verlaine1979

Hmm £20m is the new £6m it seems.

Difficult to know which it is, but it's certainly not beyond the realms of possibility that during negotiation of the new contract he might have been quite open about the possibility that he'd still want to leave this summer and that he regarded the increased salary as compensation for helping the club maximise his sale value. The only complicating factor is then the captaincy.

Considering he signed the new contract in May 2016 and says in his statement that he's been telling the club he wants to leave for six months, that would potentially cast a bit of a different light on things.

Surely worth noting that the season of Long's life was in fact pretty mediocre. It's just that most of the other seasons have been dire.

Answer: not as many as your question seems to imply we did.

As it stands, no one is prepared to bid for him at our maximum valuation as they probably assume that the complete breakdown in relationship between player and club is going to result in us having to sell in a hurry towards the end of the window, thus saving themselves £15m+.

If the club lose their nerve now as a result of VVD mutinying and allow Liverpool to bid, it's highly unlikely we'd end up getting anything like full value for him as the balance of powerful will swing decisively towards the buying club. It'd be an acknowledgement that we have no choice but to sell, which is seldom a good look going into a negotiation. That said, I can see the equally negative outcome of him staying and then d*cking around for a year being injured and then moving for an equally reduced figure next summer.

This works for me, though I'd probably swap JWP to the middle of the attacking midfield three. As the most creative player in that lineup, Boufal should be encouraged to play from his position rather than rigidly stick to the wing, much like Hazard does at Chelsea.

I suspect you'd find for Davis that most of his pass-before-the-passes have been slow, deliberate shuffles of the ball out to a fullback who actually puts in all the craft and technique leading to a goal. Really, what this whole argument seems to boil down to is that I've been saying he's sh*t and we could do better for two years, and everyone else seems to be saying he's an underappreciated hero and we could do better. Which is it? Can we do better, or is he the most underappreciated midfielder in the league? If you'd just started out by saying 'yeah, he's average but we haven't got anyone better at the moment' I'd have agreed with you from the very beginning and we could've saved ourselves some time...

Why does he have so few assists then (JWP has the same number of assists in less than 1/3 of the minutes and there aren't many on here claiming that he's an outstanding prospect at AM)? Don't get me wrong, he's capable of playing good attacking passes, but he's just too negative to do it most of the time and prefers to hand on responsibility elsewhere (usually either the CB or overlapping FB). In his ability to trot around and cautiously shepherd possession, he's unmatched in our squad. In his ability to do things that actually influence games rather than appease a rather undemanding section of our fanbase, he's always been lacking and even in that respect, his performances have dipped alarmingly over the last season and a half.

We looked so much better against St. Etienne when we went back to playing with just one up front. The lone striker has to be Gabbiadini if we want to play a pressing game. Save Austin for the latter stages of matches when everyone is to knackered to press already.

His goal today was a cleaner finish than we're used to seeing from him. Usually goes for the side-foot waft, but there was a bit more in-step behind this one.

Attacking midfield three should probably be JWP + any two of Tadic, Boufal & Redmond depending on form and fitness, with the likes of Sims waiting their turn on the bench. DM pair must be Romeu + either Clasie or Hojberg - the make do and mend approach of trying to fit Davis in there just because he's vice captain surely can't last another season.

Davis caught that volley on the edge of the box beautifully.

In Long's first season under Koeman he got 5 goals in 32 league appearances. Which Long under Koeman do you want to treat as a valid representation of his talent and potential - the statistical outlier, or the season that almost precisely mapped his career average of popping up with five or six a season?

Rooney scored goals at a much higher rate than Long last season (Long scored every 414 minutes, Rooney every 302 minutes). Long cannot finish, as amply demonstrated by the fact that his average return for the PL is a goal every 5.2 games. Long's purple patch of 10 goals in a PL season under Koeman isn't proof of untapped potential, it's proof that a player who averages six or seven goals a season over a number of years will sometimes get ten and sometimes get three.

ML never really had that level of wealth. He was estimated to have had around £1bn when he bought us, which coincidentally would have been around the share of the Liebherr group he'd have been entitled to if he hadn't handed back his shares to his siblings who remained in charge of the company. However, ML and one other brother (who is apparently a devoutly religious type) gave up their share of Liebherr group. In that context, Cortese's claim that Saints was a canny investment for ML makes even more sense, as the club has subsequently turned into the most valuable asset in his estate, assuming the £300m figure for KL's wealth is accurate.

Especially considering her 'wealth' presumably includes non-cash assets, of which Saints at £200m now make up the vast majority.

Only one of those should be starting every game.

Benteke was only 25 when he signed for Palace. Had he done well, they'd have been able to sell him on at 28/29 (i.e. in his prime) for what they'd hope would be a huge margin above what they paid. As you state, business models get tweaked, but moving from a return-based model to spending regardless of sell-on value isn't a tweak, it's a complete reversal. Moreover, you say £30/40m for GS when a bid at the top end of the scale you propose has already been rejected. I don't disagree with you that we should focus on adding 2 or 3 nailed-on first team signings rather than bulking out the squad. It's just that if they come, they're far more likely to be a) 25 or younger, b) from a foreign league and c) cost no more than about £20m apiece, max.

I can't see us almost trebling our record transfer for someone who'll be a few days off 28 by the start of the season. No resale value and no relation to our current business model.

JRod always been an inconsistent finisher, especially when placement rather than power is called for. Not as bad as Long, but then again, Long is about as bad a finisher as it's possible to be while still playing in the PL.

Moving to saints from PSG isn't rekindling your career, it's admitting you aren't good enough at the top level and dropping out of European competition altogether. Hardly anyone is going to do that willingly, especially not in the peak years of their career (Krychowiak is 27). I see Atletico Madrid are interested in him according to the latest speculation, and that seems a far more likely switch than dropping down to mid-table in the PL.

Since Davis offers almost none of this anymore, it seems pretty moot. Better to have decent (rather than slow, floated) delivery at set-pieces than pick someone based on the memory of them once having made a driving runs and penetrating passes from midfield...

Boufal strikes the ball well from distance. Hopefully see more of that this season.