qwertyell

Links to Mulligan and O'Hare. What a time to be alive.

25% sell on clause to Man City, supposedly, to bear in mind too.

Bit quiet on the links front.

Story of Tino's career, unfortunately. He had so much promise, but his body will prevent him reaching his potential.

Looks like George Kift (14 year old turning out for the u18s) has been poached from the academy. Don't know why we bother with academies anymore. Any kid showing the slightest promise gets hoovered up by City or Chelsea.

Stewart, Livramento, Mane, Van Dijk, Sugawara, Caleta-Car, Koeman, Poch

Even taking it as face value, I'm not sure we need another small, lightweight midfielder - especially with the assumption that Charles will be leaving.

It's a doctored picture of Cyle Larin signing on loan in January. From the same shoot: You've got to be pretty sad to mock up a fake signing photo. Sadder still to believe it. Not quite as sad as bothering to do the work to debunk it, though.

It is what it is. I was hoping we'd try and upgrade our striker options in any case - Larin is a solid addition, but Archer and Downs are no good. Should focus our attention now we have confirmation.

Any takers for Illan Meslier on a free as back up keeper? Lost his way after early promise, but a good age, 26, with plenty of experience. Vaguely remember him supposedly being shown around Staplewood before opting to join Leeds, way back when.

Charles brings a different physical profile to an otherwise identikit midfield roster. We were supposedly very close to signing Issa Doumbia from Venezia last summer - that ship has sailed: he joined Sporting Lisbon for €20m last week - so seemingly recognised the need for some height, power, and dynamism in the middle of the park. If Charles leaves, those qualities need to be replaced.

From memory (everything's a hazy memory these days), I vaguely remember talk about Saints not considering Moody for the first team third keeper's slot last season because it would impact his availability for the U21s too much, and he needs games. I imagine that will still be the thinking this season. Ollie Wright might be an option now, with a season of League Two football, and around 100 senior games all told, under his belt.

I'm not certain there's much of a market for Ramsdale - he's a ten-a-penny keeper on huge wages coming off an underwhelming loan at a lower mid-table premier league side. You're not signing him for £15m+ and a big salary unless he's going to be first choice. Looking at that league, I can only realistically see Leeds perhaps trying to get a new number one in, and possibly a promoted team, if Coventry can't make Rushworth's loan permanent. He'll probably end up being loaned out again. No idea how there could be any market for Bazunu, after being consistently rubbish for us and two successive rubbish loans. Who's buying him, and why? The only team stupid enough to pay money for him already owns him.

Bree, Stewart, Conservatory.

He's floated a number of different versions of events over the last few weeks. I wouldn't take anything as his final answer just yet. He's still got a phone a friend and a 50-50. It really would be remarkable for us to have spied only three times and been caught bang to rights on each occasion. I hope there isn't more damaging stuff to come, but thought it was notable in his video the manager omitted to say the three spying missions were the only times we've done it - just the times we were charged for.

Less concerned about that than what the FA investigation might turn up, to be honest. If he admits that we spied on more than the three reported occasions - or the FA happen upon that information - then surely that gets passed back to the EFL and we get more sanctions.

Nice of him to pipe up eventually. I found it a bit grubby, though. After the CEO lied and tried to throw an intern under the bus, and then the manager lied about not knowing the rules, it's a bit sad that the owner has now doubled down on the manager's lies, and hand waved away the CEO's lies as being due to the time constraints placed on them to respond to the charges - and then later in the interview seems to imply that the intern should have been stronger in standing up to his bosses. It doesn't quite display the "humility and accountability" that the club's response to this shitshow had promised. Maybe that was another lie too. It might be lost in translation, but repeatedly downplaying the six month campaign of repeated rule breaking as a "mistake" doesn't fill me with much hope of any change in culture. It's not a mistake, it's a choice. At least he's bothered to engage - I love that the first he knew about anything going on at the club he owns was by reading it on twitter. What a perfect summation of his leadership. But he's clarified for everyone what the plan is moving forward: keep Tonda and hope he doesn't get banned. It's not a mistake, it's a choice.

"Our responsibility now is to acknowledge what has happened, take ownership of the lessons it brings, and use this experience to strengthen our judgement, discipline, and integrity moving forward together as a club." No longer promising "accountability" I notice.

Perhaps the club could set up some kind of Fan Advisory Board? They'd have to come up with a different name, though, as it's currently being used by the Fan Advisory Board.

Someone at Saints is writing this down. Wrongly.

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I was joking, by the way.

Ah, so there is another, more understandable, version of events - which they cunningly decided not to elaborate on during the actual EFL hearing and the appeal, which consisted of them admitting to all charges, and lying about the manager not understanding the rules. It's good that they've held back the real details until after everyone's had a nice holiday and it makes no difference whatsoever.

"You see that dock out there? Built it myself, hand crafted each piece, and it's the best dock in town! But do they call me 'McGregor the dock builder'? No!" "And you see that bridge over there? I built that, took me two months, through rain, sleet and scorching weather, but do they call me 'McGregor the bridge builder'? No!" "And you see that pier over there, I built that, best pier in the county! But do they call me 'McGregor the pier builder'? No!" "But you fuck one sheep..."

The way the club is run, I could certainly believe everyone has fucked off on holiday and they'll "figure it all out" when they return for pre-season.