Nordic Saint

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

On the bright side, you might say: no other club would want to buy most of them.

If you look at Brighton's accounts, for example, you can see their annual revenue includes "owner's contributions". He also paid for their new stadium out of his own pocket whereas our club had to go into debt to pay for a new training ground.

It certainly has! That's why they replaced him. They had one of the worst defences in the Bundesliga when Vestergaard was there; now they have one of the best.

Excellent draw. There will be very few Premier League teams left in the 5th round after that draw so IF we beat Derby, we might get an easy passage to the final.

People who say Saints have never had one of the most intimidating home atmospheres obviously weren't around in the late 70s, when we did. To be honest, atmosphere is boosted enormously by winning a trophy and when we won our only major one it resulted in us having one of the best home atmospheres in the country for several years afterwards. 1977 was the peak, when there was deafening singing on all four sides of the Dell and away teams used to fear coming here. There was a similar effect at Leicester when they won the league, although in this all-seater era it's never going to be quite as intense as it was. It's difficult to judge the atmosphere at other grounds based solely on when they play us. It has to be assessed over the whole season. One thing is for sure, Liverpool historically have the best home record in English football and their kop has been a major factor in that since the 1960s, whether we like it or not. https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11095/9927450/do-not-publish-historys-top-home-team-is

It seems we caught on a bit late: BABY SHARK FOR MATTY CLARKE By Staff Reporter Friday 21 Sep 2018 08:15:00 Browse all News Stories articles A terrace chant has finally been bestowed upon Matthew Clarke. Witty blues on the road to Peterborough took to social media and local pubs to share their topical chant before kick-off. Baby Shark is a child's nursery rhyme which has gone viral around the world this September. Originating in Indonesia, the video has had over 1.6 billion views worldwide on Youtube, with celebrities fuelling the #babysharkchallenge on Twitter. And Pompey fans have pounced on the chant to fit it perfectly to Clarke's name. "It was ridiculous, there must have been a hundred or so of us singing Baby Shark at a football match. It was silly, the Peterborough lads were joining in. Great away day", said Liam Wells, 33, from Baffins. "It's not quite on par with the Kabamba song, but it tickled me, I have a new version to sing to my daughter now!" added Chris Sutton, 29, from Milton. "It's simple and effective, every player should get a song before kick-off, it's the way it was in the past", added Trevor Deacon on Facebook. https://www.otib.co.uk/index.php?/topic/196798-baby-shark/

They have been playing against 10-man teams. 7 teams have been given red cards against them so far this season.