Dusic

https://twitter.com/FabrizioRomano/status/1481197257949163528 @FabrizioRomano: Saints manager Hasenhuttl on Broja future: "We'd love to extend his stay here, he likes it. He wants to be with us, you can feel this in every moment". 🔴 #SaintsFC ...but Chelsea are already planning with talented Armando Broja as part of their future project. #CFC https://t.co/Zeq4u4evRL -------- Fabrizio is usually on the money. Would be personally very suprised if he doesn't start next season at Chelsea. The loan is working out perfectly for them, for Broja and for Saints. But it also shows the problem with loans - you get attached to players that aren't yours!

If I were Broja I wouldn't be committing to anything at this point and would be fancying a crack at breaking into Chelsea's squad next season, which is very realistic.

Kegs and Simeu

Because its not Football Manager, its real life. As it would be McCarthy's third contract with us and he has been our no1 for about 3 years I would imagine he is on a first team regulars wage. No chance he will be accepting less money this time around, so he will be getting paid a first team GK wage. I am 99% sure whichever GK we sign will be on less cash than McCarthy.

As McCarthy is seemingly signing a new contract we can only assume that we will be signing a young no2 keeper 'to push him' rather than an obvious first choice. Likely in the summer as we already have 3 senior keepers. Otherwise we have the same situation as now where our backup keeper is one of the highest paid players, which for a club like Saints is clearly stupid.

He has also played further forward for Liverpool but I agree, seems a strange one unless Livramento's injury was suddenly bad, and Ralph didnt seem as concerned today. If he wants regular game time I don't think he would get that with us, apart from maybe for a couple of weeks now.

It was a foul every day of the week in that kind of position. If he didnt want a second yellow he should have let him go, as he wasnt getting the ball anyway. First lunge so early in the game was stupid. I think he has run out of chances now.

Deserved win. Swansea were crap, even if we weren't great we still had more quality when it counted. They were very nice to play against. JWP great shift at RB and Long very good as a sub. Stuart Armstrong gives the ball away too much in the centre. But ultimately...imagine Ralph will be very pissed off with Valery. Unprofessional and made what looked like a comfortable game into a massive slog.

Would imagine he wants to get away from Staplewood to be honest.

Maybe so. But for us to go for someone like Johnstone then we should allow both Forster and McCarthy's contracts to expire, sign Johnstone and a younger keeper. The fact we have seemingly agreed to extend McCarthy's deal suggests its unlikely we will sign a senior keeper for the reasons above.

Seeing as we have agreed a new deal for McCarthy, I don't see us going for Johnstone or any keeper of that seniority. Would make no real sense to lose one big earning sub in Forster and then sign someone who would mean the same happens to either Johnstone or (more likely) McCarthy. I would imagine we will sign a 20-23yr old keeper who we feel can challenge McCarthy, and who will be on modest money. Its then easy to find an older keeper willing to be a no3 like Caballero and thats ideal because in the event they are needed to play they actually can, unlike when you have Harry Lewis who is a pointless 3rd keeper as they know he is essentially unselectable.

Our success rate with EFL loans in the last few years is shocking. Do we continually pick the wrong clubs or are the players not even good enough at L1/L2 level?

Would imagine it would be used in a fairly similar way to how Brighton use Union Saint-Gilloise, who are now top of the Belgian league after being promoted last season. Their new Polish midfielder has signed and gone straight there on loan to join a Japanese player who did the same in the summer. A club in a country like Belgium, Holland, Poland, Austria is probably ideal.

Given its been widely reported that Gao has been under financial pressure to sell Saints, and indeed has done so at a substantial loss, its interesting to also hear Semmens say that its easy to find investors but not easy to find good ones. The Liebherr veto could well have stopped us from being sold to any old shyster (assuming SR are better of course) as without that surely Gao would have sold a while back to the first person to stump up the cash.

For those suggesting Eriksen and Ramsey - have you missed the entire strategy of Saints somehow? Re Broja - worth remembering he will have a say and quite legitimately I'm sure he will want to have a proper crack at Chelsea. No chance anything happens with him til later in the summer window, if at all.

Slighly reassuring to have some current football expertise involved. But not keen on being part of a multi club system.

Presume KL will retain her share then. Good that something is happening...all we can do is hope that this guy is better than Gao because that is far from certain...

Burnley always seem to get into a difficult position and then have a run where they win 3 from 4 so Im not totally writing them off just yet. Newcastle will improve as they will sign good players so I think they will stay up comfortably enough in the end. One of Leeds, Everton, Saints, Palace, Villa, Brentford coukd possibly be dragged into it but would need a second half of the season like ours last year plus one of the current bottom four to have a great run, so seems unlikely.

Couple of points: 1. Chelsea will not be signing Digne for 40m and probably not on any permanent deal 2. Patterson may end up being a good signing for Everton and at the kind of money being mentioned its a relatively low fee for a rich club so they won't mind paying that if he does well NB - no disagreement here that Livramento top value, but he is probably the exception rather than the rule.

James Hill would be exactly the type of signing we should make in January. We aren't going to sign anyone who will improve our starting XI within our budget, and we have a pretty deep squad with few injuries and at this stage are not in pannic mode and about where we should be given squad quality & investment. A player like Hill is very highly rated, could be loaned back to Fleetwood to join for pre season. If our scouts rate him and the fee is right then its a no brainer. As an aside BHA just about to sign a Poland Intl midfielder (18) for £8m and leave him where he is for now - those kind of fees are chicken feed/gamble money and Hill would be a lot less.

Probably waiting for a double unveiling of our new NFT fan engagement token.

They can easily say that some/all of those are not over the effects of covid. I don't think they will be rushing them back somehow. Given we would likely be missing three of our usual back four anyway it wouldnt be a total disaster if it gets the chop.

Must be a very small chance of this game going ahead I would imagine as obviously the PL decided the Everton game couldnt go ahead and rightly or wrongly I don't see how the situation will be different by Sunday and NUFC clearly better off were it to be postponed. Probably get a confirmation today/tomorrow of it being off.

Newcastle have 4 (four) covid cases apparently.

Tenacious, tidy on the ball and good cross. Just not as dynamic as Livramento or as silky as KWP.