Nordic Saint

But better than Bednarek.

I'll never be as arrogant as you, thank God.

I think you're right. We've moved ourselves down the pecking order by downsizing. If a top club came in for Maddison, I doubt he'd think twice about how close they were to Coventry.

Reading some of the posts lately, it appears that some fans on here now accept the board's view that we are such a small club that we can't hope to compete with other Premier League clubs for players and that we should be ever so grateful for even surviving in the top flight, below such clubs as Bournemouth, Brighton and Burnley. The club is just existing in survival mode, which to some is OK but to me it absolutely reeks of lack of ambition. We were so well placed from 2014 to 2016 to attract better players and further strengthen the squad that it's sad to see what incompetence and lack of ambition from the board and owners have led us to since. We really are not THAT small a club.

What a great signing Maddison would be! Is our recruitment back on track again? This is the first really positive sign for a long time. If the rumours about Gibson are also true then this could be our most positive transfer window since 2015. Perhaps Gao is not such a bad owner after all.

There's also Peter Shilton, 188 appearances for Saints in our most successful years, the early 1980s, and 125 England caps.

He only played 25 games for Saints before he went to Portsmouth.

Armstrong Ball Channon Davies Ellerington Fonte Gabriel Holmes Ireland Jordan Keegan Le Tissier Mane Niemi Osgood Paine Quashie Ramsey Shearer Traynor U Van Dijk Wright X Yoshida Z

Why on earth would you post that on a thread which is about other teams' transfer business this summer in response to a post I made about our former head of recruitment's latest transfer business at his new club this summer? I'll give you the benefit of the doubt this time and assume you are either drunk or have some personal issues.

Our former head of recruitment, Paul Mitchell, and his black box have made their first signings for RB Leipzig: Nordi Mukiele from Montpellier and Marcelo Saracchi from River Plate. http://www.getfootballnewsfrance.com/2018/prospect-nordi-mukiele/

Our success was largely due to our former Head of Recruitment, Paul 'Black Box' Mitchell, wo brought us the likes of Mane, Wanyama, Pelle, Bertrand, Lovren and Alderweireld and although van Dijk signed after Mitchell left, we'd already been linked with him. Mitchell's replacement, Ross Wilson, has been a failure. It goes to show that recruitment is largely determined by the appropriately named Head of Recruitment, not by Les Reed, who was happy to take the credit for Mitchell's work but has hidden to let Ralph take the flak for Wilson's failure. It will be interesting to see who RB Leipzig sign this summer as that's where Paul Mitchell and his black box work now.

No, he was in Kiev to watch Liverpool and I expect he'll be on his way to Russia to enjoy the Wrld Cup finals. He'll probably manage to squueze in another holday as well, like he did in January. Old Les knows how to enjoy life. You can see that from his ever expanding waistline.

Treasure that one. That's a club record signing.

Based on his malleolar injury, which kept him out for more than a month in 2014/15. his groin injuries iwhich kept him for months in 2015/16, his hamstring injury which kept him out out for weeks in 2016/17 and his knee injuries which kept him out for months in 2017/18. He managed just 15 league appearances in Scotland last season, although that's partly because he's no longer considered good enough to be a first team regular.

Another factor which could affect the Premier League's popularity in future is the rise of the Chinese Super League, with the money available and the massive number of local fans, potentially football's equivalent of the IPL.

If recent transfer windows are anything to go by, I fully expect us to try to sell 1 or 2 of our best players and bring in inferior ones. But, apart from Bertrand, we don't have anyone left now who'd attract a big transfer bid. Our best players have all all been sold already. Armstrong, an injury-prone player, surplus to requirements at Celtic could well be our first signing. The new Neil McCann?

"Armstrong failed to make a big impact at Celtic Park last season, only starting 15 league games for the club." More of a Hooiveld type signing than a van Dijk one. Let's hope there is no truth to the story because it looks like the downgrading in he quality of the squad is set to continue if we are looking to bring in players as mediocre as Armstrong.

He wasn't exactly given a hero's welcome by the club after he won the European Championship, was he? I think they'd already decided it was the last opportunity to get a big transfer fee for him. Then we got the usual club PR spin about how he was unsettling the rest of the team and something that sounded as though it came straight out of Les Reed's mouth, the oft-repeated "Billy big boll--ks," which was a load of boll--ks as Fonte has always struck me as being a very humble chap compared to most Premier League footballers. Les Reed has a bigger ego than Fonte.

Fonte won his 30th cap for Portugal tonight in, playing the full 94 minutes in a 0-0 draw against a Belgium team, which included Lukaku, De Bruyne and Hazard. It would be great to see him add a World Cup winner's medal to his European Championship winner's one. Although underrated by many Saints fans, he was the team leader and backbone of our rise from League One to the top 6 of the Premier League. He has arguably been our most influential defender and captain this century. Since his departure, we've not been the same.

83/84

Last season was dire. We became a bunch of losers who hardly ever won or even played well. A Pochettino The real choice is the 2015/16 season. At the end of that, we felt great.

Sounds like he's back from Kiev then. Let's face it, nobody's going to offer him another job, no matter how many he applies for. Looks like we're stuck with him.

The problem is that Hoedt wanders way out of position at crucial moments and then meanders back slowly, like Hooiveld used to, leaving other players, including Cedric and Bertrand, to cover fro him in the centre of defence.

His most effective position is midfield. He's only 23 but he always looks a real goal threat when played in an advanced position. He's got a hell of a shot and scored 6 goals in 8 PL2 games last season. There were times last season when I think he could have solved the first team's goalscoring problem. I'd prefer him to Redmond or Ward-Prowse.

Judging from Saints' last 2 transfer windows, I'm not so sure about that. All we got was Carrillo. The last window when the squad was really strengthened was back in the summer of 2015.