Nordic Saint

Saints get a mention in some possible transfer activity: https://www.hitc.com/en-gb/2019/01/23/do-report-fulham-want-sampdorias-poland-international-dawid-kown/

Our recent departures: Departures 18/19 Manolo Gabbiadini Sampdoria 12,00 Mill. € Dusan Tadic AFC Ajax 11,40 Mill. € Florin Gardos CS U Craiova Free Transfer Jérémy Pied LOSC Lille Free Transfer Steven Davis Rangers Loan Sam McQueen Middlesbrough Loan Harrison Reed Blackburn Loan Josh Sims Reading Loan Jordy Clasie Feyenoord Loan Sofiane Boufal Celta de Vigo Loan Guido Carrillo CD Leganés Loan Jake Hesketh Burton Albion Loan Departures 17/18 Virgil van Dijk Liverpool 78,80 Mill. € Jay Rodríguez West Brom 13,70 Mill. € Florin Gardos CS U Craiova Loan Cuco Martina Everton Free Transfer Lloyd Isgrove Barnsley FC Free Transfer Martín Cáceres Hellas Verona Free Transfer Matt Targett Fulham Loan Harrison Reed Norwich Loan Sam Gallagher Birmingham Loan Paulo Gazzaniga Tottenham Hotspur Spurs ? Jordy Clasie Club Brugge Loan Departures 16/17 Sadio Mané Liverpool 41,20 Mill. € Graziano Pellè SD Luneng 15,25 Mill. € Victor Wanyama Spurs 14,40 Mill. € José Fonte West Ham 9,20 Mill. € Juanmi Real Sociedad 5,00 Mill. € Gastón Ramírez Middlesbrough Free Transfer Paulo Gazzaniga Rayo Vallecano Loan Sam Gallagher Blackburn Loan A mixed bunch really. The ones who were good for us have mostly done well and the ones who were poor for us have mostly done badly. I think all players like to get their opportunity to play for the biggest club they can at some stage in their career. It's a shame that there was so much acrimony surrounding the sale of players during the Les Reed era. Hopefully, that will improve now as It would be good if we could welcome back the ones for whom we were their right level, who'd had their shot at the big time, like we did with Channon. Wanyama, for example, would be a real asset.

My guess is that Ralph will have one priority in this window, which may supersede even positional considerations. and that is to inject more pace into our squad and the link with Joakim Mæhle, exemplifies that. With a couple more players who can control the ball at pace, a team playing his style of football could get even better results than they've been getting lately.

He was Fulham's best player today. It would be great to get him back here. As you say, he is younger than Stephens, Ward-Prowse and Redmond, and he already has 3 England caps. He's versatile, as he can play, centre back, right back or defensive midfield. He's got a lot of potential and I think Ralph would improve him a lot. Sell Hoedt and bring Chambers back!

Great performance. The whole team played well and looked much better organised than Everton. We're becoming a bit of a bogey team for Everton at St Mary's, having won 6 of our last 7 home games against them. Ralph seems to have greatly improved every one of our players and Ward-Prowse and Stephens now seem to be going through the same transformation as Redmond into really good Premier League players. I'm happy to admit I was wrong about JWP. I never thought he'd become this good. Redmond, Ward-Prowse and even Stephens could well get a few England caps between them in the future. Exciting times for Saints fans. Saints win and Pompey lose again and if we keep going like this we could finish above Brighton and Bournemouth. Long may it continue like this.

On a couple of occasions he showed he had a very good shot and and the potential to become our dead-ball specialist. I always thought he might be good at taking our free-kicks around the penalty area, instead of Ward-Prowse, who always seems to kick them a yard high and wide of the goal. But, to be fair, Ward-Prowse has now learned how to hit penalties with power so perhaps he will also learn how to score from free-kicks. Boufal is a skilful player. But, you need players who can make a consistent contribution for a whole season and the stats show that, like Gaston Ramirez, Boufal just doesn't last. Celta Vigo are in a relegation battle and their results are getting worse. I'm not sure they'll persist with him much longer. https://www.transfermarkt.com/sofiane-boufal/leistungsdaten/spieler/232271

Oh yes, I forgot that we have sent players like Carrillo, Boufal and Clasie, who we spent £53 million on, out on loan, which reinforces my original point that we have wasted a lot of money in the transfer market in recent years on players other clubs would pay little or nothing for. I doubt that Carrillo, Clasie, Hoedt or Vestergaard would get into the Derby team; Boufal might for a few games but not over a whole season. We are also allowed to take players on loan. Chelsea have so many promising youngsters that they will loan them out to anyone outside the top 6, including us if we want them. We had Bertrand on loan from them and if we’d wanted Tomori on loan instead of spending £15 million on Hoedt, for example, we could have done as they’ve previously loaned him out to Brighton. Instead we've wasted money again and will end up having to loan Hoedt out to another club, the same as we did with Carrillo. Trousers, as for the current real value of our players, the fact that we'd struggle to find another club prepared to pay any transfer fee at all for many of them indicates they are mostly worth a lot less than we paid for them. But, as I said, hopefully, Ralph will now bring some much-needed common sense to the club's transfer activity.

Trousers, in the Derby post-match thread you said it would be interesting to compare the cost of the Saints and Derby starting XIs. According to the figures on transfermarkt, the entire Derby starting XI in that replay cost a grand total of £13 mill in transfer fees, which is less than we paid for Elyounoussi, while the Saints starting XI cost £81 mill in transfer fees. The Derby players are also be on considerably lower wages than ours. In that thread, several posters said we did well to match such a strong Derby team over two legs, when we fielded such a weak team. Of course, both teams had players who'd come through their academies. But, you can see that we have not been getting value for money in the transfer market of late. Hopefully, Ralph will bring some much-needed common sense to our transfer activity henceforth. 21Roos 37Bogle 6Keogh 5Tomori 46Malone 4Bryson 44Huddlestone 8Mount 9Waghorn 14Marriott 7Wilson 28Gunn 66Ramsay 5Stephens 4Vestergaard 2Cédric 14Romeu 16Ward-Prowse 51Johnson 11Elyounoussi 17Armstrong 7Long

Sam looked the same as he's always looked: quite skilful for a big man but lacking the pace a Premier League striker needs nowadays. One or two people seem to think he wasn't trying hard enough last night but he was. It's just his lack of pace which makes it look as though he isn't busting a gut to get to the ball but he is. He just gets outpaced by defenders. Admittedly, he's not as slow as Vestergaard, who must be the slowest player currently in the Premier League, but he's still not quick enough at this level. I like Sam a lot and always thought he looked great playing in our Academy teams, especially when his goals helped us win the U23 Premier League Cup in 2015 but he's not the Premier League striker we need. One quality I'm sure Ralph will be looking for in any new players he brings in is pace because he must be only too aware by now of how many slow players we have accumulated in our squad.

Some people who are posting in this thread don't seem to have noticed who was actually playing last night as they think we fielded some sort of youth team against Derby's first team which means drawing with them was a good result. In fact, this was our team: 28Gunn 66Ramsay 5Stephens 4Vestergaard 2Cédric 14Romeu 16Ward-Prowse 51Johnson (Redmond at 45 minutes) 11Elyounoussi 17Armstrong 7Long Total cost in transfer fees, according to transfermarkt: €103 million Once Redmond had replaced Johnson at half-time, it was one of the strongest teams we currently have available from our first team squad. Nearly all of them have played in our Premier League team this season and cost a hell of a lot more than Derby's team did in both transfer fees and wages. Yes, we had injuries and suspensions but so do all teams at this time of year, including Derby, so that is no excuse. The point is, we have wasted a fortune in assembling a first team squad with a lot of players who are only Championship standard. I believe we have a very good manager but our squad needs a lot of strengthening.

Two very evenly-matched teams, which, as Derby are a Championship side who had only won 1 of their previous 7 games, is indicative of the general lack of quality in our squad. Some of our players would struggle to get into a good Championship side.

Cortese was a specialist sports investment banker and a very good one at that. After selecting SFC as the ideal club for Markus, he helped turn his initial £12 mill investment into a quarter of a billion for Kat, because, as well as the £210 mill she got from Gao, she still owns 20% of the club. There can be very few other owners in history who have made as big a profit as that out of a football club. They say you have to speculate to accumulate and it's highly likely he would have made her even more money than that, if she'd been prepared to invest more in his ambitious plans. I know there are plenty of people on here who absolutely hated him but one thing you can't deny is that he gave the Liebherr's brilliant financial advice and helped make them a lot of money.

We can't afford to compete with Bournemouth for a player. But, I'm not sure that's such a bad thing in this case as Orban might be a better option anyway.

The rumour that we are about to sign another Moroccan Norwegian has resurfaced. His name is Omar Elabdellaoui. He has played in England before, having played a few games for Hull in 2017 but was dropped for several months after their 4-0 defeat to Everton so he didn't play in the 0-0 draw at St Mary's. He was then brought back for their final Premier League game before they were relegated, a 7-1 home defeat to Spurs. They didn't extend his loan deal after that so he went back to playing in the Greek league.

That should read 'pacy striker'. Got carried away with the fact that he is the top scorer in Belgium this season. Let's hope we get him.

Wow! A pacy scorer who scores goals. Just what we need.

Well, in the first half of it there was, as we hadn't made enough money from player sales to buy anyone. But, hopefully, there will be a case for signing someone in the final 2 weeks of it. If we can only spend what we have made from sales so far in the window, the budget is still pretty limited though, so I expect the club will be trying to sell more players to clarify how much will be available to buy one or more.

What a great, backs to the wall performance that was. Ralph certainly knows how to get the best out of our players and he really has brought the fun back to supporting Saints. Bring on Derby and Leicester. Meanwhile at Leicester: https://www.foxestalk.co.uk/topic/118104-puel-in-out-poll-120119/?page=6

Did you notice Boro's Dael Fry? I first saw him play when he was the outstanding player in a game against our U23s. He would be ideal for us. He's the best young central defender in the Championship. Also, in all this talk of young central defenders, let's not forget we already have a very good prospect in Christoph Klarer. The list of honours Fry has already won is impressive, including an U20 World Cup winner's medal: International England U-17 UEFA European Under-17 Championship champions: 2014 England U20 Tournoi Under-20 Four Nations champions: 2017 FIFA Under-20 World Cup champions: 2017 England U21 Toulon Tournament champions: 2018 Individual LFE Football Excellence XI: 2014-15 MDSA Middlesbrough Young Player of the Year: 2015–16 MOSC Middlesbrough Young Player of the Year: 2015–16 Ramsdens February Player of the Month: 2015–16 MDSA Middlesbrough Young Player of the Year: 2016-17 MOTD September Young Lion of the Month: 2017-18 Toulon Tournament Best XI: 2018

Great performance from the whole team. These backs-to-the-wall away victories are the most satisfying. Ralph really is an inspirational manager who gets the absolute best out of our players. Players I didn't think had it in them to play that well, like Long, Targett, Vestergaard and Ward-Prowse, do for Ralph. It's amazing how much the departure of one man and the arrival of another has transformed our team. Bring on Derby, Everton and the rest of the season. Saints winning away and Pompey losing at home is how things should be. Long may they continue like this.

It's more an issue of how bad our transfer activity has been in recent years that we've ended up with a squad as poor as this. It's going to take several transfer windows to strengthen this squad.

There are so many weak links in that side that it has to be one of the poorest teams we've ever fielded in the top flight. Let's hope Ralph can perform miracles with it.

Interesting that. I just had a look at his stats and the last league point won by a Shane Long goal, i.e. a game where we wouldn't have got that point without his goal, was nearly 3 years ago, February 2016, at Swansea and before that you'd have to go back to 2015 at Newcastle. So, on the few occasions he has scored in league games it's not made much difference.

But, how on earth are we going to get rid of him? No other club would pay a fee for him, would they? I guess the best hope is that we can persuade another club to take him on loan if we agree to pay part of his wages. It really makes you wonder why we spent so much money in transfer fees and wages on players like Hoedt, Elyounoussi, Carrillo, Boufal and Vestergaard.

He worked with Puel at Nice and seems to have made a lot of money from players sales. Nice are a relatively small club, who've been mid-table in Ligue 1 for a few years. They've changed managers a few times under Fournier. Some interesting player sales there including Nampalys Mendy, Neal Maupay, Jean Michaël Seri, Maxime Le Marchand, Saïd Benrahma, Alassane Plea,Jordan Amavi, Dalbert. The current Nice squad cost very little in transfer fees. It includes players like Balotelli and Wesley Sneijder brought in on free transfers as well as goalkeeper Mouez Hassen who was here on loan under Puel. For a club in the business of selling players, he looks like a good choice. He could help ensure our hold on the net spend trophy for years to come. https://www.transfermarkt.com/ogc-nizza/alletransfers/verein/417