revolution saint

Stop being such a drama queen. He may well be rubbish but he’s not even signed yet and you have no idea what wages he’ll be on if he does sign. You seem to jump to conclusions pretty quickly. Adam Armstrong might not turn out to be that great and Livramento the same. Why not just wait and see instead of getting all worked up?

You have no idea how good or bad he is. You've seen some stats and watched some clips on The YouTube and come to a decision based on that. If you're lucky you may have heard of him before this afternoon. On the face of it it does look a pretty whelming transfer but until you've seen him play (and play for us) you really can't be making any kind of informed judgement on him.

Lyon fans slated Lovren and thought they’d mugged us off and that turned out alright. OK, he was a cock but played well and we made a profit on him. Actually seems a similar kind of deal to the Lovren one. Hopefully this leaves enough money to get the Everton kid and continue Crockers assembly of the team of the 20’s….

Problem is you could be accused of a bit of confirmation bias on this one. When we concede a goal you're looking for a tactical error and so you find it. It assumes there's a perfect set of tactics that would eliminate any goal (unless as you mention, it's down to individual error). It's only an opinion but I think motivation, man management and fitness are just as important as tactics.

Not in a first team game he didn't. Playing U23s and playing against Man Utd are completely different things. Besides which has he ever played as a number 10 at U23 level in a 4-2-2-2 formation? No, he hasn't. It's a perfectly valid suggestion however it's also perfectly valid to point out it's a risk based on lack of experience in that position (as well as a lack of experience in general). Personally we've got Stuart Armstrong presumably available and he's the best person to play in that role so I'd play him instead.

You must have watched a different 2nd half to me (that’s all I watched). In my opinion we were never in it. Completely outfought and outthought. Yeah there was a little spell but we never looked like scoring. Anyway, in answer to whether we should change formation. Absolutely.

Yeah, I've never really knocked Ralph before but he really needs to take the majority of the blame on this one. We were crying out for more bodies in midfield to shore us up. No idea why Stuart Armstrong was on the bench but if he was fit enough to be on the bench then he should have been on the pitch at least as a sub. If it was tactical then that's a big mistake.

Only managed to watch the second half (so I'm to blame) but jeez that was effing awful. Completely lost the midfield and defence was a shambles. Fair play to McCarthy - he seems determined to end any speculation that he may be the better of the two goalkeepers.

Soul of the club my arse. Not one single player has ever been bigger than the club (and that goes for any club not just Saints). Players join, players leave, fans remain. Not that it makes much difference but you do realise you're calling someone who was at least at one point a pompey fan the "soul of the club"?

I know people have talked about Livramento being able to play on the left but I'd like another left back in before anything else. The idea of relying on someone out of position if anything happens to Perraud doesn't fill me with confidence and we still don't know what Perraud will be like with any great certainty either. If we can do that then it's a reasonably decent squad that should be able to handle injuries to an extent.

Yep, I agree - we've missed a presence up top since Pelle left. Doesn't mean we have to go long ball but does mean we can get some crosses in and shake things up a bit. It could also free up Adams to play a more natural striker role. Pretty sure part of replacing Ings will be working out how to get more goals out of Adams and a big man taking the load off him could be part of that.

Yeah, I'm only passing on what I've been told by a couple of Blackburn fans. From what I can see from the youtube clips he's fast enough but not anything above what you'd expect from a striker and definitely not slow. When people say very quick I always think of players like Mane and he's not in that category. TBH I think movement and anticipation are more important anyway and it's not like we're signing him for that quick ball over the top. We tend to push teams back so being able to find little pockets of space and anticipate any kind of mistake will be how he gets his goals. Good thing is it looks like we're going to get to judge him for ourselves so it shouldn't be too long before we can make our own minds up.

Have to say I’m not that bothered either. Seems to have been injured far too much and not overly impressed when he has played. Shame about the injury last season as we could have made a bit more of an informed opinion on him had he gone out on loan. Whatever happens the lad needs to be playing regularly this season and it definitely won’t be with us so unless we’re going to extend his contract a permanent move probably makes more sense.

Adam Armstrong isn't "very quick" according to the people I know who have seen him play (Blackburn fans). He's got good movement and anticipation but not blessed with outright pace as such. Personally I don't think that's too much of a problem - I wouldn't have said Ings had massive pace and neither did Kevin Phillips. We don't really play a counter attacking game anyway so it's not going to be an asset that we're going to be overly reliant on. He's got many attributes and is probably the closest we could get to Ings as a replacement but it's misleading to say he is very quick.

I did a quick google and came up with "having qualities that are seen as typical of a particular person, group, or thing." So I guess he means that bednarek has qualities fairly typical of a centre back that are neither particularly poor or particularly good either. Somewhere in the middle if you will. I don't think he means average in the statistical sense of the word (you know like mean, median and average). Anyway, words are tricky aren't they? Sometimes I struggle with the really complicated ones and even a few of the supposedly easy ones. I find google is pretty good for those types of things but don't worry - sometimes asking is the better route and don't you ever feel ashamed for asking even if it turns out to be fairly simple. Everyone needs to start somewhere and no one will think any the less of you.

How’s that reserving judgment?

Yeah, but the quality ain't always that good but beggars can't be choosers and all that.

I think there's a danger that this "national conversation" can be counter-productive and that it actually entrenches opinions and doesn't change them. Let's be honest, it's perfectly reasonable to object to taking the knee on the grounds that it's a gesture that might not actually achieve anything without being called a racist but all too often that seems either the case or the perception that that's what's happening. It's the same with Trump supporters, Brexit supporters and anyone with views deemed to be on the right - they've been called racist, sexist, thick, stupid and general all round nutters for so long and all it's done is make them go into a shell. It doesn't change their minds and, if anything, it actually reinforces their opinions. I've been guilty of it myself with Brexit and Trump and it's really easy to do, makes you feel a bit superior and is ultimately self defeating. Personally I don't have much of a problem with taking the knee. It's no skin off my nose but I can see why people object to it and I can see their frustrations when an objection is perceived to be an admission of, or condoning, racism. It isn't. I think a lot of it stems from the fact that recently we seem to be bombarded with all these accusations that we're all closet racists, that even unintentional things can be deemed racist (people of colour vs coloured people for an example). Naturally people are going to be a bit defensive when they sincerely believe that it isn't their intention to offend. Dunno what the solution is but getting a bit hysterical on either side of the debate isn't going to solve anything.

Phil Boyer was top scorer in the old division one in 79/80 - no one ever talks about him either. I'm too young to remember him but seems strange that a player who was the top scorer in the top division for a club like us isn't talked about much either.

All about context though innit? I doubt Tella has anywhere near enough games to have a comparable dataset, most of his appearances were as sub and from recollection not all of them were as a central striker. Sorloth played out wide in his last season for RB Leipzig so you should really only be using his season in the Turkish league as comparison. Armstrong plays for a struggling side in the championship, Tammy Abraham played for a Villa side in 18/19 that got promoted from the Championship so, again, there's mitigating factors.

Having seen the Greek fella on YouTube I didn’t think he looked that great. No guarantee of anything and it’s a subjective opinion but whilst we need to be careful how we spend money we shouldn’t be spending it on players just because they’re affordable. In any case it looks more to me like a club and/or agent trying to manufacture a move rather than any interest on our part. I reckon we’ll get Armstrong but at a price that’s more to our liking.

Don’t really have a problem with looking at players in the sub 20M category, there’s probably a few bargains around and I think the risk of failure is just as great as if you were spending 25-30M. Look at Timo Werner shocking value for what they paid but I bet no one really thought it a risk when he signed. I’m not even convinced Tammy Abraham would be that good (leaving aside the fact that it’ll never happen anyway). Basically I’m saying any signing is going to be a risk (obvious) but that risk in my opinion isn’t drastically reduced by spending what for us is a big fee.

5 goals in 34 appearances for RB Leipzig. Not sure how many of them were sub appearances though.

Isn’t the French league where all the bargains are to be had? Any football geek out there know of anyone realistic and decent?

To all those people saying Adam Armstrong is unproven in the premier league, that’s simply not true. He’s played 15 times and not scored. To be fair he was young and they were probably sub appearances. Have to say I’m not that convinced by Edouard either. Origi? Got my reservations about him but he’s got something if he can find a bit of consistency. All the names have a few question marks and will be a gamble but that’s the market we’re in. Club have had plenty of time to identify who they want so just got to hope they get it right.