revolution saint

Serious question but do you think the club are lying about finances? I know there’s all the agents fees, signing on bonuses etc etc and you’ve mentioned how it only seems to affect us so what’s happened to the money? Do you think we’re choosing not to spend and keeping our powder dry, or is Gao taking money out? Personally I think the club probably is spending what it can afford so it’s difficult for me to have a go at them for not spending more but would be interested in another opinion.

It would be interesting to know how many players 24 and under have been signed for 20 - 30M and subsequently gone on to be substantially more expensive. I bet there's more misses than hits.

Personally I think we're probably spending the amount we can afford - I don't think we have any more money left. So, if you want to buy a CB for 20-30M then you'll need to either not sign someone like Adam Armstrong or you sell to raise the money. About the only player we have that would go for the amount required is JWP. Then you'd be in the position of spending that money on your CB and another midfielder. Now I've never been that much of JWP fan so I might be tempted but it seems pretty clear the majority of fans wouldn't hack that. Have to say I disagree on Zouma though - who's going to spend 50M on him in a couple of years time? Possibly Arsenal I guess but if you're talking fees that large then there's only a handful of clubs that can afford it and this is the problem when you sign players in that 20-30M bracket. If you're gambling on making a profit then you don't really have a massive pool of potential buyers out there. Course if finances are such that you're just looking at getting your money back then fair enough, plus you get the value of the player for a few years. I think it's fair enough to argue for one player over another if they're pretty much the same price but arguing for spending 20-30M is probably a bit unrealistic.

Absolutely need a headerer and a ball striker too. Our defencemen will struggle if not.

I only managed to see the second half of the Everton game and he didn't really stand out in that but then the whole side looked a bit crap. Today though I thought he was excellent. Looked as if he tired a bit in the second half but that's fair enough and he wasn't the only one to do that. If he continues to improve as you'd expect him to then I can easily see him dominating that right flank. If Armstrong is out in future then I think I'd rather see a combination of KWP and Livramento than having Walcott in the starting 11.

Losing S Armstrong would be a blow. Best ‘10’ we have and should be starting every game. Fair enough if someone offers stupid money but I can’t see that happening.

Completely agree. Hypo asked for details on who had written whateverhisname is off. I just provided the details. Personally couldn't give a toss whether people have made their mind up or not - it's a free country. They haven't made an informed judgement based on watching him play for us but that's up to them.

Does that help?

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.