Saint Albert

I enjoyed this.

Everton now risk losing him on a free if he choses to go abroad in January. Interesting also that Levy appears to have ****ed off another football club. Everton refused to negotiate with him over Barkley: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2017/08/31/ross-barkley-turns-chance-join-chelsea-everton-refuse-negotiate/

As you can imagine, that comment has gone down like a lead balloon on RAWK.

They may be moping around right now but the scouses have had a decent window overall. Shame about their CBs...

If Holland feel like a change of managers would help with qualifying from this difficult group, I believe that the chap in charge of Everton is Dutch.

The VVD story this summer has attracted ITK bull**** artists like flies to a turd. Hopefully all those Twitter insiders etc are feeling a little sheepish now. I'm a little worried this nonsense will all start again in January, because it really is tiresome. Hopefully VVD can behave himself at least until next summer.

I'd try and reintegrate him right away. He gets on OK with Pellegrino, according to Pellegrino. He has no reason to act like a jackass now, surely.

Liverpool's Sakho apparently off to Palace for £26M pending medical.

I think that it would be really positive if he can get a full season under his belt with Newcastle. I'll be watching their games with interest now.

Some fellow from the Guardian tweeted that Lemar to Arsenal is off because there is no time to agree to terms with the player and no time to do a medical, because of the France game today.

Targett to Newcastle is done according to Not606's resident ITK.

I'll second this comment. Ads seem to have an adverse effect on my iPad.

The fellow who broke the original Theo to Saints in part exchange for VVD story then scoffed his own rumour by reporting that it was a non-starter because he wanted £180k per week and we would only offer £130k. I can't see us offering him £130k PW. Arsenal were reportedly looking to shed some players this summer to control their wage bill in an effort to re-sign big earners like Ozil while still complying with the PL's salary cap system. Theo has a contract until 2019 according to Transfermarkt. He's been a bit part player with them so far this season. Those speak in favour of him going somewhere I suppose, and also potentially Raheem Stirling going to Arsenal in exchange for Sanchez. Not much else does, especially in light of all the other players who have left Arsenal or are on their way out. Things aren't looking too great for the gunners right now.

I can't see any of the following happening: Walcott wanting to come here, Saints paying his wages and Arsenal wanting to sell him.

I don't blame them for that.

It seems to me that pretty much everything on Twitter is bull****. Except for Le Tissier. He's doing sterling work winding up the Liverpool supporters and some of the Twitter "ITKs" today.

It is surely too late to sell, no matter what rabbits Liverpool attempt to pull out of the hat at the last minute. Hopefully the club will keep their resolve, VVD knuckles down for this season and he returns to first team training after the international break.

Grzegorz Krychowiak seems like a great loan signing for WBA. I wonder what's happening with Nacer Chadli?

That piqued my interest as well. Do they have any players worth looking at?

The Saints not being able to defend set pieces bit probably comes from a chart that has been doing the rounds on various sites this summer. If I remember correctly, it shows that during the Klopp era Saints have conceded more set piece goals than Liverpool, and Liverpool and Saints have two of the worst records for set piece goals conceded in the PL. I'm not really sure how helpful the stats are. VVD is clearly a beast in the air.

According to Bascombe in the Telegraph: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2017/08/29/liverpool-hope-spend-140million-final-days-transfer-window/

So the Liverpool supporters have been getting all excited about VVD over the last few days without any evidence Saints have changed their position re selling VVD to them. All we have seen recently is Liverpool's usual tricks of briefing pet journos such as James Pearce at the Liverpool Echo about their interest in him and the amounts they're willing to pay, presumably in an effort to ratchet up the pressure on Saints or to keep VVD keen in case Chelsea or Arsenal come calling for him. Aside from that it's all just fake Twitter ITKs, doctored e-mails about fake scheduled medicals and some form of mass hysteria concerning private jets and silver Mercedes people carriers. 11 p.m. on Thursday can not come soon enough.

Andy Hunter on the Guardian's transfer page reckons that Saints are so far standing firm in refusing to sell VVD to Liverpool.

If he was going to leave anyway I would have preferred that we avoid this summer's nonsense as well, and the club could have reinvested the money for other players in a less hurried manner. However, in May VVD was being described as a £50 million player. Now with the transfer market going berserk over the summer, the talk in the press is anything from that to £75 million. It is entirely possible that the club has made a tidy profit just by waiting to the end of the window. I still would prefer that the club maintained its not for sale position.