revolution saint

Edozie?

Yeah, his work off the ball was his (apparent) strength. My favourite damned by faint praise phrase is "does the simple things well". Yep, that's what we need - someone so limited they manage to turn basic competency into an achievement.

If you look at what I actually wrote, I didn't say there would definitely be motivation issues. I said I'd be concerned there could be. I was pretty clear that I wasn't being definitive about that. Fuck me there's some dense people around.

So he didn't initially turn us down then?

Classic Saintsweb strawman argument. At least about the motivation issue - people expressed concern over his potential motivation. They haven't moaned about it and you've just made that up. Presume you said the same when we signed Lemina?

Isn't the choice between good footballers who want to be here and good footballers who don't though?

Which is why I said I'd be a bit concerned about motivation rather than making a categorical judgement. Could be great, could be crap but definitely something that would need to be looked at carefully.

The point was you could end up with a player who has aspirations above the championship who joins because he doesn't have any better options and then goes through the motions. Off the top of my head some examples of players who joined but couldn't really give much of a toss about being here except for the money are ABK, Maitland Niles, Orsic, Salisu, Lemina. If you believe the initial reports then his first reaction was fuck off. Doesn't exactly scream come and get me, does it? Not all players will react in the same way but definitely need to do their homework on attitude and whether he'd be worth it after 6 months and the reality of championship football kicks in.

He looks quite good. Bit concerned about motivation though - sounds like the guy wants more than just a move to the championship.

I reckon it'd be really funny to kid Eddie Howe into thinking he's signing Ramsdale only to swap him out for Ryan Fraser at the last minute.

We were linked back in May with Daniel Peretz. He's joined Hamburg on loan now but wouldn't surprise me if we found someone similar on loan.

Definitely don't see us signing another CB even if THB also goes. Presume you're expecting THB to go for 28.5 - 33.5M now? Good work if we get that.

Chat GPT can fuck off.

I definitely see the argument in having some cover because, as we've seen this week, no one has stepped up into either the AM or right wing role in their absence. It would be cover though because I can't see us having the luxury of bringing someone in that would be a better first choice. Interesting that we're complaining about creativity this pre-season when neither have played much in the roles we're talking about. This argument is predicated on the assumption both stay which is probably unlikely. So, in that case, yeah, we need to get some players in that are better than the understudies we currently have. That's a fair argument. Better than Fernandes and Dibling just doesn't seem either likely or feasible.

Robinson left, Dibling right - both seem to be their natural positions.

Personally I don't agree, I think both would be excellent if they stayed but, again, it does sound like you think it's feasible to get better than them in. I don't think that's realistic.

Mostly the left although he switched to the right yesterday when he passed to Downs to score.

I think you're going to be disappointed if you're looking for us to get better players than Fernandes and Dibling in.

If Dibling and Fernandes stay then they can both make things happen in the final third. I'm always loathe to judge anyone on pre-season too much but Robinson has really impressed me too and I can see a situation where he becomes a genuine starter fairly quickly.

I reckon one of the right backs could be on that list too. Sugawara doesn't seem to have played many minutes and Bree is coming into the last year of his contract so club might be looking to see if they can get some sort of fee for him. Right back is one of the few areas where we seem to have had some links too. Think Aribo will be off. Same situation as Bree with regard to contract and doesn't feel like he's played many minutes. I'd have liked to see him in that Fernandes role with Fraser out wide instead of BBD during pre-season and just feels a better fit than Fraser. There was talk of moving to Turkey for Aribo and if that's the case then wouldn't surprise me if they wait until close to the end of the window and chuck in a very lowball bid.

Tend to agree with you, I think he probably would leave if it was up to him. His problem though is that he isn’t going to get many offers. I doubt any prem teams will want him and championship either can’t or won’t pay what we want for him. I think he’ll have to knuckle down and get on with it and I think he will do that. He went off injured in one of the games the other week so sounds like the injury is a genuine one and not an excuse for not taking him to Spain.

Yep, whether the players like a manager or not isn't really an issue as long as they respect him. My problem with Ralph in this instance is he should have been playing Bertrand instead of dropping him for a perceived criticism. That's the way you alienate players and lose the dressing room. Agree that he should have been backed with a striker the summer we lost Broja.

Do you know if Ramsdales does?

Thing is you never really know the full story anyway so it's difficult to judge and deals get structured so differently that it's rarely a case of "we want 10M" or whatever. Ultimately if, at the end of the window, he's still here then we've either not done a good enough job at getting rid of him, or clubs actually weren't that interested or tempting enough for a player going into the last year of a contract.

Seems like Hamburg only want a loan so that's probably where the issue lies. Club are clearly desperate to get rid of him and what with his heart issue last summer and going into a potential last season of his contract then I would imagine we'd be realistic on any fee we could hope to bring in. Wouldn't be surprised if his wage demands were more likely to scupper any deal rather than the fee we're asking for.