Ex Lion Tamer

I'm not sure it's legal either. I've forgotten who now but there was a player who sued his club for this sort of treatment and won

How many of the 92 professional clubs in England do you think have owners that invest their own money? Only a fraction I'd suggest. Our problem is that it is becoming harder to compete in the Premier League but getting into unmanageable debt is not a good alternative

But if we keep stretching season after season then we'll go bust. Unless you can find a wealthy benefactor then the only option is to live within our means. What we do do is invest for future growth by focusing on young players with resell value - one biggie and everything will change.

I can't remember the thing 2 years ago but let's just wait a few weeks before we judge whether we bargained too hard on him this summer

It's difficult when the stats are a bit out of date, but another way of putting this is that Saints had (comfortably) the 5th highest wages/turnover ratio in the league. Transfermarkt currently has five teams with lower net spend than us over the past five seasons, though it could be skewed by the fact we're part way through this window https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/premier-league/fuenfjahresvergleich/wettbewerb/GB1 Clearly our owner is not putting money in but I'm not sure we're any better or worse than other clubs with owners that can't afford to invest their own money

Get all your signings done weeks before the end of the window. Pay whatever the selling club is asking for to make this happen. Equally, sell players for whatever a buying club's initial offer is in case they don't come back with a better one. Prioritise players who used to play for the club. Ideally they will be over the age of 33. Aim for Scandinavian players as we've had some good ones in the past. Avoid South American players as we've had some bad ones in the past. Full backs must not be smaller than 6ft. Make sure any centre backs and defensive midfielders have a track record of shouting a lot. Make 6+ signings in total even if that means having to go for cheaper, average players. Spend more than the club can afford. Anything else?

We were only 7th last summer so we've got some improving to do https://www.football365.com/news/transfers-premier-league-net-spend-table-2020 We actually look on course to have a similar net spend this year, maybe even a bit more

It's amazing that the club does some good, hard-nosed negotiating to get a bigger fee and people think that's a bad thing

I think a lot of people are going to be disappointed if they think we're going to sign another centre back to replace Vest. This is it unless Stephens goes as well

Beasant

Also, perhaps we have £10m to spend on Armstrong and need £4m to make a larger bid.

Salisu has substantial experience in La Liga and won't be staying on the bench for another year. Our strategy is (often) to grow players so that after a year or so they are ready to step up when first teamers leave

We effectively replaced Vest last summer when we signed Salisu. And now we're signing Simeu to hopefully become a regular in 22/23

Looks like he's got a nice long pass on him

This does sound plausible but correct me if I'm wrong, wasn't our strategy at one stage to have two left footers and two right footers covering centre back? This leaves us just with Salisu

Which of our potential signings would you go without to generate funds for another keeper?

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I don't know the answer to your question but as far as I'm aware he hasn't pulled up any trees at Newcastle so perhaps there's something deeper there

I find it amusing how right wingers will talk forever about governments needing to cut spending and make sacrifices so we live within our means but the same doesn't seem to apply to football clubs

If we don't have any money then what are we supposed to do? Magic some up? Put the club at risk by getting in unaffordable debt? It seems very unlikely that we are blind to the issues at GK

I can think of players who were denied a move by their club and so underperformed, but not ones who were just running down their contracts?

This surely ought to be what the club's financial loan is for. If Ings leaves now or next summer, or even if he signs a new contract, we're going to need to sign a striker at some stage, so let's do it now. It's also an investment in that we may well get a transfer fee for him in the future if he's any good.

I'm sure we could afford Williams' loan fee, we just don't think it's fair value

I read it that we're not going to place any more bids until later in the window when Blackburn will have to drop their asking price

I think we have to sign Armstrong this summer and then see if Ings stays or goes