Nordic Saint

We still need more. We're level on goal difference but Belgium are ahead of us on goals scored. A draw with Belgium would see them win the group.

You're a bit behind the times. He passed the retirement age of 65 last year and he hasn't bothered to keep himself in good shape. He's getting fatter and lazier. I guess he think he's on to a good thing if he can keep drawing a big salary and expenses until he's 70.

You have a great owner. No doubt. We have a part owner who sold 80% of the club for a quarter of a billion pounds for herself and another who had to borrow the money to pay her because he doesn't have any spare cash. We are told that we have to sell players before we can buy, and when we do buy, the money seems to get frittered away on mediocre players. So, in the last window we sold van Dijk and bought Carrillo. I am very impressed by what Leicester's owner has done. We can only hope that one day we get one like that.

I hope Kat thanked Cortese for helping her to make a billion pounds out of our football club. There can be very few owners in the history of football who have made that much money from a football club.

I don't think he has any money, which is why he had to borrow the money to buy the club. I can't find him on this Forbes list. The Wolves owner is 16th with $10B and his company is prospering but where is Gao Jisheng? https://www.forbes.com/sites/russellflannery/2017/11/15/chinas-richest-2017-the-full-list-of-400-billionaires/#417f0f1a296b

Most of Gao's money is tied up in Lander Sports Development, of which he is the founder and majority shareholder. Their share price seems to be falling fast and he is beginning to sell some of his shares to raise capital. I don't know how much trouble they are in but their share price is less than half what it was 12 months ago, which essentially means he is worth less than half what he was last year. But, worse still, from a high of 21.33 yuan in 2015, Lander Sports Development's shares are now worth just 3.72 yuan, and their price is still plummeting. It went down another 7.46% today. I don't claim to know much about finance but it looks to me as though he is in real trouble. https://www.bloomberg.com/quote/000558:CH

We don't know yet. As in the January window, we'll have to wait until the end of the transfer window to find out. We do tend to sell early in transfer windows and buy late though, which I guess is an accounting move to save on wages and maybe it's the only way the recruitment department can get the cash they need to buy players.

The difference is Leicester really wanted to keep their players whereas SFC didn't. Players like Mane, Wanyama and van Dijk were bought with the intention of selling them on for profit. Leicester's owner was more interested in building a successful football team than making money out of them.

Very funny. He wouldn't even be good enough for Eastleigh.

We won't. Another squad player from a continental club, like Carrillo, Boufal, Bednarek or Hoedt, would be more likely if the evidence of our recent transfer windows is anything to go by. If we get Gibson, he'll be our best signing of the last two years.

Yes, he is very good. He will be a great signing if we get him.

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.