CB Fry

...in the Star. The Star don't bother with the conventions of the form - ie Clyne is 'set to sign' - they just speak definitively and hope.

In that case you are loopy. The Di-ly Express is the most pitiful title on market, worse than the star which doesn't pretend that it is for anyone other than idiots. There, you reeled me in. But anyway. Clyne. Great. If true.

Exceptional WUMing.

Transfer record smashing Blackburn you mean. For us to do what they did would mean buying Eden Hazard this summer. There's some lines of argument so ridiculous there's almost no point trying. Please, please god save us.

It's entirely possible that the financial fair play rules could get tightened up significantly which on paper sounds good for clubs like us. But in reality if the clubs are told "you can only spend what you earn" then the bigger clubs would start to challenge "what they earn", specifically the TV deal which is split relatively equitably between clubs in the top flight. If Man United can only spend what they earn they will tell the league they have the same right to earn as much as they can, which they can do by selling their own TV rights on the open market. So financial fair play might bring clubs closer in the short term, but is as likely to cleave them further apart soon after.

Correct. Just a very odd strain of fans that don't accept that and have to keep pushing the target up and up and up and up and berating anyone who doesn't join in. In future debates I will just see if we can get MLG to admit we can win the Champions League title seven seasons in a row and if not, why not.

If me saying "we won't win the Premier League" is your definition of "an inability to have any ambition" then guilty as charged. Christ.

Pretty sure we have had slightly less rain in Derbyshire than in god's own city this week. Slightly less. According to speaking to my mum the other day. And we've had three, maybe four, hours of sun.

None of them spent big. Greece winning the Euros is like us winning the league this coming season, which you are also saying you are not talking about. Make your mind up. Are we going to win the league completely out of nowhere on shock value or are we going to SPEND BIG. Because if we SPEND BIG to win the league then we would no longer be unfancied shock winners of the league would we?

No. Ever. If we want to win the league we are going to have to over invest in players and wages to get players to come to, or stay, at Southampton. Next season, the one after that, the one after that, and every season subsequently.

So the examples of Wimbledon and Greece and Denmark were pointless then?

We're not going to. We're not going to win the league.

When did I say we couldn't do well. This is currently a debate about winning the Premier League.

We will have to spend the biggest to win the league because otherwise the players won't come to, or stay at, Southampton. We will have to over invest to get players to even consider us.

Man United have got the advantage of being Man United in the first place. Blackburn, like us, were the smaller challengers to that. And, err, I think Man U have spent a bit of coin on players in the past. Man City finished what fifth and then second or third. How did all the clubs that spent significantly less than city do? Did Bolton win the league when City didn't? Or was it Fulham that year? Are you suggesting we can win the league on a Wolves budget, because that's a massive shift from your usual tune. All these rome-wasn't-built-in-a-day look-at-all-these-unfancied-clubs-winning-everything...... and a grand total of five teams have won the league in the last twenty years and the fifth team to do it had to spend several gazillion pounds to get there on a last minute goal. Who's going to win this wide open Premier League this season? I'm going for Sunderland this time out. Just got a good feeling about them what with money not being the be all and end all, and what with Denmark winning the European Championship and everything.

Good enough for Blackburn though? Time was you used to rave about how important it is to SPEND BIG on the BEST PLAYERS. What's happened?

...powering Norwich to a sensational Premier League title proving conclusively that money is definitely not the be all and end all. Oh.

Absolutely, Dig Dig. Blackburn broke the British transfer record to buy Britain's hottest striker in the close season after winning promotion to the Premier League. That's how you go about winning the Premier League.

If that's not a "man on the moon" statement, I don't know what is.

Wh'appen?

The chances of me doing that are about the same as me pushing a kebab skewer up my Jap's eye. So for you people that have done it, are the unavailable seats marked as "sold" or just "unavailable". Perfectly possible that the club aren't just selling every single block if they don't need to. If someone at the ticket office is saying 17,000 that might be a better guide than people totting things up on a ticket website designed to sell tickets, not track ticket sales.

No they didn't need to wait until Monday. Nice try.... SD was not just an announcement. It was a photoshoot and full quoted interview. i.e. the signing confirmed hours before and could have been announced earlier, with the lovely photoshoot following later. Anyway, not that important.

What a great thread. Brilliant stuff chaps. I vote number one. Like the rough and readyness.

Davis was announced at nine at night. That is not normal.

Probably the usual late night announcement designed entirely to f u ck the Echo off. Pointless pettyness.