when our home gates average over 30,000, which considering our capacity isn't much more than that is pretty good. For comparison, Pompey, who had a capacity in excess of 50,000 for much longer than that, only ever averaged home gates over 30,000 for 7 seasons, the last one being 66 years ago.

Vestergaard's lack of pace is the main reason we needed 3 central defenders rather than 2 last season. Yoshida, Bednarek and hopefully any new central defender should be capable of playing in a back 4.

I agree with you. Any new CB should be to replace Vestergaard rather than Yoshida or Bednarek.

From what I've read about Upemecano, he would be out of our price range but I would happily welcome him here. As for my opinion of Klarer, he looks like a really talented central defender to me. I may be wrong but I prefer to be optimistic.

No, I didn't. Didn't the wording of my original question suit your agenda of trying to sound superior? Give up. You just sound like a boring know-all, who doesn't really know much.

All this hoping that young Saints players will fail makes me laugh because our Academy has produced so many good young players over the years and Klarer looks like another one who is going to make the grade.