Chez

So when Koeman said the players coming through the youth system currently were not good enough, the powers that be agreed with him, thereby perhaps putting to bed the theory that he and the club fell out about that aspect of the club. Great that the club is again spending some money in that area to go with the training facilities. Hope he comes good like Lallana etc. did.

Yes. Didn't realise Piper went out not into the foxes. My mistake. Sent from my D5803 using Tapatalk

Jose is ruthless, but I don't see any point in bringing in Matic (who was poor last season) with Morgan already there.

Can Kittel win green if he wins most of the sprinters stages?

At the moment? Wow, what a disclaimer. Only Berahino is approaching the end of his contract. Let's see if he stays at WBA if someone else comes in for him. Leicester's approach appears to be to match any rival offer with a new massive contract. Oh and they have champions league to tempt the player. Not really comparative is it? You are saying Stones will stay at Everton his whole career?

I like your style, but maybe Spurs go elsewhere and we end up with no fee at all. Sustainable clubs need to sell players not allow them to leave on free transfers.

Quite a step down, but works for me. Like Deschamps he has prem experience.

Was he in the last year if his contract at Celtic?

Both chose Leicester City over us back in the day didn't they?

with Wanyama on his way out I am just waiting for someone to suggest Tiote from Newcastle, who is IMO garbage.

didn't Piper and Elliot make a similar choice?

Agreed. I guess that's where the release clauses come in. The Mane contract offer will be a case in point. Add two years to his deal to help protect the asset value, offset of course by a huge wage rise, and then a suitable release clause so he can jump ship if the right offer comes.

That is spot on. £11m for a player people know can do it in the Prem is a great deal for Spurs. Us on the other hand have cash, but have a much harder task in finding another player that will hit the ground running and be a performer at this level. We have been excellent at doing that, no doubt about it, but there are still relative failures...

but if they had both stayed for two years we might have got an extra £20m in transfer fees, which we could have reinvested. Very tricky balancing act the club has to play. I am not sure they want players getting down to one year left on their deals. Mane's situation will be very interesting. Two years left on his contract feels like we are in the driving seat, but if he doesn't extend this summer will we HAVE to cash in or face losing £10-15m on his value?

all that is a given, but you can't force him to sign a new contract and if he doesn't then his value depreciates massively. Forget how long he might stay, the club simply must protect the value of the asset by getting him to extend during this window. If not it becomes another tough decision like it must have been when they didn't get Morgan, Wanyama and Clyne to extend when they had two years to go.

Could not agree more. He goes then so too will Marez and Kante. Stay and perhaps the other two will do the same. Going to cost Leicester a shed load in wage rises though, which I guess they can afford. It's a very interesting scenario. Similar in some ways to us when we faced losing Shaw, Lallana and (lets say) Morgan (because I don't want to say Lovren). At that time we really needed to have made that extra giant step forward straight into CL football, which we of course we didn't get anywhere near, but possibly (I know its stretching things a bit) could have attained and then to use that as the carrot to keep them here (plus of course monster wage rises). I'm interested to see how it pans out for Leicester, if all three stay and get huge wage rises. I hope they do well in the CL, but I wonder how it will effect the rest of the club for the years to come.

Couldn't afford to let both Morgan and Wanyama leave at same time explains the first, and the club thought CLyne was singing a new deal possibly explains the second. Also we may have learned from both situations and realised that players are simply going to leave. We shall see. Not sure we will get £25m for Mane next summer by the way. That a lot for a player with one year left. Mind you he could have an amazing season I suppose.

First it was not letting players wind their contracts down and leave for a free, but now perhaps it's not let them get to one year left otherwise you can only expect to get the money you paid for them back as looks likely with Wanyama. If Mane won't extend his deal then maybe we have to take £40m now rather than £15m next summer makes financial sense.

We will need to replace him with some height. The side has been strong defensively against set pieces for many years with the likes of Lambert. Pelle and Wanayama supplementing the centre backs. We see to be losing a little in that area.

Where's Deschamps on your list?

It's 10%.

maybe one below par game in all the games since he was here. Brilliant first touch and ability to keep the ball and get out of tight spaces. Obviously he has certain limitations if you want to criticise him, but if you prefer to look at the positives there are lots to his game.

I thought that too. Has a pop at all parties. Nice of him. Interesting that he said Koeman is only getting £3m a season not the £6-7m mentioned in the press elsewhere.

Are you?

So let me get this straight. You are telling me that we are not paying him £100,000 a week despite that being the strong suggestion in the press. Fair enough, that might be true, as I said I don't know. However, because the other players read the papers they will have all demanded wage rises anyway. Thats a bit of a ****er for the club. They get a good deal on Austin but they get shafted by everyone else. Somehow I don't see that. For starters players can't keep asking for wage rises every time they read the papers. Also there are quite a few agents. How many do you think covering the saints first team? As far as I am aware there are over 20 different agencies and Austins agent doesn't have another saints player on it's books. As for players quizzing each other, well maybe it's just me, but when I was an employee I didn't ask everyone else in the office what they were getting paid. It's private and doesn't happen in normal business. What makes you think that happens at a football club?