qwertyell

How has he managed to spell Kyle wrong? That doesn't auger well.

Wouldn't get a work permit. So if we are in for him, it's with the immediate intent to loan him out (probably to Goztepe) to a stronger league until he earns enough points to qualify for a WP - as happened with Matsuki.

Alejandro Rodriguez gets his first senior goal for Lyon in the Europa League, aged 17. Think he'll be a better player than Ballard over the longer term. Not for us, of course. Don't be silly.

He's supposedly about to join Inter and be loaned back to Hajduk Split for the rest of the season. Barcelona have also been sniffing around. I mean, he might've grown up with posters of Florin Gardos on his wall, and be an active participant in the West Quay facebook community, but even then I doubt joining one of the weaker Championship sides would be top of his destination preferences. That being said, he's a very decent prospect. Big lad, but athletic, strong in the air, physical, aggressive, moves pretty well, comfortable on the ball, good positional sense for his age. None of that sounds like a Saints player.

Don't see why not. In a classic 4-3-3, before everyone went all double-pivot, Downes sits and Jander and Charles play as 8s supporting defence and attack. Gives us more presence and workrate in the centre of the park than having to carry Azaz as the ghostly 10 who may or may not turn up sporadically, depending on if he feels like it.

Didn't know Princewill had returned from his loan. Didn't he have a problem with his arse or something? 6' 3" striker, though, so maybe we can find a use for him in some capacity. Busted arse notwithstanding.

Birmingham in for August Priske for £6m. Along with Robin Roefs and Younes Ebnoutalib, clearly other clubs are heeding my renowned scouting expertise (absolute shite suggestions in my post history are obviously due to being hacked), but not Saints. It's almost like they don't want to succeed.

Fuck it. Go young. We've tried everything else. Let's see what the likes of Dobson-Ventura, Sanda, Sesay, Bragg, Robinson, and Oyekunle are all about. The worst that can happen is we'll be shit and lose. That's happening anyway.

Only if the leagues are out of sequence, I believe. For example, the MLS new season doesn't start until February. He could theoretically join them. But three European teams in a season? Nope.

To be fair, he hadn't been born.

40 goals conceded gives us the joint second worst defence in the division. So many defensive players who are "fine for this league" as well. I don't blame the manager - he's just as ineffective as his predecessors. The rot set in long before he came here. Should've nuked the site from space in the summer and rebuilt from scratch. Losers permeate every nook and cranny of the club. Until they're gone, there's no hope of moving forwards.

Everton, West Ham, and Leeds have been linked, and quoted £31m, supposedly. I mean, he might prefer 15th in the Championship, but persuading AZ to accept shirt buttons and a season pass to SeaCity Museum is a long shot.

A goal every 13.5 games. We've only got 20 games left. Big and strong might be handy if we were looking for a bouncer. Everyone over 5' 7" and 10 stone causes havoc against us. I think that's more of an us thing than an indicator of their quality.

You said he was a "proven top championship player." Based on half a season at a Championship club who were 15th when he joined, 15th when he left, and conceded more goals with him in the side than out of it. He might go on to be a world beater. But then so could literally anyone, if that hypothetical scenario doesn't require any supporting evidence.

"I'm basically just a chilled out entertainer."

It's a mess whatever the combination. Quarshie has the physical attributes, but is a danger to himself and everyone else technically, Harwood-Bellis is supposed to be a leader but can't lead. They should be the partnership to build up, but you wouldn't trust them as far as you can throw them.

Doesn't matter if it's three, four, or five at the back. This is not a good squad. Not balanced. Not "fine" for whatever level we've deluded ourselves that we belong at. Experienced managers, inexperienced managers, and work experience managers have all run up against the same brick wall: these players aren't worth a damn.

Might as well find a use for Ankersen by drawing on his Scandinavian contacts. August Priske, Daniel Karlsbakk, Robbie Ure, Stefan Ingi Sigurdason might be in our affordability/willing-to-join-this-shitshow range. Might even turn out to be relatively good. But probably not. But they are tall.

Where have they gone now he's available for peanuts?

I think this is a bit of a myth. QPR fans liked him enough to vote him young player of the season, but I'm not sure they had many other young players to choose from. On the pitch, their defensive record was worse with him in the team than without him. In a Saints shirt he's looked slow, weak, and poor in the air - and is justifiably 5th choice CB in a squad of appalling CBs. If we're serious about improving (it's a big if), he's not going to be an upgrade. So it makes sense to take the money and move on. If he goes on to be Bobby Moore, good luck to him. But he's not even nearly Jack Stephens at this stage, so fuck that.

Young player of the year at QPR - inheriting the title from Sinclair Armstrong, a striker who scored 3 goals in 61 games for them all told. Which is to say, perhaps the accolade isn't a huge indicator of quality. Could Edwards have featured more for us? Sure. But he's the slowest CB we have - even slower than Stephens - and the weakest in the air, which is not a great combination, and certainly not attributes an already slow and aerially weak defence are crying out for. "Touted as a future England international" means little when you consider "clowns" Stephens and Wood have played for England u21s too - and somehow Harwood-Bellis has a senior cap.

After his first game (Spurs away, I think), I said a couple of their goals were troubling - they'd gone in the middle third of the net, and he hadn't gotten anywhere near them. His weight distribution was also all wrong, always on his heels and falling backwards rather than diving across. Alarm bells were ringing. It didn't look right. He didn't look like a keeper. Anyway, here we are. Where do I collect my prize?

This season is our best chance of going up for a while, IMHO. It's not a strong Championship at all. Next season looks like Wolves, West Ham, Burnley will be in it, along with a Leicester who will presumably have served their points penalty and be back on fairly even financial ground. Making such a balls up of this campaign probably consigns us to the Championship for a number of years.

Is it that, or is it just a byproduct of teams being absolutely knackered at the back end (there's still two more rounds of PL games to cram in before the FA cup starts) of an over stuffed fixture schedule? Fast and dynamic football is the first thing to go when you can be neither fast nor dynamic. I managed to watch three games yesterday, and they were all 0-0. Great start to the year for me. But I didn't think anyone was afraid to attack, they were just all incredibly flat. That being said, Saints still managed to miss two injury time sitters to walk away with a forgettable 3 points. (For what it's worth, average goals per game in the PL this season so far is 2.77. Which, over the previous five completed seasons, is only better than 2020/21 (2.69), but not drastically below the average for the period of 2.91 goals per game.)