Chez

Fair point and I agree with that. I don't feel Forster owes us anything. I very much feel he was bound to depart (one way of the other) as soon as we loaned him to Celtic. You could argue that `it has been resolved' though. McCarty has signed a three year deal. Forster departs. We now look to bring in another keeper - that will be younger and hopefully on a lot less money (freeing up wages elsewhere) and of course so shit hot that he claims the shirt and we all are happy bunnies.

Agree. I never felt Claus was loyal. I just thought we gave him the best offer so he stayed. Whether that is true or not I don't know. You are speculating and about McCarty's decision making process though - he could have become a free agent and tested the market (as they say in the US). You are probably right though, we may well have been the best offer in town, but my point was more about the attitude towards Forster than thoughts about McCarthy. No one seems disgruntled about Forster snubbing us, which is strange. Usually players that want out/turn their back on Saints are given short shrift. I don't blame him. Its a football business after all. I repeat what I have said before. I suspect he wanted out after he was pushed out the door on loan - so he maybe would have gone no matter what the offer. Returning to the fans attitude toards Forster's departure. The massive dislike of McCarthy (on here at least) and the realisation that he is our number 1 next year seems to have grabbed the attention, meanwhile Forster departs, on free (which is bad for our coffers) and not a bad word is said. Do we all wish him well? No one feel snubbed?

It's interesting the amount of love Forster gets considering he has snubbed our contract offer and will walk on a free. I see posts on here questioning why brojas is getting game time now we are safe, when Armstrong needs to be tried out in preparation for next season. No one is saying that about Forster/McCarthy. McCarthy on the other hand is despised on here, yet he wants to stay and play for Saints and has signed a new deal. Do we not value loyalty or do we not regard McCarthy as loyal, just fortunate? Do we see Forster as badly treated and assume we low balled him (not to mention farmed him out to Celtic) thus have sympathy for him wanting to go elsewhere? I guess the long and short of it is Forster felt he could get a better deal elsewhere and McCarthy didn't. But is the general consensus that we wish Forster well as he joins another side?

Lloris makes far too many mistakes to be classed as top quality IMO, and Spurs should have upgraded years ago, but not sure Johnstone is a big improvement - I don't think he had been great this season. That's Spurs' problem. Is Johnstone actually better than McCarthy?

Henderson will want £130k a week and United a sizeable fee. That counts us out.

I thought he was injured. Hamstring injury.

Not sure it is `clear' as to which was offered what and when. We may have offered him less money, than he is on now, which he would be less than impressed with, but we have no idea if that was the case. I'd of thought Forster's mind was made up to leave long before we offered him a new contract after we pretty much pushed him out the door when loaning him to Celtic. I suspect he had no intention of signing any contract with us.

no chance. Well beyond our budget. That said, what has happed to Calvert Lewin. Is he still injured?

except Redmond and Austin, but obviously they were prior to the current management team.

no a chance he'd want to come here either. He sees himself (and there has been much paper talk too) as good enough for Barca etc. Good job too, the little winey cheating prick. I'd hate to have to cheer him on.

Not sure why this has come as a surprise. We gave McCarthy a massive new contract when he was first choice, to be first choice keeper. The `to be signed' keeper was always going to be a younger and cheaper option, inevitably seen as a number 2, that we obviously hope will push him for the shirt and then go on to be the world's best keeper. McCarthy may have `fallen out of favour since', but our budget hasn't increased, so the idea we are going to sign a Henderson (or such like) on £130k a week is a pipe dream.

Good point. We certainly did murder Spurs. I wonder if their fans are having similar discussions to us as they have been equally up and down. Very good point also about the two halves. Maybe less so this season, but the two seasons before saw us destroy teams in the first half only to fade badly. We could well have been 3 or 4 up in many games. I forgot about that. We have been a very weird side under Ralph haven't we?

Fair point - and done so while having to slowly get rid of numerous millstones (transfer flops on high wages) that prevent rapid improvements. You only need to look at the wage bill league to see that we are pretty much on par in terms of actual league position.

Me neither. It's just a hipsters 4-4-2 isn't it? I do think the players know what they are doing when teas build slowly from the back (they don't always do that of course), but that doesn't mean it works as was showed at Arsenal when we did a full court press which seemed to be done perfectly, only for Arsenal to play the ball so well that they beat it and broke away to score a `total football' type goal against us.

Against the top sides like Liverpool and City (and to a lesser extent Chelsea), a 5 nil defeat is almost par for the course. Those two sides create so many chances. Some days they go in, some days they don't. I don't see big defeats to them as significant at all. Getting smashed to pieces by the likes of WBA, Leeds, Villa and Burnley is far more concerning (even if the score lines have been less horrific). This has to be down to the way we set up and the way we play (and see ourselves as a team). Every dog has his day I guess, so even losing badly to a lessor team (when we are not all that ourselves) is not a sackable offence. If it happen a lot you have to go. Have to say though, and my memory ain't great, over the last few years have we actually murdered many Prem sides ourselves? Completely dominated and somehow failed wto win by a hatful. Watford away maybe? We haven't stuffed many teams in terms of scoreline over the last few years. I think it could easily have been 3, 4 or 5 against Brighton at SMS, but I don't think there have been many games like that. Maybe its my pessimism, but in a lot of the games we have got a result, I think we rode our luck a little, while in the game we lost I felt we got exactly what we deserved. Not all of course, but quite a few.

I posted this previously. It's not a case of us letting him go, we already offered him a contract, he said no, and thus him leaving is a foregone conclusion. I think Johnstone may sign for us. My guess is that deal may have already been done with him. If not, I wouldn't rule out Cabellero getting new deal. He looked incredibly old/rusty early doors, but improved greatly and looked half decent (in relation to our other keepers) in the cup games.

...eventually leading to £170m+ of debt and a winding up order.

A question about our business model/transfers: Do you think there is ever going to be situation (under the current owners/management) where we sign a player, perhaps on a free, that demands a wage similar to our top earners, say £100k a week or more? I'm wondering if Ings was signed along those lines, but I don't know what his wage was when he joined, but it was possibly on a par with our top earners like Long and Forster et al. Or does the current business/transfer model of buying low, develop and sell high also mean signing players on a lower (than our top earners) wages too - perhaps with room for wage increases as players progress? Does our business allow for a Tarkowski free transfer on £100k a week type signing? I can Johnstone signing for us on free, but not sure we'd be offering £100k a week though.

With West Ham courting him for ages and attempting to buy him, it feels like he is going to go there.

Good call. Not sure United will allow him to leave this summer though and Palace probably don't have the funds for a £25m??? fullback on £150k??? a week.

He was great at Palace defensively, but never offered a great deal going forward. United then maybe expected him to be some sort of attacking full back. Not sure why they signed him of thats what they wanted. With fullbacks being our best/most important attacking players these days, I'm not sure he is what we are looking for (despite his qualities). If we did sign him, we'd need a much better attacking player in front of him.

absolutely. If you don't create plenty of chances you need a striker that is absolutely on fire, as Ings was, to take every single half chance, or someone that can create something out of nothing for himself (and that's extremely tough even of you are Mbappe). We don't create many chances, don't have an on fire striker and despite his best efforts even Broja couldn't tuck away the chances he created for himself. We need better quality attacking midfielders, but they are hard ti find and don't come cheap.

we got badly burned when we left ourselves short of fullbacks before. We have got away with three this season nicely, but to go into the season with two, plus Small/Valery seems a risk.

He was injured at the start of the season and didn't play until January. Looking at transfermarkt, he seemed to be first choice, but then was dropped. Back in the first eleven now for last two games. I thought he looked out of his depth when he played for us, and the Small signing might suggest he has no future here.

In the cup game, Small looked slow, Kayne Ramsey-esque to me. He has time on his side of course, but currently a long way short of Premiership quality. Unless he improves, we have a slight problem. Valery has another year, but he has not impressed. Its a body with some experience at least.