Chez

...and the £50m in players sales they got last summer.

They got some champions league money last season, but obviously didn't qualify again - they were woeful in fact in the league, almost getting relegated. I think they spent some of the CL money in advance last summer, bringing in my mate Asprilla, who had a mixed bag season (we should try to sign him IMO), but they also sold a couple of players last summer for serious money too, so I think they will be pretty well set financially. Bloody nice place to live too. I stayed there for a while last year - and heartedly recommend it to anyone that goes to Barcelona and has some free time.

Who knows, but agents are not stupid, they won't have turned us down unless they knew there was a possibility of a move to a bigger club. Likewise, they will have left their options open by saying to SFC "we are leaving our options open at this stage of the window, but lets stay in touch." As the window progresses Ajax or whoever said they were interested may have moved on to another target and the path opens up. I imagine this happens all the time. It will be entirely up to us if we want to go back again. Being second or third choice destination doesn't mean he wont be committed when he comes here. Helping us get promoted, and him into the PL, a big rise in wages and the subsequent exposure and potential to make an even bigger jump in his career will be motivating.

Not sure you did.

I'm cooling the Pop Fizz in readiness. Is it not false economics? We save on his wages, but have to pay Baz's and or someone else's instead. We gain £5m, but won't his value probably go down by a similar amount? If we have a suitor, is now not the time to exploit them? I'm usually the first on here to say we have to be realistic and balance the books, and if this is the best deal available and we accept it, we obviously needed to, but I certainly won't be happy and describe it as a "good deal". Allowing your best player to leave on loan sucks. What other club does that?

More agile, quicker off his line, makes more worldies.

Football fan unsure how to evaluate goalkeepers says one is better than another. If BreakingMedia are ever looking for writers, I think I have what it takes.

Likewise. It's unrealistic to think he'd play in the championship, but seeing leave on loan would be troubling.

Another bloody good reason to demand £25m for Ramsdale.

He's better than Pope, who has made some errors, is 33 and often injured.

I reckon an article entitled "This is made up transfer news about Saints" would probably still see me reading it. I am a football mug.

What a horrific waste of two minutes of my life.

Sure. As always books need to be balanced, but if we want to win the league, then having a GK of his quality is very much needed IMO.

Burnley offered him a new contract. Dropping down a division seems unlikely.

They weren't getting Trafford for buttons, so they have the money. I doubt there are any senior players at Newcastle willing to drop down a division. I don't think many will want to leave full stop as they will be on serious wages. I can see Lewis Miley (who I thought looked terrific when he burst onto the scene) potentially wanting a move, but not to a championship side.

Maybe no one wanted to pay it last week, but this week things could be different. Newcastle obviously want Ramsdale. How "badly"? How about we try to find out? Villa are probably looking at this news and wondering how they get Martinez sold and avoid missing out. Many at Newcastle do not rate Pope and Howe is perhaps one of them, which is why they tried to sign Trafford. Oh, it's two minutes since they were willing to spend £27m on Trafford. PSR doesn't seem to be an issue for Newcastle.

Why are they not happy? He's better than they have. I've no idea why we are allowing him to leave on loan unless we can't afford his wages.

That's the kind of description I want to hear when we are linked to a player.

why not force Newcastle do so? If they want hm, make them pay in full.

I struggle to see Ramsdale wanting to return to us next summer should we get promoted - unless Pope somehow kept him out out if the side, which is very doubtful. Obviously I knew he would depart (some of the posts on here suggesting he wasn't all that are laughable), but I will still be disappointed as it seems like a very long time ago that Forster was any good or McCarthy had a decent season for us. We'd finally sorted out the position and it lasted one season.

I have never rated him, but in truth he's the best defender at the club currently and amazing as it sounds, we looked worse last season when he didn't play. The time has come for change though, so fingers crossed Quarshie can be a better player.

agreed and if the AMs they have identified have all turned out to be out of reach at this point, then perhaps they need to wait until the window is closing and the players they want have no better offers.

Watching the first half highlights it was noticeable how good the first touch Wellington was, which was needed as Espanyol didn't give us much room. From what I have seen of Sugawara, his touch has been poor, so he might well be someone we want to offload. Bree is a sold enough player, but he doesn't excel. Edwards isn't a right back. We have bodies, but improvement in that position is very much possible should players depart. Not sure we have a queue of teams after Sugawar and Bree.

Player was tapped up and they didn't like it, just as we weren't with VVD. I am not sure why any clubs get annoyed. Everyone does it - speaks to the players agent, finds out if he'd like a move, what kind of wages he would want and possibly how much the selling club might let hi go for. Seems pretty standard.

I'll rephrase. Wood didn't impress me.