Chez

I never for the life of me thought we could hold out for £60m for Lavia, but we did. Ramsdale and Dibling (and THB and Fernandes too probably) won't be sold cheaply - unless Ramsdale is on £100k+ a week with no relegation reduction - in which case we might be more flexible. The rest, well, I am not sure we will have too many clubs beating down the door to sign them.

I was not aware of that. Perhaps that relied on us winning two or three of the games to make the gap bridgeable. It ain't now.

If you have no intention of signing anyone, what's the meeting going to be about? The only reason to have a meeting now is to decide who to let go out on loan. Maybe they could have done that a week ago, but it gave Juric more time to evaluate what he has...and for enquiries to come in to make a decision on. Just a thought. Defending SR isn't something I make a habit of doing.

I would suggest Juric was told when he was interviewed that we would not be spending any money in this window. So obviously there has been no urgency at all to discuss signings. I would imagine he was informed that he would have a say on who was sold/loaned out once he'd had three or four games to work out who he fancied. So, having a meeting tomorrow makes perfect sense.

Come the summer, all three promoted sides for starters might see him as an upgrade. The likes of West Ham need a new keeper and all the big sides, even Man City could do worse than adding him to their squad. Is Onana a better keeper? I'm not sure. Last summer there perhaps weren't openings and our patience paid off. Next summer things change again. Hope no one wants him. He's what we have missed for years.

Still don't know why Ramsdale came to us. We only had about £100m to spend in the summer and the THB transfer eat into that somewhat. Was there actually money to sign more Ramsdales? Downes, Archer, Sugawara, BBD, Wood and Edwards weren't exactly big money signings in this day and age. Plus Taylor, Lallana and Fraser all on frees of course.

Knowing money will be tight when we go down, would you sell him if offered £20m?

There will be plenty of interest in Ramsdale. Whether anyone stumps up the amount we will want for him is a different matter.

Man United, maybe? I do wonder what the general `hit/miss' rate is for Prem signings. I guess the starting point matters too. I mean, if your side is already `OK' and you sign 2 good, 5 bad, then you can hide those failures better than if your side is poor to start off with and you have a similar success/failure rate.

Other than Cornet's loan being ended and BBD going out on loan, I am not sure the rest is gonna happen.

Doesn't really need posting on here, as I am sure you are all aware, but for completion, here is the Brereton to Sheff United loan news: https://www.dailyecho.co.uk/sport/24834309.southampton-sheffield-united-reportedly-agree-brereton-diaz-loan/ https://www.thestar.co.uk/sport/football/sheffield-united/sheffield-united-working-overtime-in-transfer-market-as-ben-brereton-diaz-southampton-reunion-edges-closer-4931330

Point still stands...unless Meghoma never really makes the Brentford first team too of course.

If I was the manager, I'd want to be all over every transfer - and perhaps that is still the case - as you basically live and die by the quality of them. I'd want to watching them live a few times - not sure that is the case these days - before giving them my blessing.

When Manning was having a nightmare time in the Championship, that was the time to give him a run, but Martin just didn't want to risk it.

Yep. The January window in 2023 was a fucking disaster impacting last summer. We still spend a few bob, but we needed £40m-£50m more to get the guys we really wanted/needed.

It certainly creates an uneven playing field whereby the relegated sides can retain Prem players and sign expensive loanees like we did in Downes and Brooks. However, perhaps more critically it has done a reasonable job in recent times of preventing relegated clubs from financial oblivion - which was the point of them on the first place.

What a bloody good point. I don't know why I have never spotted that before. What we needed was players with a golden first touch and the ability to drop a shoulder and get themselves out of tight spaces - like KWP and Lallana can. Technically gifted players. Asprilla was a fine example. Looked like he had hours on the ball. I still don't understand why we signed Taylor. He's a solid enough player, but certainly not a free flowing footballer with the ball. Weird move if you ask me.

We certainly need to sign a few players, especially in midfield, that are willing to do some bloody dirty work. A squad full of passers is great when you have the ball, as we did pretty much all of last season, but fuck me, how poor are we at getting it back? When we go back up, we will still need to find players with great technique, but we will need a Jack Cork type that is willing to chase all day and force opponents to turn the ball over now and then. That said, doesn't pretty much all of the football world play a possession based game these days (just some better than others)? I watched Worthing thrash Torquay on Saturday (both level 6) and they passed it short out from the keeper literally all the time. I go to watch Fareham Town (level 9) a lot and they do exactly the same. The sides that win have the quality of player to do it. Our failure to sign any actual quality in forward areas has been our biggest problem. There were players available, but we just couldn't compete/afford the likes of Rutter, Carvalho, Odobert, Summerville, Berge, Sinesterra, Asprilla, Sara...

There is quite a sizeable drop off in the amount you get from year two to three, which is why people say you only really have two years to get back up...adn then after that the playing field starts to level. So maybe you will have to go for three year cycles rather than four. Ultimately, getting promoted and then failing to stay up is way more preferable than staying down. Our finances should be in a reasonable state and the squad is stronger than last summer. For example, instead of loaning in Downes, we already have him, so perhaps this summer we can build rather than rebuild?

Glad you managed to sort out all the bugs unlike...

Relegated sides from the Prem get four years of parachute payments - which decrease each of those four years. The only time you don't get four years, is if you get promoted back to the Prem, one, two or three years after going down. I.e. once you go up, the payments stop - replaced by the much larger Prem money. If you go down and then up and then back down, like us, you just start another four year cycle of parachute payments. The actual amount you get each year is not straight forward, with all the relegated clubs over the last four years having to share a larger lump sum, which changes every few years.

Shit signings at our level and size of club hurt you for years. Same for every prem team I guess. Only way around it is not to sign shit on the first place. Sadly the good players we have identified, like Gakpo, have had better options.

What do you mean? The £120m+ TV and prize money we'll get in the prem this year will be replaced by £40m+ 'parachute payment' next season and, if we haven't got promoted, about £36m the following season... So, income is reduced massively, but that £40m+ means you can pay players a lot more than the other championship sides can.

I agree, in this window there is very little we can do other than look to bolster the u21s which can pay off in the long term. However, come the summer we will be once again an attractive option, at least for a certain level of player. We were a basket case last time we went down, but still attracted Manning, Fraser, THB, Downes and Brooks that were good enough to get us promoted. Now, whether the manager and support team can turn this ship around as Martin managed to do, is a different question.

We are effectively a championship club already. Which means we are competing for players with the likes of Leeds and Sheffield United. And we are probably going to lose that battle too. If you were say Ben Sheaf at Cov, would you sign for Leeds or Saints in January? Come the summer, we (and our parachute payment) become attractive again.