Chez

cheers, but my question was what would you do if he is asking £100k a week? Only he and the club know how much he currently earns, but I bet its more than £30k a week. Sportrac and the like haven't got a clue. Ts an example, they say Vokins is earning £21k a week while KWP is on £23k a week.

Sky Sports say as much, according to the tweet, posted on page 239.

its very definitive. So we allow his contract to wind down to one year then and hope he scores 20 goals to firm his selling price up. Maybe along the way we offer a new contract...

Fair enough. The question at the forum was specifically about him going out on loan, seen on twitter, and to me the response was clear, he was going nowhere full stop. Yes, the word `loan' was used in the answer, but it wasn't a carefully prepared answer or him choosing his words carefully to leave room for manoeuvre. To me, he was saying he was going nowhere. That was my take when I watched the forum, but I must say you make some fair points and the fact there is no long term deal in place this summer is quite telling. Loads of people saying `we should not sell, madness' etc, but yet to have one person answer my question (asked several times) : would you give him a five year £100k a week contract now? If not, what would your plan be? Two years left of his contract, and his value will start to reduce, unless of course he has a stormer this season. Do you gamble on that or look to sell (which may have been what we were trying to do - who knows)

we need a player that is either Redmond, with a little more Stu, or Stu, with a little more Redmond. Getting quality is certainly tough, and the management has explained how they will do it, buy young inexperienced types that have the quality. ..they hope.

By not revealing his source it makes him feel like a journalist. Stealing a living...

that was made clear at the fans forum. I think some people pointed to the fact the words used were "he wouldn't be leaving on loan to Everton" so he might still be sold, but the clear impression was that he was going nowhere.

As was discussed at length in the fans forum, experience is not what concerns the management, its all about player quality and if we have to buy young and very inexperienced to get that quality (and on budget we do), so be it.

I've always liked Stu's off the ball running and willingness to carry the ball and drive forward, however the question should be asked as to what does this actually do for us, especially if the end result is often that he loses the ball, all be it having got opponents to work hard and commit. Every now and then that head down and drive forward leads to him losing it in a relatively bad area and we are in trouble. Basically, is he as good as we want to believe and can we do better in that attacking midfielder area? If we get a flood of teams from the Prem trying to buy him, then you know you should be keeping him. The fact he's being advertised tells you we need to drum up interest. We needed to reboot - and we are getting one. Players like Bednarek, Stu and Redmond (all on considerable wages no doubt) leaving are the price your pay for that.

Miles out of the range of championship clubs. I suspect he sees himself as a Prem player too, so that limits the options to Villa, Forest and Leicester if he wants to be near Brum.

"Arsenal want rid". These are the crucial words. The big clubs somehow sell their unwanted players for huge amounts. OK, so they tend to be better players, but if they want rid, they are not good enough. Wonder what the ideal deal is for Saints.

every now and then a journalist prediction/agent placed story that links us to a player coincides with an actual transfer. Saints certainly won't have informed the press that they are in for a player. The selling club might, to create a bidding war, as might an agent, hoping to get more interest/a bigger final wage. Often, the deal is done, and we hear about it on the grapevine, but the don't announce it until they are ready to do the PR stuff. So there is a day or two of build up.

is that what you want for him, a prediction or the actual figure?

I'm inclined to agree, but do want to say that loaning senior players out is not pointless. I would expect him to be on a hefty wage, maybe £75k a week. That's £3.75m a year. With the loan/debt increasing year on year due to the 9% interest rate, it will require a sizeable payment each year just to prevent it increasing further, never mind pay it down. So we need to find that money from the existing budget, by reducing the wage bill/outgoings.

agreed. If you don't give players hope of a start if they impress in training, then there is no incentive. And training does involve games and attack versus defence situations, so you do get a good idea of how a player is performing. I still wonder about the contract situation. Have Saints made an extension offer that has been declined perhaps? Unless it was mega money, its likely the agent will tell the player to sit tight. They are in the driving seat. Alternatively, perhaps Saints haven't made him a contract offer as they really are looking to upgrade. Hard to know from the outside what the situation is.

"This is a good message from him to show up here, show that he is always the guy here who can score his goals. We know what we have with Che and after a not so good pre-season, he is now on fire." Rather than it being a case Ralph not rating Che highly and perhaps wanting to upgrade and maybe easing him out the door to help fund that upgrade, it seems to be a case of Che failing to impress him in pre season training, and subsequently not giving him many minutes in pre season games. AA the inverse. Ralph said at the fans forum that if a player is impressing in training he will get a chance - hence AA starting pre season games. He;'s impressed him in the games, so now he gets the starting berth.

I see posts on other threads about keeping players around (Bednarek) unless the deal for them to depart is right for us. If we are going to have pay half his (Redmond's) wages for a loan, is that deal good for us? Or should we keep him around for when Aribo gets injured? I struggle to see a Midlands club that will take him. Leicester, possibly, but I suspect they have had their fill of Saints players

afraid so.

His loan move to WBA didn't go well? I did wonder He ran the game against us, but WBA were poor in the run in, so perhaps that game was a blip.

gonna be tough. Easier for us to loan a player out for a season than to buy someone, perhaps from abroad, in such a short timeframe. Hope we can do it, but we no doubt need a couple to depart to free up wages.

cliched, management speak bollocks...laughable stuff with envelopes...Sterling saw he was full of shit. Some of these managers are simply out of their depth. They are not qualified to manage actual people. They don't have the personal traits required. Rogers strikes me as someone that has been over promoted. Just waiting to be found out.

How about Kent? I always thought he looked top notch, but no one has bought him

anyone watch the PSV Rangers game? Did Gakpo look like a £38m winger ...and off to United?

done it before, so maybe so. On loan to a sizeable Italian club maybe?

Interesting. I just watched the forum. He wasn't asked about Broja. He brought him up himself to describe `how fantastic he was and what a huge difference it made to have a striker that could create things out of absolutely nothing, (if Broja is not a target, then a player like him, such as Nicolas Jackson, would seem the order of the day). He then said "it was a pity he didn't show it for the whole season. And he stopped showing it, suddenly, er, or, ya...[laughter and big smiles]...for what reasons ever, but..." Dunno if I got the `gut full vibes', but certainly suggested he was either bamboozled why he was great and then he wasn't. Or he wasn't bamboozled at all, but he certainly can't tell a fans forum the reason for the change in his form. Not sure. see 22:05 onwards.