verlaine1979

That depends. If the club really does want to be entirely self-sustaining, then profit from player trading will have to be substantial, as wages alone eat up the vast majority of TV money. Part of the club's calculation for incoming signings this summer will have to be based which ones are the most likely to increase in value over two/three seasons. Maehle might make even more sense on those terms, with Valery stepping up to remove any anxiety over succession. I think that was probably a big part of the calculation in signing Gunn last summer when a new GK wasn't exactly a priority, and similar thinking will be in evidence with signings this year.

Moreover, Valery's delivery is still quite unreliable, and he often fails to get his cross past the opposing fullback. He exceeded expectations last year, but I'd be happy with Valery being an understudy/going on loan while Maehle hopefully has his two good years here before being sold for a profit.

No, you're just oblivious to the fact that we've got no money and he's one of few players we could sell.

Gunn made a few mistakes towards the end of the season, but he's clearly better suited to the style RH wants to play where the keeper has to be comfortable sweeping and starting moves from the back.

Nope. Clubs can 'lose' up to £105m over three seasons as long as the owner is prepared to foot the bill by injecting equity into the club (i.e. paying off the debt). No need to dice around with dubious sponsorship deals - Gao could hand over an additional £35m per season in new cash (or the whole £105m in one season if he fancies it) without incurring any penalty at all from the Premier League. But as someone said above, neither is this likely to be a way of removing money from the club - as the majority shareholder, it's not like Gao needs elaborate schemes to do that. Mostly they just seem tin pot, and unlikely to be around for very long.

Last accounts had total staff wages at £96m (including directors and 130 or so non-footballing staff). Adding up to about £110m when additional costs like social security and pensions are factored in. Sky money for the period was £117m.

Strikes the ball extremely well, but comically one-footed. Looks almost allergic to touching the ball with his right boot.

Eh, whoever plays up front for Benfica seems to get about 30 goals a season, year in year out. One purple patch at 27 after multiple seasons only registering 2/3 goals a year does not a £50m player make.

Hope not, he's always looked absolute gash when I've seen him during international competitions.

Personally, I wouldn't even say it's anything as complicated that. I'm mostly concerned that if such a dubious sponsor is a) the best we could do & b) managed to get through our due diligence process with such glaring issues, it doesn't make me very optimistic about the running of the club and our future prospects.

'Move some of his investments' is a funny way to describe taking on £200m in high-interest debt.

Augustin looks a little more polished than either of them (and a cleaner striker of the ball) but if Everton and Leicester are after him, I think we can forget that one, even with the RH connection. Adams doesn't seem to strike the ball that cleanly, but from his goals last season, he does have a knack for finding the corner. Looked at a few clips of Aye playing and impossible to tell how good he is - the standard of defending is about as bad as I've seen in a decade or so of looking at YouTube clips of potential signings.

Aren't both Lookman and Adams pretty short? Maybe Adams is built like a bricky privy, but 5'9 doesn't really scream physical presence. That said, I think either of them would strengthen our attack. Clear out as much deadwood as possible and get both? I could live with a summer window in which we got Adams, Lookman and a decent CB. In particular, I think a young, English front three of Lookman, Adams and Redmond would probably start to get us a bit more favorable coverage, which always helps turning around a toxic atmosphere like the one we've had the past few seasons.

The estimated cost of Belt and Road is counted in trillions of dollars, but you believe that a key stepping stone in the plan was sending a small time chinese businessman to buy Saints with money he struggled to get out of the country? Did the Chinese government also tank the financial performance of Lander over the past couple of years to give Gao a plausible reason to focus on his foreign asset? I know it would be lovely to imagine that we're at the centre of global economic machinations that'll suddenly see us wielding the financial might of the Chinese state to infuse the club with quality, but that's not what this is. The reason everything looks weird and f*cked up is that we were bought by a chancer, and our new sponsors are likely just another bunch of chancers of his acquaintance. It doesn't need any more explanation than that.

You sound like you saw a headline in the Economist a few years ago and got carried away.

You'd have a point if billionaires were fighting among themselves for the right to redevelop grubby parts of Southampton, but I hate to break it to you, they aren't. Pumping money into the town would require no conspiratorial groundwork - just the same due diligence and permissions as any other provincial redevelopment project.

This is complete guff. Any of the UK's many financially moribund provincial regional/city councils will dance to the tune of whoever promises significant investment. They aren't sniffily playing hardball by pretending to be deaf until you buy the local football team.

I think the concern is not about being evasive over who your sources are, but over what you think is actually going to happen? Obviously moot if the information you have could only come from one source, but if its as widely spread as you suggest, you could presumably just be candid about how you think things are going to pan out. I don't think many people care about the wider political/economic machinations (if they exist) except as far as they fundamentally alter the ownership of the club, or its financial position re: investment or (thinking the worst) long-term survival. So, is Gao leaving? And if so, is the person that replaces him richer or poorer, better or worse?

The port of Southampton isn't owned by anyone in Southampton. It's owned by a consortium that includes the Kuwait government and a Canadian pension fund, so buying the local football club is unlikely to be part of any sensible acquisition strategy.

How far off being in contention for the first team would you say he is? 18/19 would be very young for a PL CB, but the likes of Gomez and Stones started at that age, so not impossible if he's an exceptional talent. That said, you pretty much only have to be mobile and semi-conscious to qualify as the most talented central defender at Saints at the moment.

You shouldn't be allowed to talk about FFP on this forum unless you know more about it than a vague sense that it's about stopping owners 'buying the league'.

Eh, healthy disrespect towards the club owner is one of the great traditions of football. For a start, the vast majority of them deserve no better.

Spot on. None of our CBs are really good enough, but I have little faith that we'll be able to do much about it. If RH wants to play 4-2-2-2 and we can only make one CB signing, it'll need to be someone quick, with great leadership qualities, who also never, ever gets injured.

Bearing in mind the whispers from the club about our financial situation, I'm really hoping RH has made enough of an impression already to be a deciding factor with the kind of players we're allegedly going to bring in. God knows the current squad look a million miles away from being able to play the kind of high energy, quick passing, quick pressing game he was known for before he came here.