Chez

I think you might be right. I guess it justifies fully why our better players left to join a club like them. It's going to be painful seeing Lovren with that beautiful trophy in his hands, and Nivea boy and VVD...

"Where has all the money gone?" LOL. That list goes a long way to explaining our fall from grace. In terms of value, maybe you need to add on the total wages paid to present a real (and even more horrific) picture. 2.5 years of Austin on a circa £80k a week added to his £5m transfer fee totals somewhere around £15.5m. Those 14 goals haven't come cheap. If Boufal is on £60k a week (I wouldn't be surprised if it was more), that's another £6.24m in wages over the two years to add to the £16m transfer fee. Eye watering figures for a player that was injured when we brought him here (why we did not wait until January I will never know)

Nathan Bryne at Wigan impressed whenever I saw him, but wont add much needed height to our side.

could not agree more. We seem to have favoured centre backs with passing ability and first touches over critical facets such as heading ability, strength, pace and positioning. Even in the premiership they are important. In the championship they are crucial.

it's four extra games isn't it? Swansea (very) early bird price of £419 amounts to just £22 a game. that sounds pretty good to me. I wonder what our prices will be next season. Just as a guide: 23 x £20 = £460 23 x £22 = £506 23 x £25 = £575 23 x £30 = £690

They were certainly the better side that night and finished the season brilliantly. Interesting how the fortunes of the two clubs have fared since that night though. It's been horrible for 18 months and we will possibly be back with them in the second tier next season, but looking at the bigger picture I think I'd take some of the seasons we have had, the European qualifications, the Milan trip, the cup semi final at Anfield and of course the final, over winning the Championship.

yep, he was blowing out of his arse. Combine Long and Austin and you have a superstar striker.

Thought we were decent. Its been a long time since Ive typed that about us. The way we played today showed the folly of Hughes not packing out our midfield in the previous two games and choosing hoof ball over control. The good thing is he adapted and learned. Wonder if he can squeeze just that little bit more out of the side.

I honestly felt Stephens had no choice but to cuff the ****, he first dragged his shirt off his back and then did everything humanly possible to pull him to the ground. Stephens perhaps has to show more professionalism, but every player has their breaking point and I am certain I'm have done exactly the same. I'm still fuming...

Just for balance, we shipped three goals, which is obviously bad, but at the other end Austin should have scored when Tadic put him through. Too slow though and it the end had to stretch.

thats how I feel. Thought we created more decent chances today than we have for months. Great fight in midfield and decent threat going forward. The third goal though is just painful. Weak as **** at the back post. Cedric's lack of size means he is brushed out the way, shame as he had his best game for ages.

please don't. His qualities has been obvious today such as the brilliant pass to put Austin clean through.

Cedric very lightweight on that back post too. Lightweight is a good description of our defence. Bullied by the likes of Wellbeck and many others.

first 25 minutes were perhaps the best of our entire premiership season...sadly Yoshida ball watched, Stephens doesn't get tight and Cedric doesn't take the striker out, then Wellbeck got a tad lucky and Stephens doesn't prevent him doing what he wnats. Improvement on last week, but parking the bus and still conceding two shows you just how poor we are right now. I still think we can get an equaliser, but keep a clean sheet in the second half? No chance.

you've seen him play before, right? Thats his game. Measured, but slow approach.

tough job playing centre half in this day and age, but the very first thing you need to be able to do is dominate in the air. He doesn't. All the other facets to his game, such as being decent on the ball, become unimportant if you cant do that basic thing. Get a dominant centre half and you can build from there. Saints have, by and large, put out a decent side with half a chance of winning games when they have had a ball winner like Richards, Svensson, Jahdi, Fonte, Lovren, Toby and VVD.

you may have to loan players out with no fee AND pay a percentage of their wages. Take for example Jody Clasie. Are Club Brugge in a position to pay all of his Premiership wages, even with their CL and UEFA qualification? You mentioned Manolo. I have no idea what he earns, but as our record signing at the time you know it will be serious wedge and more than he got at Napoli. It's that higher wage that will put people off. Wages are the problem. There is not a single player at the club that would not be courted by another side, all be it some at a lower level, but can any of those clubs pay what we are paying? If there are 40-50% reductions then you have a chance of someone taking them, without that, you can be stuck with many - usually the ones you don't want. I'd venture we'd get a fee for Bertrand and possibly Romeu and JWP, as he gets good press, maybe Lemina too, who shows flashes of brilliance between flashes of poor judgement, but beyond that I am not sure who other teams will value enough to offer to match their current wages. If you only have to match wages that have been cut in half, this presents a slightly different picture.

1) Players on huge wages often are sold for £0. 2) Actually they sold Pickford for £25m, with the possibility of it rising to £30m. But the key thing is that was after a top season. Have we anyone having a top season? You may well be right about being able to recoup more than £100m, but we shall see. Whilst we are in the Premiership our players have one value. When we drop out and the clubs faces close to a £100m drop in income, they have a very different value. Assets can quickly become liabilities. The £80k a week Forster wage for example. Would you let him walk for free in the summer? The club might have to if he hasn't got wage reduction clause in the event of a relegation Sunderland are mentioned above. Just for balance, lets look at their business since going down: Defoe with a year left on his contract allowed to leave for nothing. Jack Rodwell signed for £10m, club has offered to allow him to leave for nothing. No takers so paying him Prem wages to play for u21s Wahbi Khazri signed for £9m, couldn't sell him in the summer so sent out on loan Fabio Borini signed for £8m, couldn't sell him in the summer so sent out on loan Didier Ndong signed for £13.5m, couldn't sell him in the summer so sent out on loan Papy Djilobodji signed for £8m, couldn't sell him in the summer so sent out on loan Jermaine Lens signed for £8m. Sold for £6m. Minonne bought for £1.3m in 2013 sold for £2m. and thats it. No other sales. Perhaps many of our players are seen in better lights due to previous seasons successes, so we will fair better in the transfer market, but if we fail to win a game before we go down, I just wonder how our players will be seen then?

will we reach the 32 points we got in 2005?

My memory is not what it was, but did anyone really suggest Cortese was wasting money on the training ground? I seem to recall there was a lot of pride in the fact that, unlike the skates, we were investing in infrastructure rather than spunking it all on wages. Likewise did anyone really suggest he 'almost killed us' by taking out a loan? I recall Cortese getting criticism because he said we'd never take the club into debt, yet two minutes later he did exactly that. I think it is slightly disingenuous to point to low wages under Cortese whilst in the Prem. The fact is, in the first few years he still had players on league 1 and championship wages. As those players were let go they were replaced by Premiership players on premiership wages. It was inevitable that the wage bill would not just go up, but go up dramatically. Add to that wages keep rising every year in dramatic fashion for every club. The amount we now pay is not unusual. It's who we pay that has ****ed us. A question, do you think if Cortese had stayed our wage bill would be lower today? Going to better players maybe, but actually lower?

Batman used the term `findings' and I assumed that related to the recently released 2016/17 figures and the discovery of a registered loan of an unconfirmed amount, that may or may not indicate that Gao was using the Glazier method of buying a football club. I don't see how either `finding' confirms or refutes the suggestion that Cortese was taking us towards financial ruin. If he meant the Swiss Ramblings info, then yes it includes the earlier premier season financial figures, thus showing the results of Corteses' work, but I am still unsure how to determine whether Cortese would have ruined us or not had he be retained. How can you extrapolate that? In the end does it matter? We are where we are. The current situation is not down to Cortese. All that matters is the future and that doesn't look rosie.

not sure I follow. The financial results are decent, but pretty much what you'd expect given that the club gets such a huge amount from TV and the player sales we have made. The financial results don't show anything about Cortese? There you go, I've set the pins up for you and now you knock them down...

jack Rodwell didn't have one, so I guess exceptions are made. I notice that Sunderland had 40% reductions, not 50%. If we mirror that then you can see them financial problems we face when we go down. The drop in income is huge. We have been here before and as I recall the sale of Crouch was all that kept our heads above water. Crown Jewels seem to be thin on the ground this time round.

David Gold said Charlie Austin's agent wanted £100k a week and I think from the size of our wage bill its clear that he got it (or damn near it). It's important to note that that wage bill is for last year. It's probably even higher now. Could things get any more depressing? God help us if we don't have 50% reduction clauses on the event of relegation. If not the £35m (year 1), £35m (year 2) and £14m (year 3) parachute payments are not going to get even remotely close to covering the wage bill. Financial meltdown will beckon. Hopefully they are, but don't count on it.

We are so used to having the extra man in midfield and someone to pass to, all be it often backwards, now players get on the ball and can't find an open man. The man in possession is left with limited choices, play a risky pass, hoof it safe or hold on to it that little bit too long. Yesterday we saw the outcome of all three choices. Either we get an extra man in midfield, or we have a consistent kick and rush approach. Right now the players don't know what they are doing. They have been playing the same way for two years or more. Not easy to suddenly change it and that has been obvious in the two games under Hughes. I am not sure there is an answer here. Hughes is going to persist with this tactic because the previous one wasn't working. If that's the case, he needs to have much clearer thinking. For a safety first hoof ball approach to work he needs to drill players, ensure those selected know their roles and have midfielders that work their socks off in both directions. Does Tadic really fit that mould? Personally I think Hughes' tactic it is doomed to fail because if you are not controlling the game you are inviting pressure and our back four are simply not good enough to rely on to keep a clean sheet. Puel's and MoPo's tactic of controlling the game through possession may have bored people to death, but it protected the back four by limiting their exposure to ANY attacks. The way forward? I have thought about it for while now and I still don't really know, but I seriously doubt the Stephens/Hoedt, Lemina/Hoj and Redmond/Tadic combination will work playing this formation and approach. Playing in a 433, our problem was simply a lack of penetration in the final third and when the rare chance came along strikers not being clinical. Austin can provide that finish if offered the chances. Get him up top with Sims offering the energy and direct running on one side and Boufal some tricks on the other in a 433. Bring Romeu back into that three with Hoj next to him and Lemina just in front of them. Drop Hoedt or Stephens (both are failing to do the basics well enough) and bring Yoshida back. Even as I type this I am wincing. We are ****ed aren't we? In terms of tactics, lets return to a possession game but with a fraction more risk in terms of forward pass. With regards to wide players, they must travel with the ball much more - just go down the line and attempt to get the corner at least. The idea that a wide man collects the ball in the final third and then passes it square or backwards is madness. The side has worked to get the ball in that position, now go and show us your pace and tricks. These are subtle changes and with the current personnel might not be enough, but what I saw yesterday made my eyes bleed and I am not sure I can watch that again.