James

Jesus, not good news.

We are still a Premier League club that pays Premier League wages so I'm sure there are people out there that would improve us. See Wolves have made a £35m bid for Andre Silva and AC Milan. I know they have got a rich, ambitious owner and an inside line with Portuguese players due to their links with Mendes but it does say something when you are slightly envious of a Championship side's ambition in the transfer market.

I have to admit I'm starting to get a little concerned at our lack of activity, was really hoping we'd at least have a fresh face in the squad before Watford. The fact we didn't have deals lined up ready to be signed in the first week of the window makes the decision to let Virgil go before the window had even opened (the timing for confirmation of the deal rather than the fee) all the more baffling. If anything, it has just shown the rest of the world that we are cash rich and in very poor form so encourages them to ratchet up the prices for us. Equally concerning that there was a lot of noise in the ITK channels that at least one player had visited the training ground and now that seems to have gone quiet. Hope we haven't been caught out as was reported in the last window where we thought we had our preferred CB target secure only to be told that the price had increased once we'd sold Fonte. Anything less than 2 players in by the end of the window and serious questions will need to start being asked of the board (to the extent they don't already need to be).

A must not lose. Hope we can grab a point at least. Would be nice to have new player in the squad but I doubt we will.

Funny thing is they’ve won more games than us. Clueless Les Bumble’s on.

Would love for the Duck to explain the comment, absolutely ridiculous subs in my book.

Agree. We are going down.

Dreadful performance considering the opposition. Still, at least it keeps the atrocious Pell here for a defeat v Watford. Fun times.

Narrow win and a turd performance, great. Means MP will stay for the loss at Watford. Not ideal.

Best player on the pitch subbed by the clueless Pelle*****.

Unreal support considering how bad we are. Won’t stopped the keyboard warriors who don’t go to games telling us how crap our fans are.

Sorry I should have refined to talismanic striker. Romeu is great, although has been very poor this season, but even if he puts in a cracking performance we won’t win if nobody scores. I remember times gone by when we played trash but Lambo or Pelle would score and we’d get something.

Agree with this - don’t think I ever claimed that we were a bigger club than Man City, my point was that, at the time they were taken over, they were part of a cluster of similar sized clubs and that we had been in an around them in the time which led up to their investment. I misspoke when I said they were similar size to us historically, I meant they were similar to us when they secured the Sheik, not that we had done better than them in the past and certainly not that we are bigger than them now. Shock horror that my original post was largely ignored and that the forum police focused on one statement they disagreed with rather than taking it as a whole (not aimed at you to be fair).

The same scouting set up that has left us with the prolific Shane Long as our lone striker....

See Wolves have signed the young and highly rated Rafa Mir for £1.5m as he was banging them in for Valencia B. If we are going to take a punt I would rather it be on someone like him rather than spending big money (for us) on a player who has a poor scoring record. Austin shows us that, if you have a knack for scoring goals, you’ll score them in any league and it doesn’t appear that Carrillo has shown any kind of knack for goal scoring throughout his career even in the Argentinian leagues. We need someone who is going to come in and hit the ground running immediately not someone who might be alright but then equally might not be. As others have said, if Pellegrino is as good at picking players as he is at setting up a football team then I don’t have high hopes at all.

Scoring early is a disaster for any Saints performance at the moment - Pell just calls back the attacks as soon as we score and we sit back until the inevitable happens.

Not really relevant to the point that’s being debated is it ? Did you miss the part of my original post where I admitted to it being impossible for us to keep players from other clubs under our current regime? If we had a rich owner like City we’d be able to keep players but we don’t, the point I made was that it could easily have been us taken over by a very rich Arab Sheik given that, at the time they were taken over, both clubs had a very similar recent history.

Was having this exact conversation the other day. It doesn’t help that most of us probably view them as mercenaries now who would move given a chance. I miss the days of having a talisman figure, someone like Lambert or Pelle, who could win us points out of nothing with their goals. Austin is the closest we have to that but you can’t be a talisman from the Physio’s bench.

With you on that, would rather give a young lad a go than spunk one third of the VVD money on a striker with as poor a scoring record as Carrillo. Even more so because he’d be a Pellegrino signing and I don’t want him to be around much longer.

I must have dreamt them being down in the old division two (like we were), coming up through the Championship (like we did) and then finishing mid table in the Prem for years before being jettisoned into the Champions League. There are plenty of clubs that have won more trophies than we have if that’s all you put it down to (Pompey for one, would you be calling someone a plum for saying we were a bigger club than the Skates?) My point was that, before they were bought, City were a club of very similar stature and with very similar recent history. I take the point that Manchester is a more attractive location but do you honestly believe that an Arab sheik bought Manchester City because they won the Cup Winners Cup in 1970? I don’t think so.

Spot on.

At the moment I have to admit I feel I’m slightly “going through the motions” as a fan. I travel from London to home games to spend time with my family and I travel to away games for a few beers with my mates. The games and the general malaise and inaction from the club are an immense source of frustration but the games themselves are largely pretty lifeless for me - we play sh*t, don’t score and usually lose. If I didn’t have the family connection I’m not sure I’d renew my ST on enjoyment value but it’s an institution for me and the old man so I’ll be there whatever happens.

Just a smokescreen whilst we compete a deal for a far cheaper, far less good and far more underwhelming signing in Carrillo.

Read his post though. He’s lamenting the fact that we had an owner more interested in priming us for sale than investing - Man City are a similar size club to us historically and they attracted a benevolent owner whereas we unfortunately didn’t get one with the means or the desire to push us on. Obviously we could never have kept the players under this leadership.

If Everton are in relegation danger this season (in any sense) then we were last year, something which was vehemently denied by all on this forum.