Gloucester Saint

And injured players too. Started with Boufal who Reed bought for Puel to liven up the drab football Claude deployed but he was already out until October and bar the odd spectacular goal never got going. Equivalent fee of £30-35m today. Stewart was an even worse risk - they were very lucky Adams’s proposed move to Wolves didn’t materialise that day. Previously fit and well players can develop niggles, it happens in sport, but to sign a player who is already scheduled to miss a third of a season at very best and an uncertain prognosis…and Stewart was out of contract at the end of that season too! There’s also tunnel vision, Les, Hughes and Bowen identified correctly that the defence lacked height (correctly). So Vestergaard was identified by Reed and Wilson as top pick. There’s a TalkSPORT clip with Bowen where he said him and Mark Hughes said to Reed ‘you’ve got to be kidding Les, he can’t run at all!’. Both went on holiday thinking no more of it, they come back and signing happened, OS pictures with Les and the watch. So they went with the tallest defender and overlooked all other attributes. What Leicester were thinking later on giving us our money back…the mind boggles. Hence both clubs in a dreadful mess.

Agree @Saint86 and I think the penny has dropped with the overwhelming majority of the fanbase because what’s on here lampoons them as inept clowns, what’s online more broadly SFC-related is far more vicious and hostile towards SR. Announcing Long with another poxy marketing video on the day they sold our best academy product for years, albeit the best they could do in the contract situation, is yet another example of simply not reading the room. It’s going to boil over on national TV against the skates unless we win that game well and SR are on as sticky a wicket as Martin is up there. Dragan can say he’s going nowhere but when there’s protests and the gates fall from 31k, to 25, to 20, to 15, the underwriting cheques get bigger each season. Just ask Ellis Short.

Dominic Grieve, the former Attorney General and one of the country’s finest legal minds on the reality of what Farage is proposing https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/farage-immigration-deportation-reform-law-b2813624.html So if he’s right, I suspect he is, even suspending EHCR membership isn’t a panacea. Better to update it and make it more specific in interpretation.

Yeah, Downs is medium-upper Champ price these days.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Guðmundsson_(footballer,_born_1997) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morten_Frendrup https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mateo_Retegui At a level we couldn’t attract now under SR but used to be in the Liebherr days https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radu_Drăgușin

What I find odd is the signings Spors are making aren’t like the ones he was securing with 777. They’re still very SR. Wonder if the Ankersons are giving him a list of approved players they can take a cut from? This week will tell us if that’s the case or not. It just remind me of running a pub with one of the big pub cos, you’re told that you can buy guest beers in with their core limited ranges, but you find all sorts of caveats and that they’re 25% more expensive than the free house down the road.

Brookes definitely but he’s still been featuring unless Bournemouth sign a couple of players in his position this week?

My reading of what he said was that it was a signing that you’d expect a newly relegated club with year one parachute to make. I’d probably classify it as a higher profile signing that I’d be cursing if Brum or Ipswich made it, but still should be well within SR’s bandwidth to get done quickly for £15m or so if the player wants it. Fellows is the more ambitious of the two but does Dragan want to go for the title or not? Damion Downs won’t win it for you but Tom Fellows is the quality of player to make a big dent. But that’s nearer £20m. Sort of player that could step up to the PL though…

Where did WBA get Issac Price from? Looked it up - Standard Liege. So there are direct, tricky players out there for a reasonable fees if we look beyond the Ankerson Transfer Tavern nonsense and watch properly.

They own SFC, that’s a fact, but what can happen is that 31k crowds become 25k, then 20k, and well, you were around in 08/09 too… Lowe and chums couldn’t underwrite it, Dragan could but would he want to? He’s not from the area like Coates family at Stoke say with the 365 empire. Once those parachute payments dry up, it’s like Hotel California, except you tend to leave the Championship the bottom route like we did, Leeds, Norwich, Forest, Derby, Ipswich and Stoke very nearly did last season.

Azaz is more a #10 but if we got Fellows to go with him, Robinson carries on progressing and another winger in on loan - that would be a good refresh. Archer could be a beneficiary as he might actually get some early ball off the defenders’ shoulder. Agree with @Appy on a CM that carries the ball and has some edge though. Wouldn’t half help Still get more out of Charles/Downes who struggled with his workload Saturday. Or failing that, an actual DM and push either Charles or Downes further up so the defence is screened. And with new RB, go 4 at the back too.

Smallbone to Wrexham looks like a rare Alan Nixon scoop, it’s been everywhere and Alfie tweeted that the club were happy for him to go. Wouldn’t have done that without a wink it was on. Aribo - who knows. His agent seems to think he’s marketing peak Yaya Toure but we know the reality. He’s ok, but not a Still player and hasn’t been happy for ages. Price could be the issue, if Wrexham can pay £7.5m for Will, then can’t see the club taking less for a Nigerian international. Wages are very different of course. Personally I’d take a lower fee and get the wages gone, giving Still a more energetic engine room, but not the SR way. @Smirking_Saint I never took the Armenian thing seriously and much rather have two quick direct high quality wide players myself. Ironically after Martin pissed Alcaraz about, it’s exactly that type of central player who breaks the lines, carries the ball and has a bit of edge/risk to him that we sorely need.

Give us something to want to watch as well. Wingers make game so much more energetic and lively. Hopefully the end of the Pep era.

Sadly yes, but a left footer (not that variety!) whereas Baker and Sugawara are right footers.

Enjoyed it very much 09-17, great times, matches, atmospheres and it’s a bit like gambling I guess, once the fun stops, take a break. I don’t even mind us being bad, we all laughed at Claus’s OG at Goodison in the away end in 99. We’ve all got stories about away hammerings in the 90s…and find them funny. 🤣 It’s the slowness, the lack of energy, the lack of purpose on display. I lose concentration after a few minutes watching us, tuck into a book and then something finally happens and I look up again. It’s boredom. WGS teams were not the best technically but I always was glued to them from my seat in the Kingsland because they were always at teams. Ditto Nigel, Poch, Ronald. Maybe it’ll get better but it’s been on a long cycle now. Even 05-09, there were moments and pockets of hope, little cameos from Lallana, Stern John, Saganowski.

That grisly tableau from @S-Clarke is why SR are finished as far as most Saints are concerned and even a good rest of the week (as if) won’t save them.

I haven’t been enjoying the matches for some time even on TV/streams and stopped going in person having been a long time STH. Wrexham was an exciting finish but not a good performance. If they can’t bring in some eye catching players worth watching for this level by COP Friday and it’s still 5 at the back, I may well be taking a break for a while from football as Cheltenham are grim as well.

And in the case of BBD, Archer and even Downes, they look poor even at this level. So SR have even failed abysmally if that was their plan. Lavia and Fernandes profits are no pass for their gross negligence.

They’re not interested in supporters or the city, it’s all high fives about the fee received for Dibling. If they can pick up a few fringe players from the German and French second divisions they can loan out to the other clubs/maybe turn a modest profit on one, happy days. If they can squeak into 6th and through the play-offs again, even better.

They’re probably as enthusiastic about him as we are about George Long, doesn’t seem like either will feature much.

Not what I said… I’m trying to explain what makes me enthusiastic. I grew up watching Danny Wallace take the piss out of full backs, Williams’s composure, Mark Wright winning headers and serene on the ball, Shilton claiming it, MLT’s outrageous skill, Case’s thundering challenges, Moran’s darting runs and tidy finishes. Later on, Lallana’s Cryuff turns, Rickie’s volleys, JWP’s free kicks, KWP’s surges forward. When SR can re-connect me and the shadow of the club I supported and loved, then I might start to feel part of it like I did then travelling up and down the country to watch them, and I might see multi-club transactions as a positive. They’re not a negative, I just don’t care about them.

Fine, it enthuses you, it doesn’t excite me, let’s agree to disagree.

When it’s £10-15m sell ons maybe, but the odd million only materially matters if you’re a small community owned like Exeter City who rely on that and built a new stand from Watkins, Grimes, Amapdu etc. We’ve leaked like a colander under SR under every purchase bar Lavia and probably Fernandes when he leaves this week so hence struggling to feel much enthusiasm.

It just doesn’t excite any of us and the small profit will only be squandered on more squad filler. We get excited by goals, skill, good saves, quick passing on the pitch. When the club is re-established in the top flight and all of Rasmus’s bloopers move off the books ask me again if I think it’s important or positive.

Pilchards, haven’t heard from you in ages!