verlaine1979

With Long, you're not asking him to put last season behind him, but to rediscover the form of his one decent season under Koeman. Last season was just slightly under par for SL - 5 or 6 league goals a season is about the most you're ever going to get from him.

Evidence for the prosecution #1 - this is utter, utter tripe, and nobody other than Davis would get such blinkered, revisionist benefit of the doubt.

Hmm has 'most underrated player in the PL' simply been a synonym for 'average' all these years? If so, please accept my apology, I obviously missed that memo about how we're all using superlatives differently in English now. Oh, and Iain Dowie? Mediocre Northern Irish ex-pro over-praises current Northern Ireland captain? Colour me surprised.

Your inability to imagine that my criticism of his ability stems from anything other than a personal vendetta is a weird quirk of character that I guess you'll just have to live with. As I've already explained many times, if he wasn't constantly held up as an exceptional player (indeed at one point hailed as our best signing in 40 years on here) I'd never have bothered speaking up, just as I rarely bother saying anything about the other mediocrities making fine careers for themselves in our squad. It's only that the praise of his contribution is so massively overblown by the weird alliance of hipsters and nostalgics that make up his fan club that I felt compelled to point out that you're all completely deluded.

Like I said, the BBC commentator summed it up quite differently, and having watched the move repeatedly, all I see are four over-excited Huddersfield players getting sucked into the ball early on. But sure, feel free to rely on journalistic penchant for cliche and received wisdom all you like.

I've always said he does the simple stuff reasonably well (though his passing has been awful at times already this season). I just want someone in that position capable of doing more than just the simple stuff. In fact, I'm pretty sure I've been moaning about us being one-dimensional in attack for about three seasons now, which pretty strongly correlates with the period during which Davis moved from being a reliable sub to a nailed on first-teamer. It's coincided with some success for the club, but also a fair amount of dull, frustrating football. We struggled for goals under Puel, and appear to be struggling now, but we also had long stretches in each of Koeman's two seasons (9-10 games each if memory serves) where we created and scored very little (masked, in part, by a couple of blow-out results that glossed our GD quite substantially). Having more quality where Davis plays would make us less predictable, and less reliant on the supremely ropey crossing of our wide men and fullbacks.

Oh come off it, the ability to play a simple straight pass into what the commentator describes as 'all kinds of room behind' when four poorly drilled Huddersfield players have been sucked towards the ball is just the bare minimum for that position, not an example of game-running attacking nous. A 'lovely through all' bisects a well-set defence - all Davis did was pass between four players who weren't where they were supposed to be.

The central attacking midfielder has to do more than shovel gentle passes out to the wingers and fullbacks for 90 minutes, especially when crossing isn't the strongest point of any of the wide players.

We've really clicked in attack since unshackling Davis from defensive duties and returning him an advanced position. As so many have said, so many times - he's really crucial to the way we play.

The fact that our most potent attacker contributed 7 goals and 1 assist in 37 games (in other words a meaningful score-altering contribution every 4.6 games) speaks volumes about how very dull we've been to watch of late.

I think one of the commentators during the Huddersfield/Newcastle game mentioned that their new striker Mounie had one of the best records for headed goals in Europe last year. Bearing in mind how we struggled in the air against Antonio, Hoedt will presumably need to come straight into the side.

Probably a stretch to infer from those figures that Gardos could keep up his max speed over a full 100 metres.

I wasn't contesting whether it was technically a foul or not - my point was more that we got lucky because there was no way that chance turned into a goal without Zabaleta's unnecessary intervention. Owing to the slimness of the opportunity and the lateness of the moment, I'd say we got lucky that the ref didn't decide to turn a blind eye rather than changing the game so decisively in injury time.

There's no way an unimpeded Yoshida was getting that header on target - I suspect the shove only added a few inches of elevation on a ball that was destined to skim off the top of his head at an unfortunate angle anyway. Seen them given, seen them not, but felt we were pretty fortunate to get such a favourable decision at such a decisive moment in the game.

Long & Austin will both be on huge wages. Tough for a manager to bring on an untested youth team player when looking for a goal with those two on the bench. If no goal is forthcoming, the subsequent head-shaking ex-pro punditry practically writes itself.

A real papering over the cracks win in the end. We're so predictable going forward - nine times out of ten it winds up out wide for a cross, yet in Cedric and Tadic (when the latter is on the right) we have two dreadful crossers. Both the penalties were gifts in a way, one from Fonte and one from the referee, and without them you have yet another huff and puff attacking display enlivened by a solitary moment where Redmond and Gabbiadini combined with good movement and quick, accurate passing. Other than that, it was mostly the same story - nice quick stuff in midfield, followed by turgid predictable outlet balls to the wing when nobody has the nerve or skill to make something happen through the middle. After a shaky start I thought Lemina did okay and he definitely provides a physical presence that was missing last season. Davis did virtually nothing apart from getting tugged back for the pen, so if we stick with the same system I'd have JWP ahead of him every time just for the corners alone. Redmond was a passenger for the second half, and shouldn't feel aggrieved if he loses his place to Boufal. Gabbiadini is a good finisher with great movement, but we really don't have the passing or vision in central attacking midfield to get the best out of someone who plays off the shoulder of the last defender. Less said about the defending the better - hardly won a defensive header all game.

Well I'm glad Davis is finally back in his best position. He's making a real difference, just like everyone said he would once the defensive shackles were off...

If, as has been suggested, there's a defined, contractual timetable for her to sell her 20%, she'll be guaranteed that £52m anyway, leaving her with almost no risk at all, and the deal with the invaluable PR of having the safe, cosy European former owner sticking around a while until the new and unfamiliar owners get settled in. I take your point that at this stage, nobody knows how it'll turn out - but all anyone else has been saying is that there are warning flags and historical precedents for why a deal of this nature could turn out particularly badly. To assume that things will probably be fine, in spite of several worrying factors, based on nothing more than your impression of the character of people you've presumably never met and know almost nothing about, is asking too much. All of these concerns could've been assuaged from day one by the new owners giving a little more detail in their published statement. Instead both they and the outgoing owners dealt in fairly vague platitudes, leaving the full range of positive and negative outcomes firmly on the table. On top of that, as more detail emerges about the deal we're discovering that things are already not exactly as first described. A purchase funded with personal wealth becomes a purchase funded with loans secured on personal assets. A deal between friends becomes a deal between friends and an unnamed consortium from Macau. If nothing about any of gives you pause, I'd suggest you're being a touch naive.

You're taking a hell of a lot for granted. For a start, the $1.4bn figure for Gao's net worth is coincidentally the same as the market capitalization of Lander on the Shenzhen exchange. Bearing in mind how lazily/inaccurately Markus Liebherr's fortune was calculated and subsequently reported, I wouldn't say its outside the bounds of possibility that people have just looked up how much Lander is worth and applied the entire figure to Gao (I'm making the assumption here that as a publicly traded company, he isn't the sole shareholder of Lander). And, as has already been explained, it's immaterial whether the loan is secured against SFC or not - all that matters is whether SFC cash flows will be used to service the interest and capital repayments (as was the case with the Glazers take over of Man U, though in that case the club was also used as partial security against the initial loans). If the new owners have no intention of using money generated by the club to pay off the debt, it's a simple enough announcement to make, and the fact that they haven't said anything of the sort (and that certain aspects of the takeover quoted initially have already proven fragile, such as the existence of a consortium behind the Gao family) leaves ample room for doubt.

What the loan is secured against is irrelevant unless Gao defaults on the capital and interest payments (at least insofar as we need to be concerned about existential threats to the club's continued existence). What matters is the source of the money that will be used to service the debt on an ongoing basis. As Shurlock says below, with a relatively small asset base outside of China to secure against, and significant restrictions on where he could turn for cash, the cost of borrowing is likely to be high (for comparison, the Glazers used loans with interest rates of between c.8-16% during their acquisition and refinancing of Man Utd). If, as was the case with Man U, Saints end up providing the cash to service these loans on a ten year capital repayment, we could be talking about anything between £30-50m a year being taken out of the club to pay for the privilege of having a new owner. Of course, that could turn out to not be the case, and Gao could have every intention of funding the repayments out of his personal wealth, but if that's the case, they should probably come out and say something since it's such an obvious concern with a commercially-sourced debt-funded takeover such as this.

Even assuming your basic premise is valid (it isn't, as owner debt can be converted to equity) this is a false equivalence. If you borrow money from a financial institution they charge interest and will insist on a defined and largely unyielding repayment schedule. If you 'borrow' money from a rich owner, then yes, the debt can theoretically sit there until the club is sold unless they insist on clawing the money back. I've no idea what the going rate for the loans Gao has taken out will be, but for reference, the Glazers used various sources of debt during their acquisition and refinancing of Man U that attracted interest rates of between 8-16%, which if the rumour of a ten year repayment schedule is true could see the club coughing up nearly a van Dijk per year in capital and interest repayments, just for the privilege of having a new owner.

Considering the Lander deal was also to be financed primarily through debt, I don't think it was really a question of whether he could get 'his' money out of China, but just whether he'd be able to borrow money from within the country to purchase a foreign asset. Either way, the club will now presumably be financing the repayments of the funds used to acquire it, quite possibly to the detriment of our ability to compete in the transfer market.

So that's the worst possible outcome then. As expected, the club is now to all intents and purposes £210m in the debt.

I'd be amazed if it isn't just a temporary sop to anxious fans worried about the identity of the new owner. There will probably be a timetable for the further sale of 20% and she'll be fully divested of her share of the club after twelve months or so.

Davis and JWP presumably fighting for one starting spot this season when everyone is fit. Would pick JWP for better corners and a (very slightly) higher probability of scoring from open play (or at least making the odd run into the box).