Ex Lion Tamer

Our only possible ace is if they want Obafemi on a perm more than they want Gray on loan

I think this sort of psychological profiling is really important but I'm wondering actually, how do you go about finding out if a player is a tosser?

Bad apples are so corrosive to the wider culture though. Look at the problems Sunderland had. One of the reasons Ralph has managed to improve us after Hughes is that he's got rid of anyone who isn't pulling for the team

If it was just about Ralph not fancying him then he would have got a move to a better club than Motherwell

In our first bad spell under Ralph, we played wing backs and we only managed to turn things around by switching to 4222. Going back to a failed formation would have been a disaster

This is where I disagree. On the latest available figures our wages/turnover ratio was comfortably the fifth highest in the league. That put us in a substantially worse position than others. And I'm not convinced other clubs had the sheer number of failed signings that we did. Perhaps someone can analyse it properly but the number of expensive duds we've been carrying has been ridiculous

Money obviously helps but it's also a bit of a red herring. We nearly got relegated because Pellegrino and Hughes were crap managers and we spent all our money on poor players.

We know that Gao isn't taking any money out of the club. We also know it's not in his interests to see the club relegated. So why people think the club is withholding money that it could be spending I simply don't know. Our finance director will be making a recommendation of how much it is safe to spend and frankly I'd be worried if Gao or Semmens decided to overrule him

A lot of players are out of contract next summer, and we're offloading a few of them this summer. I'm not saying we're going to be flush with cash or anything but we're getting better. We had the fifth highest wages/turnover ratio which wasn't sustainable

Because of the mistakes of the past which we're trying to rectify. Interestingly your description of the transfers you want are exactly what we're trying to do, except you seem to object to the fact that we have to wait a few weeks to offload some players

Our own club gambled on future revenues and ended up in administration. Amazing that fans want to go down that route again

We stayed up comfortably last season and are one of the longest serving teams in the division, certainly outside the big clubs

Looks that way doesn't it. To be fair, it's equally hysterical to say we'll definitely end up in League 1 if we spend within our means

Or we could spend beyond our means like Pompey/Bolton et al and also end up in League 1

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.