Ex Lion Tamer

Obviously we don't know how well Armstrong will step up but if he bags some goals and doesn't get injured all the time then he could end up being an upgrade on Ings

Dodd, Le Saux, lundekvaam were well past their best by that point and probably not premier League quality. Beattie left halfway through the season and his head was already out the door in the first half. Delap was always awful

I rated Fernandes. Keeping hold of the ball is a useful attribute and he was very good at it

It's easy to forget that our younger players will be improving each season so we're not necessarily the same team that we were last year

The problem with Venkys is they're so incompetent they may reject a bid that they ought to accept. But hopefully we've made a decent offer now and they'll take it

Why be negative about our current situation when we know we are going to bring players in?

Perraud, Tella, Salisu and yes, Adams, are all way too good for the championship. Then you've got the replacement for Ings who hopefully will be, and maybe another signing

Perhaps I've misrepresented the thread a bit there, but Sheffield United isn't a good comparison. They were team of championship level players who massively overachieved for one season and bought a striker who failed. We have a squad which needs some reinforcements but in essence it is a Premier League quality squad

If this thread is about predicting how we'll do next season, why would you base your prediction on our current squad?

So we're all agreed then that we won't sign any more players this window? Honestly the predictions in this thread are ridiculous. We'll get some players in and finish 12th to 16th

I find it surprising that a supposed historian is so unable to judge the validity of evidence that they are willing to take every half-arsed transfer rumour as fact. Let's see where we are at the end of the window

If Berge and Sorloth both have the same agent and we've been linked to both, I'd suggest it could be agent talk

You've never heard of a club having an owner who can't put in their own money so it has to be self-sustaining? 🤷 In fact you could argue we have spent above our means because we've taken out that loan to get us through covid. Your thing about Gao not being engaged is a red herring. He just doesn't speak to the public. It's in his interest as much as ours that the club doesn't get relegated, there's no way he's just ignoring us. What he has done is delegated a lot of decision making to people he trusts

Leadership is also about resisting the urge to panic and make dangerous decisions

If we run ourselves well then we can compete in mid table in the Premier League. If we don't then we'll get relegated. Twas ever thus really

No one has had an offer accepted and if they do, I'm sure Armstrong's agent will let Saints know about it so we can match it. There's really no rush when can try to get the price down

Examples?

I do the think the speed with which the transfer happened will have blindsided the comms team a bit. They'll have had a choice of working extra hours to get a dedicated story out, or just work something up quickly from Ralph's interview. No brainer really.

It's not necessarily a bad thing to push a falling out if we knew he wouldn't sign a deal and we wanted him to go

I have a bridge to sell and I see many potential buyers on this forum

I obviously have no idea about the terms of the add-ons but I imagine they rarely get paid in full

I think the transfer happened very quickly because Villa wanted to get it done before Grealish goes. There was talk of it being done in 24 hours. The fee may have been conditional on getting it done quickly. No time to prepare social media activity. Saints will have said to him we've had a good bid from Villa and we want you to take it please seeing as you're not signing a new contract. Danny could have dug his heels in but evidently decided he was up for the villa project, and also perhaps felt it would help the club if he could leave for a good fee

If £5m of the £30m is in add-ons then presumably Liverpool will get even less?

He flung down his shirt and seemed to mouth something like "What the fuck is going on? I'm done with this rabble!"