Sunglasses Ron

Trust me pal, insane probably doesn't quite cut it. By all measures, this is a signing of biblical standards that has shaken football to its core. If you don't believe me then read the article about it on the BBC website!

Fodden for me!

Great post @TWar and I love your use of the term 'our 9-0 risk '! Let's hope they can get this down to only 6 or 7 next season 🙂

Yeah, sounds a descent prospect but I'm not rushing off to get a shirt with his name on it. Probably much better than a costly loan for Williams if true though. 👍

I hope you’re not saying that a player can be of use primarily because he wins set pieces. Next you’ll be saying players should also be picked because they’re good at taking them 🤔🙂

Very true. MLT could easily have left too, sounds like his ex wife intervened when a contract was practically signed. Dodd and Benali were both great for us, but probably were never given the opportunity of a meaningful step up from Saints. I wouldn’t begrudge JWP a move to Villa to be fair (if the money was right of course). It is a step up at this time and he’s been a great servant for us.

Yeah, we were given a false sense of security by MLT, a true maverick and a real unicorn amongst footballers. Definitely expect JWP to go if Villa up to ~£35m, there’s no way he’d stay due to his love of the club.

Of all our players over the years, I’m hoping he’ll be the one who doesn’t flip like a burger... ... but then I probably thought the same about Lallana.

Some really great posts here. Having read through them in detail, I'm actually feeling more optimistic about the coming season than I was. I think the club have generally done well shifting out the majority of the remaining unsellables, bringing in some emerging talent and trying to deal pragmatically with the Ings situation. It's definitely a distraction, but at least we have a player good enough to create this headache in the first place. I'm sure Brighton, for example, would want to be faced with the same problem.

Yup, pretty much sums he up as the complete cow pat of a signing that he was for us.

Grown up Callum Davidson looks more like young Neal Shipperley than grown up Neal Shipperley does!

Jesus, we’ve got several decent shouts for worst haven’t we. FFS!

Gabon has to win worst nation?

Shocking player, truly shocking, had a shocking career with us.

We need to collate this, put it in a leather-bound hardback, and submit to Martin Semmens and co. so they can turn our fortunes around big time. The official Saints Transfer Playbook!

Don't sign anyone from a relegated club, they are born losers and their looserishness will spread like wildfire resulting in Saints spiraling into oblivion.

Whatever the fee is, am hoping it's them paying us to take him off our hands and not the other way round.

The thing is though, we've not sold anyone of note to fund the signing of another Van Dijk etc. As we all know, it was his transfer in particular that set off a horrendous run of dreadful signings that we continue to pay the price for to this very day. Going for this lad makes complete sense given the situation we're in. I remain very hopeful that Salisu will prove to be an excellent acquisition, he has a big season coming up! If we eventually sell Ings or Vest then there would obviously be the expectation that we'll put a concerted effort into signing one or two out-of-the-box solutions.

You don't always get what you really want though do you? I believe Diallo wasn't top our list last season, but we ended up signing him.

The solution is clear, if it's all square after extra time then it should go down to a game of Battleships. It could be made visual by using fans in the ground as the pieces. They could put on white and red shirts to make it more authentic.

I agree with your overall point too but I'm not 100% convinced Armstrong would hit the ground running like Ings probably would next season. By all accounts, Ings has been offered a really good deal by us, so I still wouldn't be surprised if he considered signing it at the end of the transfer window (if none of his preferred suitors came his way, and the offer was still on the table).

Agreed, look at how much Liverpool took for Brewster last year from Sheffield United. £23.5m apparently and not a single goal scored from memory.

Yup, a balls up of epic proportions. All too easy to piss money up the wall when you have too much of it. We got complacent and lazy and ended up worse off. Unbelievable Jeff!

Yeah, the Virgil thing worked for all parties at the time really. Thanks largely to rat face though, sounds like a gentleman’s agreement to leave after 2/3 years of signing the 6-year deal got withdrawn by him. With Ings, I guess there was nothing stopping us offering him a 5/6 year deal but we instead went for 3. Made sense at the time I guess but with hindsight it should have been more.

I always run in Saints training gear, general rule is they are good up to 10k but then plasters needed for anything longer!