Patches O Houlihan

Has there been any reports linking Adam Armstrong with a move away? It would be great if you could pull your head out of your arse just for once Eeyore

https://foxesofleicester.com/2023/08/20/enzo-maresca-leicester-city-leave/ Leicester appear to have eight players linked with moves away - most of whom don’t suit the new style or have downed tools. We’re not the only ones in this situation

https://the72.co.uk/2023/08/21/pl-names-on-radar-and-more-southampton-linked-with-11-potential-signings-so-far-this-month/ A good round up of our current links - a couple I hadn’t seen before

We can’t afford to do a complete rebuild next year when the players will cost much more. We need to go up with a good confident young team - see my big post this morning.

I was trying to describe different styles: Norwich (yo-yo but without resources) Everton (Expensive, older/experienced squad that is poorly managed and never achieves) Old Burnley (11 big ugly journeymen) New Burnley (exciting young passing team but who will get stripped by bigger clubs, and need to re-invest well to stay in the league + historically a smaller club than us with a shorter PL/1st Div history)

I don’t - but they are indicative of an owner with plenty of resources. Leiceister now, Villa, Newcastle a few years back. Name the long list of historical Championship clubs with greater financial resources. You’re just trying to twist out into different arguments because you can’t justify your opinion

Not since Dragan bought the club. A guy who has bought two more clubs since buying us… Have any other Championship clubs been part of a multiple club model?

We were in the PL for eleven years. Those were the highest income earning years of any league in history. We were a small fish so only got a small piece of the pie. But we’ve owned our stadium a while, and we went down with a huge, young squad.

Villa a few years back, Leicester now. Who else? Back up your opinion

Which Championship teams have had deeper pockets? I’m not saying we are ‘the’ wealthiest, but historically I bet we are in the top 7, and one of the others is Leicester this year.

Which Championship teams have received the transfer fees we have this summer? Please list them. If you’re feeling keen you can adjust for inflation and look back through the years. The gap between the PL and Championship has never been bigger. We went down with a young, relatively expensively assembled squad due to some managerial cock ups and no proper striker. Imagine if we had sacked Ralph last summer & signed Wilcox & Martin…

At the tail end of last season there were a good number of posters who wanted to scrap the vast majority of the team as they weren’t good enough for the PL. Let’s assume we get promotion this year. So in July 2024 we will face the following issues: 1) The PL demands a dramatically higher standard for players to be competitive. Most mid table sides have several players worth 150%+ of our transfer record. Recruiting good PL players is massively harder than recruiting good Championship players because the pool of talent is so much smaller and our rivals are much wealthier and have more cache. 2) If we go back up with most of the team that was collectively humped 2021-23 then there’s a real danger that confidence issues will resurface. Last time we were promoted we were able to carry momentum into the league with confident players who fully expected they could perform on the PL stage. We had some young players on relatively long contracts and relatively low salaries. This gave us a competitive side and the bargaining power to hold out for good money. That gave us the war chest to secure Koeman, Pelle, Tadic, Mane etc and secure our place in the league for 10 years when we were inevitably raided. Signing Martin & Wilcox and completely changing our style is part of trying to repeat this feat. We’re not interested in kicking around in the 13-16th level in the PL. So we aren’t just aiming to get promoted, but want to do it with a ‘mostly young’ confident team of ballers who have great financial value that can at some point be realised. We know we’ll get raided like last time and we know we’ll need that war chest. This is why we keep buying young players with lots of potential - the club are thinking long term, not short term. They want to be promoted with the youngest, ‘highest potential’ team they can. As I think we have established Saints are one of the wealthiest teams to ever play in the Championship. We are currently a ‘big fish’ for Championship level young players around the world. We should have the funds to get them in and get promoted with a team that will thrive in the PL and not just survive. Yes we’ll need some experience on the pitch, but we’ll broadly want to minimise the contract length of players who are older or we suspect won’t be good enough for the PL. This is our year for a reset. We need to embrace that opportunity to avoid ultimately being a Norwich/Burnley/Everton.

I bet the Swansea fan forums are kicking off about how we've unsettled their player, turned his head, and claiming that's why he's not scored in the league yet.

No you reinvest the money, and sell on the other two for a bit less than the cheap money you bought them for. If you go through several cycles like that and get a couple of years out of the good ones you end up where Brighton are. Buy 'experienced, premier league proven value players' and you end up where Everton are

But when you sell every third one for £55 million then surely that pays for the other two average ones...

I think the club are missing a trick - Imagine offering branded versions of these, perhaps with matching pyjamas. Surely they'd be plenty of takers based on some of the posts this week

In fairness Tella was an Arsenal kid 😉

He played the whole game at Gillingham, and I was amazed that he was still able to maintain that pace and intensity right into injury time. He seems to have great energy and attitude as well as an overflowing bag full of tricks and pace to spare. Contrast his sub performance today with Mara, and consider that Sam is still only 17. Love watching him 😁

The biggest set of bollocks would need to belong to the owner that hired her. The only way she'd get success is if the team knew that she had 100% backing no matter what. Otherwise the Wade Garrett of the bomb squad would organise a revolt.

"We've always had great talent in England throughout the tournaments I've played in but it was about making everything come together. Finding the right formation, bringing the group together, perfecting the culture, pulling together the staff and then finding the right manager that compliments it. Sarina Wiegman is who we have been waiting for - she brings it all together. We needed someone to bring everyone's strengths together on and off the pitch and allow them to be free to express themselves. She has helped create a winning mentality so it is not a one-off. It is now habitual and every player that comes into the England squad is a winner and buys into that culture she has created. Sarina is just a genuinely lovely person that shows a lot of empathy towards you. She wants to know you on a human level, not just as a player. She has conversations with you about your family. You want that in a manager as well as having one who is very good at their job! Her communication levels are on another level to what we have experienced before. It's the fact she knows each player individually and knows what makes them tick. You know what you're going to get from her. She's the leader essentially but she's mainly just a good person." - Ellen White on the BBC today (Euros 2021 winner) There's also a video of Gary Neville saying that he wished they'd had such a strong culture in the England team he played for. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/66530508 So tactical skill, and ability to build a culture, and great 'man management'. She would have been far better than Jones, Selles and Pellegrino.

She wouldn't be playing against the Isthmian league herself - her players would be - and they'd be blokes. She would probably need to adapt her tactics - but this is clearly a her strong suit. The biggest issue would be getting respect from the team, but surely two x Euro wins (& maybe a WC) would help with a Championship squad?

I had a quick read of the Tranmere forum earlier. Do we know what the news is of Simeu? They seemed to really rate him "...a Rolls Royce of a player at this level, who should be playing in higher leagues." That said they are League 2 and finished 9th, but he seems to have transformed their defence when he first arrived. Apparently they lost his first two games, then won the next five with five clean sheets. Apparently their keeper went several games without a save to make, and Simeu formed a good partnership with Turnbull. Did anyone see any of the games or know his current status?

Over the last few years the two PL clubs with stand out academies have been Man City & Chelsea. Wilcox ran the MC academy for 10 years, so will be fully connected up there. Meanwhile Joe Shields (our ex DF) is at Chelsea, plus Poch who we know still has a soft spot for Saints. In the last ten days we have made £45m on Lavia & £27-£32m on Tino and both parent clubs made money on the deals. This surely puts us in the driving seat to receive the best available loanees & young players between now and September. I can well understand talented youngsters not necessarily wanting to commit to a Championship club if they see their future in the PL. But if they aren't going to get regular playing time then coming to Saints on loan for a year, with a good potential to get promoted is the next best option. Particularly if we get an option to buy included in the deal. We know that the last week of the window usually gets frantic. Players will be brought in pushing others down the pecking order potentially raising their interest in Saints. I'm sad that we only got to watch Tino & Lavia for a season each, but hopefully there are some more where they came from (and Shea Charles may be one of them) I'm still very optimistic.

I just read an article in the Telegraph that suggests she's contracted until after the 2025 Euros and the FA won't let her go anywhere. Apparently she's on ~£400,000/yr. Southgate is on ~£6m/yr. PL managers are in the £4-20m/yr range. So probably unlikely at Christmas 😁 I'd love to see how she does in the mens game though. She has managed a team to the final of the last 4 major international tournaments; won 2 and is favourite for the fourth... 🤞

At the fans forum Martin was asked whether he gained tactical insight from Spacey-Cale (& v.v) Should Sarina Wiegman be advising Gareth Southgate? (Does she already?!) A bit of that steely grit would be very welcome