Chez

Not sure he's thinking about England. He just seems like a guy that is in absolute brilliant form, keen to play and confident to be on either side. It's a tricky situation, with Small not stepping up, Livramento injured and Valery not trusted. I do wonder what Ralph's opinion of Perraud is. He seemed to drop him pretty quickly. With fullbacks so important we really need four of them. We have the bodies, but we only really have two. KWP gets injured and we will be struggling all season. Godo to hear we are looking to sign another and not relying on Small and Valery.

Tuchel knows what he wants/needs.

does that basically mean that he is going to be sold? If they were considering a second loan, would they not take a look at him first? Maybe his agent has had talks with a club like Newcastle or Everton and has said he wants to join them and now its' just about the negotiations?

combined £140m of losses over the last three years and a debt pushing towards £100m. I don't think we will be deviating from this plan after a big sale.

If the club's philosophy is to sign youth, which looks so, then he seems the ideal candidate. If we didn't know it already, its seems highly unlikely that we are going to sign James Tarkowski types.

Not read anywhere that they intended to pay the debt off immediately. It's been discussed on here, but never read a statement from SR or SFC about it. My understanding is that loan repayments do not need to start until 5 years after the loan. We know interest is being added, so I think its pretty safe to say that if we wanted to start paying down the loan before year five, we could. There is bound to be some sort of minimum cost to loan, but that won't be 7 years of interest at 8% which is £31.5m on the £78.8m loan. Whether we will is a different matter and will depend on cash flow requirements, available monies and the general business plan.

Could have got him for £300k three years ago, but maybe now for £6m we get a more experienced player. Can't wait to see him in a Saints shirt. About time we got `lucky' with one of these flair players. Boufal, Djenpo and to a slightly lessor degree Redmond, just haven't worked out as well as we hoped.

Do you mean there was £17m outstanding still to be paid to us, or that we made a profit of £17m in player trading? I honestly can't recall which it was (maybe a both?). Overall we made a huge loss, so any profit from player trading would effectively have been dwarfed/swallowed up by loss, however if there was actual cash to come in (in the future for Ings etc.) then I guess you could effectively spend that the following year. The key though will be the Prem/sky money. When does that come into the bank account? If it is June, then I don't understand why we ever had an issue at the start of transfer windows. Why not use that money to buy and then balance things during the window/season - or was it just a case of not wanting to touch that until the player sales had been made (caution).

Correct. Often half now half a year later, and sometimes spread across the contract length. Whatever the timeframe, the spend will need to be balanced with income (sales etc). I don't see a revolution (they said there wouldn't be one), just moving quickly using the cash that was available.

Best we (the club) start talking about him as £50m player and get that market perception changed.

if they felt we were overspending on crap players and losing money buying the wrong ones - both true - and corrected those issues, the business could be transformed into better shape financially and on the pitch too. You don't always have to spend money to make a company run better. Also, by and large, the value of Prem clubs goes up as time goes buy. You can just sit on a club (as long as it stay in the league) and ten years later its price will have gone up - especially if you bought it cheap and improved its operations.

Maybe your two questions are irrelevant. After all, a player is worth as much as someone is willing to spend. United needed a right back, so spent £50m on one. Arsenal the same. Is there a buyer willing (or in need) to spend £50m on a right back this summer?

absolutely. if we could get that wage bill down from £114m to say £80m, then we could pay the debt down AND spend more on transfers. Pay less wages but still retain the quality is the tough bit.

SR may not have put a penny in to bridge things. There was money in the bank to cover player purchases to date. Next summer is probably when we get a better idea of what the owners are doing and how they are financing the club. I don't have an issue with what is happening, but I'm not going to credit SR the spend either, yet.

Yes, because the talk has been to continue in the same way as before...self-sustaining, sell-to-buy, buy cheap, sell high. Absolutely nothing has been mentioned about the owner investing in the club/team that I have seen. Question: What do you mean by owner investment mean? A gift or zero interest loan? The former is unlikely given what has been said to date. If it's a owner loan, then I'd question the reality of that. Don't you think a £100m debt is sizeable enough for a club of our size, considering we are not a million miles from dropping into the championship and financial nightmare that would bring?

I haven't a clue what you are on about. Self-sustaining, means the club wont be given gifts by the owners that allow it to spend more than it brings in. it means the club's income and expenditure needs to balance. Not every month or even every year, but over a period of years. We already have a £80m+ debt that will rise to £100m unless payments are made. You can't just keep adding to that debt by making losses every single year. At some point you will need to make a player sale(s) that tip the balance the other way.

No. I think you are right. We will need to sell. £100m loan/debt will just get larger unless we make profits in the coming years that enable us to pay it down. We only make profits through player sales. Might not be this summer, but if not, it will be next.

they have probably used the £26m of the bank loan (plus a bit from the 21/22 Prem money) this summer to buy players, and then could slowly pay off the accrued £100m of debt. However, as you say, to balance the books we will need to sell a player or two. Our outgoings exceed our income. Player sales is the only answer. A Salisu, KWP or whoever will need to be sold in the near future.

I agree with you that someone probably needs to be sold, but there was cash available in the bank to buy the current incoming players, so I don't think we are under huge pressure to make a sale this summer at this moment in time. If we want to spend another £25m on a striker, for example, then I'd suggest we will need to sell Bednarek and/or Armstrong. If we loan a striker, then maybe not. A player with three years on his contract AND wanted by a big club is not going to be sold cheap by us or any Prem side. Two years left and you have to weigh your options, one year and the buyer has the upper hand.

Looking at the figures, perhaps SR are not dipping into their pockets quite as deep as you might think. The follow amounts might be considered reasonably accurate: Bazunu £12m Bella-Kotchap £8.6m Aribo £6m Livia £10.5m There was £26m in the bank when SR bought us, left over from the loan, and I am guessing a chunk (if not all) of the Premier League prize money etc. was paid out at the end of the season - which I realise needs to cover the forthcoming year's expenditure. If Bednarek was sold for say £12m (not a lot of noise about that though) SR wouldn't have to had to put a penny in so far - which is fine by me by the way. Obviously we will have a £100m debt to service, but I assume SR will have factored repayments into our future running costs.

in addition to attacking threat, he looks like he has some idea how to defend. A fair few senior caps for Burkino Fao too. Youth is good, youth with experience better.

at that price, I am guessing about 12 minutes.

from a marketing point of view, you want to maximise these signings, so spreading them (announcements) out a little makes total sense - but get it out before everyone from the marcoms department goes on their holiday.

I thought Nixon was generally on the money about Saints...or is that no longer the case? That valuation of KWP is laughable. We'd want three times that. I'd want four.

Getting a full season out of Calvert-Lewin will help this time round. They can live without Richarlson IMO if they sign another flair player up top. However, if they sell Gordon, then you wonder how big a hole they must be in.