Chez

You think we did?

In a similar vein, I'd like to throw in Schneiderlin's display away at Bristol City many moons ago. Pathetic limp performance where he showed no strength, bottle or fight. I never thought he would become the player he did after seeng that display. I'm hoping I am equally wrong about Smallbone, who to date has been just as passive. Young players often need time to blossom.

despite there being so many, the answer is of course Steve Baker. But for flavour, the McQuashie abomination at QPR, Ian Andrews, also away at QPR and the Hungerford fat lad's display away at Fulham all deserve a mention.

I know situations relating to signings needs to be fluid, but we have known for a long time that Forster would need to be replaced and even McCarthy too, yet our scouting networked seems to have only extended 24 miles down the M27 to find a keeper that cant have been on many people's radar before his loan spell last season. OK, if a good player is on your doorstep, why not scout him and then go ahead and sign him up, but seriously, we have one of the largest budgets in world football. Could we not have cast the net a little wider to find a 20 year old keeper with talent? Did we even look at other keepers before last year? Why have we not been tapping up young but experienced talent for the last 18 months? How much budget is dedicated to scouting I wonder?

When Forster was farmed out on loan, that will have been the end of the relationship between Forster and Ralph. Ralph compounded that when he decided McCarthy was the better option 18 months ago. He was leaving from that moment onwards. I see your point abut not letting both go as it would cost us to bring in two keepers, but we could for example have signed Johnstone on a free. Whether he is actually a better keeper I don't know.

A few Hummel shirts while we wait. JEFF United 22/23 shirt, and below Denmark 2022 and Kilmarnock 22/23

do Saints have gods?

knowing us we'd of gone through endless c£30m players with a similar success rate.

Forster possibly didn't want to sign any contract (because of the way he had been treated) so Ralph's hand may have been forced, but there was a point 18 months ago that he had both keepers playing towards the end of the season and he seemed to make his mind up that McCarthy was his number 1. With that decision, Forster's mind would have been made up, if it wasn't already. Ralph made a judgement call and it hasn't worked out quite as planned. If it was a computer game, as gamers/managers we'd of let both go, well I would, but in real life that was never going to happen.

and they have made a shit load from their multiple successful CL runs.

its about three times our own wage bill. How the hell can we hope to compete with them? The top sides are in a different league completely spending wise. I guess you need to do it differently. Buy youth and build something? Trouble is, the best youth is still acquired by the big clubs.

Probably wont make anyone feel better, but every penny we spend on a keeper is a penny we can't spend on a striker...and we do need one of those, among other needs.

Other clubs fucking up their finances doesn't make me feel any better, but COVID certainly played a big part in us having to take that loan out. However, it certainly makes sense to compare ourselves with others, but that needs to be wages + transfer fees + player sales + other income + other costs and debt...and all over a three or four year period, not just before we sell JWP for £60m, or just after. In the end, the finances all comes down to buying the right players, getting the most out of them and selling them at the right time to maximise the return. Three years of buying Livramento and KWP-like talents is what we need. Lets hope this summer turns up a few of them

It annoys me when people say `where has the money gone?' in some sort of insinuation that the owner ha been cyphering off large amounts for himself. The accounts tell you everything. Wages are massive and general operating expenditure is also massive. We lose a shit load on players that don't work out and we haven't be makign a huge amount on player sales for some time. The wage bill is still high - not when compared to others of course, but as Forster and his monster wage departs JWP's new monster contract replaces it.

Really? was that the general consensus? I thought part of the reason Drago got the club so cheap was the amount of debt it was carrying? £140m of combined losses over the last three years and pushing towards £100m of debt, when it was next to nothing not so long ago. COVID has a lot to answer for...and some woeful scouting. I know debt is not always the great enemy for businesses, and profits/losses at a football club depend largely on players sales (and if you sell you top guy every three years to balance he books the proceeding years are always going to look a little ugly).

Its a fair question. Maybe we are more wasteful with our monies than others? Paying Forster £5m to sit on the bench for a few years is one example of waste. Buying Carillo for £20m and letting him go for £0 is another. Our £114m wage bill is part of the reason. Our outgoings are a lot more than that by the way and our income hasn't been great.You can only spend what you have. And we obviously have had no owner gifts/loans. I was going to say others may have built up a bigger debt to find transfers, but ours seems to be pretty big. We may spend a few bob this summer. We have some funds to come in from players sales, although how much of the debt we pay down will be interesting.

It really is the plan. Fantasy is a good word. I just can't see who is going to sign him. If we had not given him a contract, I wonder where he would have ended up? Everyone in the Prem seems set. Forest maybe looking for a keeper, but I don't see McCarthy going anywhere. Ralph made his choice, McCarthy has the contract and that's that.

If the philosophy is buy young and relatively cheap (we will know come the end of the window) and then use those signings to `slowly' replace the older more experienced players that are sold on/released, that perhaps makes sense given our budget and status in this league, but as you say, the issue is if the older/experienced guys aren't great. The young players don't have time to develop and our reliance on them can be too great. Doesn't mean it can't work. Several teams with almost all young players have done well. But those young players need to be bloody brilliant.

In which case, that's us out. But who has got £30m going spare and sees him as a good signing? I don't think they have a cat in hells chance of getting what they paid for him.

Hart played a full season on loan at Bum before playing for City, so wasn't quite overnight, but still made the jump without any issues.

he isn't, but he's shitter than West Ham hoped he would be, so he should go for less than they paid not more, right?

We paid £20m for Carrillo. We moved on for £0. If West Ham don't rate him and want to move him on, why do they get all their money back and more?

thanks for that. You really have added something there to this discussion.

Thanks. I was merely asking for your opinion. Let me try again. Do you not think retaining Cabellero is pretty much a sure thing, thus rather than signing two keepers, we will probably just bring in one. And if we do, do you think it is likely that its a relatively young keeper? I am not trying to trick you or win points, just have a discussion. If you don't care to join it, that's fine.

Do you not think Cabellero is pretty much a `sure thing', thus we sign one `new' younger keeper, like Bazanu or suchlike, to give us balance in terms of ages and career progression? McCarthy Bazanu Cabellero