OnceaSaintalwaysaSaint

Boy, he was crap in those friendlies. I guess they took him to Goztepe to save on the return fare. I always think of him as a Che. Really useless but he gives it 100% every game. As someone said, if we also get 6m for Aribo, it's starting to look like a successful transfer window!

Even yesterday against Goztepe he looked a class act when he came on. That's reinforcing his value and like you say, there are a number of characters that frankly let themselves down last year when we were on our downward spiral, but Lavia still gave it every game 100%. He comes with zero baggage and with so many prima donnas in this game, that's worth a pretty penny on its own.

Problem is, we don't know who's going and who's staying so the squad can't be sorted. I'm just hoping Alcaraz stops putting in too many eye-catching performances before the transfer window closes.

Got to agree. This time, though, there do seem to be a couple of options to pass further forward. Tella and the new lads looked lively. AA , however, still runs down blind alleys and Che, bless him, is just useless. I don't buy in to this "they've scored hundreds of goals in the championship before so they'll do ok" line of thinking. We've just spent £15m on a defender. The same amount will buy two quality lower league strikers. Surely our scouts can find them....

Just to pick one comment from "Saintsweb intelligentsia" in last season's pre-season friendlies courtesy of S-Clarke: " So, two pre-season games and sadly we still face similar troubles as we did in the real games. To put it bluntly, we lack quality and any sort of top flight ability in the attack." And there's lot of other comments that proved sadly accurate... Pre-seasons indicate our style of play for the coming season, so I hope we're not going to fanny about passing the ball sideways at the back looking to pull the opponents out of position all season.

Personally, I'm hoping all the players we keep can find some form, especially Edozie, Sulemana & Alcaraz but as for AA, he's a proven lightweight and I'd prefer us to find a striker or two from League 1/2 or from Europe's leagues and build them up. AA's been given enough chances.

So the rumour is Chelsea are invoking their buy-back clause on Tino (£35m) and then letting us have him on loan for a year. Like that rumour.

Sadly, this is looking a likely scenario. Bringing Martin in was protracted and wasted time and it seems to have set the tone for our transfers this summer. Off to Reading in 3 weeks time and more than half the team will be the same losers as we had last season. Get a move on chappies, there's dross to offload and a spine to build in a team and we ain't got that long.

Chelsea up to their old schemes again - an eight year deal? So Che won't be going there 😀. Get the impression our guys are playing hard-ball and saying this is the price for our players, take it or leave it....and clubs seem to be leaving it. Don't have a problem if that means us keeping Lavia, though there's a lot of shirkers in our squad should be off loaded. People saying £25m for ABK on this site. Really? I'd accept half that.

Thanks. That helps manage expectations. As a Premium member and not a season ticket holder, Plymouth might not get to us but glad to see a couple of London clubs have 3,000 allocations - though does it all depend on how many the club decides to take?

Will we make more than half of what we paid for him? If so that's a bonus. Like the phrase the "race for" Tall Paul. Sounds like he won't be going out on loan.

And my overriding memory is in the cup against Chelsea when someone must have told him he was Cafu because he was seriously good that game.

This obsession with statistics is sterilising football. Players passing sideways to improve their 'stats'. Lyanco won't win stats contests but he can see a pass, he has control of the football and his chest thumping, crowd rousing isn't just an act. Yes, he can't hold a line defending free kicks (teach him, surely it can't be that difficult), yes he gets wrong-sided and there's always a mistake in him and yes he's actually not very good, but I've come to detest 'shirker' ABK and 'shirker' Salisu and I'd sell them and keep Lyanco for the Championship.

This year there's also the A12 to Ipswich which must be worse. The A11 at least takes you right in to parking and a close(ish) walk to the ground.

This is the point. Maybe he is sitting in Majorca watching videos of our games working out new tactics and thinking "AA is awful, he can go, is that ABK 'injured' again? He can go. Tall Paul, fuck me! etc etc etc" But somehow I doubt it. Until he signs on the dotted line, we're wasting time. And maybe it's my poor memory but we never seem to get off to a flying start. By the end of August, we'll probably have played 7/8 games and the players need to know each other's styles and strengths not meeting each other for the first time.

Wouldn't be too much of a surprise if ABK, Salisu & Bednerek all leave in the next month or two. I'd like to keep Stephens. At least he shows character while not being quite so OTT as Lyanco.

It might be more a case of we haven't worked out who's leaving so put it on JWP. And who knows? Maybe our guys will play hardball on their initial valuation otherwise he could stay. Think Mara will be staying as he's also on the billboard.

That article was also published on 21st May and said an announcement would be made within 48 hours. Still not convinced Martin is our only candidate.

Good point, so surely we add that in to our sell fee?

Seems like there's still other clubs sniffing around (eg Arsenal, Man U) so wouldn't be surprised if he goes for £45m which would beat the initial estimation of us experts on here that initially valued him at £40m. Maybe the Saints hierarchy thought: "we'll show them, they value Lavia at £40m, well we'll get £50m for him."

What does he think about League 1?

Che is in a different league. Like Shane Long, useless but likeably useless. There's nothing to like about Elyounoussi. I don't get this "he's good off the ball crap" and just because he collected all the footballs for all the others who shot wide at the the training ground (admittedly there would have been a lot), it should not have guaranteed him a place in the side each week. And what song rhymes with Elyounoussi?

Quite a few people are suggesting we will be creating a lot more chances in the championship. Watching the two semi-final play offs, one was exciting and interesting, the other was turgid possession-play crap. I haven't done a full analysis but there isn't an abundance of goals in the championship compared to the premier league (maybe the finishing is worse), so without a change in attitude and personnel, there's a real danger of us "groundhog daying" playing tippy-tappy football in the championship and creating few chances.

Paddypower excelling himself tonight. Saltbay now 4/1 to celebrate with the players. Time to lump on?

And with that gobbing scouse twat adding his crap, the commentary is really irritating. Without watching the game, you'd think this was an epic game. And if he calls any more of these players heros.....