Saint_clark

...What? We're giving young players longer to develop than usual academies who dump players at 18/19. He's shown huge promise, had a pretty bad injury and so we've giving him a couple more years and a loan deal to prove himself.

The next step is the biggest. We're around about where Spurs were around 2008-2010 in terms of league positions. Not impossible to keep improving, it's just that the rate of it will slow down.

That's hilarious, but kind of suggests the club and Taylor know that he's a bit of a joke player...why do we have him if Harry Lewis was getting on the bench ahead of him last season?

Decent lower Prem player, no idea why he got so much grief...because Eden Hazard made him look a fool one time? Well, bugger me, every defender must be sh*t. Weird signing for Everton though.

How many points did we finish ahead of them season before last out of interest? Edit- just checked, we finished 16 points. So they managed it, in fact they managed a 31 point swing on us. We only need to manage a 16 point swing to actually finish above them so not impossible at all. Let's go into a season with optimism for once, eh?

There is, hence why they pick random "unglamourous" ties like Saints V Palace every now and then - kill two birds with one stone.

You'd also have the added hilarity of him signing for Everton instead of Liverpool.

Fair point, it's his job to create and score goals after all.

So we have Oludare Olufunwa as well as Olufela Olomola. Must be able to work all of that into a chant somehow.

Year 2000 was almost two decades ago my friend.

No idea about Fonte but i'm almost certain we would have won had Van Dijk been playing...f*cking Vardy.

If he's first choice guess we'll find out if he was a one season wonder or not. It all clicked for him under Mopo, but the season before and ever since he was decidedly average.

You're right, we need to sign someone proven in this league, like we did when we signed Van Dijk.

I think his crossing is superb, we just have no-one making the right moves to get on the end of them anymore.

I'm perfectly OK with this. Said it before but I foresee Stephens playing alongside Van Dijk and learning from him, selling Van Dijk next summer to get huge funds to reinvest in the team and then having a first choice pairing of Stephens and Bednarek from then on (if Bednarek comes on like we hope he will). If we've done our job properly we could then have a centreback pairing who will still be good enough for another 10 years.

I do. Previous seasons it's been "no-one will leave that we don't want to". The language is totally different.

I love how they call him a Van Dijk replacement just to keep up the line that VVD is/has gone... I also love how they say that Stephens future is secure with a five year deal then in the same sentence say that Van Dijks future is in doubt...even though he has the same amount of time left.

I think the vast majority of us are OK with Van Dijk leaving next summer, bar a miraculous top 4 finish or a top 6 +cup win.

I love Yoshida, I think he was fantastic. Sadly Stephens development is more important to us.

I guess that's the biggest downfall of using such a statistic oriented system - countries and leagues with poor coverage will not turn up as much data for you to sift through.

Likely scenario is Van Dijk and Stephens first choice this season with Bednarek rotating in for cup games/christmas pile up, sell Van Dijk next summer for £60million and then have Bednarek and Stephens as first choice.

We haven't sold him yet? You'd add Clyne to a list that already has Clyne? I'd be quite happy with McQueen as first choice next season. Needs to be given the chance at some point.

That's exactly what he is saying. I'd rather see us finish lower and actually enjoy the games than finish midtable and be bored to death. I'd be quite happy finishing higher in the table if I wasn't paying for the season ticket and train fare from Weymouth though.

I hope Sky and BT announce the first batch nice an early.

Why not do that but keep the halves the same length? Why do you need to cut them down. Also hate the idea that you can't score from a rebound on a penalty - a penalty is essentially just a free-kick in the box, once it's taken play has resumed.