Chez

Are you his wife, agent or bank manager? If not, I'm gonna go with the Scotsman, which says his basic salary is £93k a week. Add loyalty bonuses etc. to that and £100k ain't gonna be far off. https://www.scotsman.com/sport/football/celtic/fraser-forster-how-southampton-contract-offer-details-put-strain-on-possibility-of-celtic-return-3321492

The owners are the ones with the £200m at stake, and when it comes to our Premiership status, they will ask themselves, what's the bigger risk, retaining Ralph or bringing someone new in?

I remember you saying just that as we clinched our second promotion under Adkins. 😉

I'm not surprised we wanted to lower Forster's wages. The last contract we gave him was one of the worst business decisions we have ever made. If he can get better elsewhere, good luck to him. Let's spend his £100k a week on Henderson or suchlike. It's not Forster departing that I worry about, it's the quality of signing to replace him.

Agreed. The change will come when they feel Premiership survival depends on a change being made.

To be fair, his hand was forced a little bit as it was to replace (a woeful) Tella (who should have been subbed at half time IMO, who yet again had cramp issues and fucked up Ralph's plans to take Redmond off and put Armstrong on. Just reading that back, and the names I just rolled off, and the term moving the deckchairs on the Titantic comes to mind.

I thought he deserved a go considering how little Adams had done in the previous few games, but overall he was pretty poor, his touch wasn't sharp and his inability to hold the ball up concerned me (and made me wish we had started Adams), however he scored an excellent (offside) goal, which demonstrated he does have that goalscoring ability and hopefully that will give him confidence, although he didn't exactly thrive in the second half. I desperately want him to come good. Perhaps Ralph needs to start him again to build that confidence up, although playing one up front against Liverpool perhaps makes more sense.

they are a more successful us...but despite them being great for a few years now, did anyone really expect it to last for ever? I always thought they were going to return back to the pack eventually.

I agree with this. There is certainly correlation between his loss of form/fitness and the shit results. There are other factors of course. Football is a confidence game, and the stuffing against Villa really seemed to knock it.

No transfer fee.

You're not happy with him as third choice? After a woeful first game, I thought he looked solid enough. A step up from Lewis. Means we sign one new keeper...perhaps helping us spend elsewhere?

Stuart Armstrong not tracking back hard a couple of times made me wonder. Easily misinterpreted though.

Bruno Genesio or Julian Stephane perhaps?

Why is Davis and Watson always to blame? Do you know how good or bad their coaching skills are?

We are not that skint. I guess what I was trying to say was, is a new manager worth more than £12m of new talent? Which is basically one player for us.

If it was a choice between new manager and £0m spent this summer or keep Ralph and £12m spent this summer, I assume you would all go for the new manager option?

Spot on. We have a reasonable mix of ages. It's quality that's lacking and then maximising what we have.

Our press ain't all that. Midfield don't provide enough pressure on the ball or cover, full backs out of position all the time leaving big gaps, offside trap non existent, and we don't even bother defending free kicks. A general lack of pace at the back. A lack of pace across midfield...

I doubt he's signing as a coach. Will be second or third choice keeper.

Agreed, but not sure we are out the other side.

We paid £15m on Armstrong last summer?

Maybe. But keep in mind that we only have three keepers and Long out of contract (plus Broja loan deal ends). So squad change will depend a lot on someone taking our cast offs off our hands. It happened with Vestagaard, but not sure who is taking Djenepo et al.

I thought he was our best player. Worked hard, kept the ball well. He fluffed his chance though. Armstrong was poor. Didn't look sharp. Didn't look confident. Failed to hold the ball up, and was a non entity...and then out of nowhere he took his chance brilliantly. Very unlucky it was offside. I thought that might give him confidence in the second half, but he did nothing. Disappointing and I would have brought Che on. The game was lost though and we don't look like a side capable of scoring late goals. That strike does give me hope that Armstrong can turn things round. Needs a great summer/preseason to kick start things.

he has played for Ireland too, which supplements that experience. Get what you mean though. Joe Hart made the jump.

yes. Not a chance they will spend that this summer without selling a player like JWP. They might buy before they officially announce that sale.