VectisSaint

Don Cortese is planning to p-p-pick up a penguin

That would have been Paolo

You forgot Spiderman and possibly Fox (though I hope we get a new LB)

Oh Mayuka He used to be a young boy but he's older now I've already got my coat...

I see Di Canio likened Swindon to us last night. Wel lhe likened them to Barcelona anyway, same thing.

The list of out of contract players on that article is so tempting, a who is who of washed up has beens relying on their names. BBC would have done more of a service listing some of the lesser names. That said, Basso was always decent at Bristol City, maybe a cheap 2nd option as backup for KD at least until next window. It would be great to sign a striked like Heskey, the thought of his prolific goal-scoring ability is mouth-watering LOL

Hopefully our recruitment department can at least get the names of the players correct. You are also probably mistaken if you think we are looking for a CB or CBs to replace what we already have, our problem in this area is as much about options as quality per se. Our only real option at the moment if Jos or Jose was injured (or suspended) seems to be Seaborns, because NA didn't even consider Stephens for last night let alone the PL.

Seems to me that we have several transfers in place, once the shirt numbers were announced this became quite obvious. This week seems to be about finalising deals that have been nearing completion for some time. Mayuka take the #24, Ramirez #10, #3 & #15 (LB & CB) hopefully to be announced soon to placate the folks screaming for defenders (and justifiably so to a large extent). Personally I hope there is still another GK to come. Must admit this bloke does look the dogs ******** on YouTube, his pace looks awesome.

I've heard we are bringing in Kevin Keegan as defensive coach.

I never get this, as far as I can tell Cortese is Italian. Seems a lot of people think he is Swiss. Perhaps he is, can't find anything definitive either way.

Oh dear, thank goodness school starts again soon.

Perhaps the bus was not available, already booked to bring Ramirez to SMS from Gatwick

1-0 Saints, "Japanese striker Tadanari Lee converts Billy Sharp's 53rd-minute cross" according to Beeb.

Seems that way, unless he is injured, although frankly not surprised. He does not seem to be as good as we all hoped when he signed. Wouldn't surprise me to see him involved in a p-ex deal this week.

Most footballers just want to play, so I bet Billy is not hacked off. He has hardly played since the start of the season, despite having a good pre-season, so needs to get amongst the goals to remind NA of what he can do. The more interesting point about this line up is that it shows up our serious shortage at the moment in 2 specific positions, GK and CB. KD (assuming its K and not S) has to be on the bench because we have no real alternative, and Frazer has to play at CB ahead of Stephens despite the fact that he played CB on the pre-season tour and got good reviews when he did, it seems like NA is not willing to risk our 4th choice CB and would prefer to play Frazer out of position.

Yes it is 75% in last 2 years, of internationals that he has been available for. Olympics are not full internationals by the way (they are U23 matches) and so would not count, but would probably be taken into consideration if there was a borderline case. I really don't think a work permit is something to worry about, and I'm convinced that this would have been considered already. There is no way in the world that NC would be so naive as to pay this sort of money and then think, oh feck I forgot about a work permit.

You are confusing £ with Euros in some cases (not all). So its quite a bit less than £37m, perhaps £30m is more like it. Not all cash up front (though perhaps more than originally budgeted for) and most, though not all, with potential to increase in value.

This. He also set up the best chance in the 1st half, was it Lallana's pile driver (sorry I guess I could check on the highlights)? He made the move of the match driving diagonally across midfield and then providing a great pass, but no-one notices the set up 3 passes before the final touch. He is not the greatest player in the world, but the abuse he takes at the ground and especially from a few on here is just unacceptable.

Far from it in fact, the eyes often lie, as proved by this remark. Everyone was poor, but Guly was one of the least poor players on Saturday. His poorer moments came when we changed formation from the 4-3-3 to 4-4-2, when Guly dropped back into MF, his best moments were when he was playing as part of an attacking 3 (you may want to call what he and JRod were playing as MF, but it was a very different MF role than the one that he was asked to do after Sharp came on). I was actually quite pleased on Saturday, we sat a little way away from where we sat all last season, 2 blocks, and it was very pleasant not to hear anyone around me mouthing off about Guly, the bigots that used to sit just in front of us were thankfully nowhere to be seen or heard. I was only disappointed a bit later when we were in the shop getting my daughter a new shirt (with Guly printed on the back) to heara bigoted bloke in front spouting off about being happy to have anything printed on the back of a shirt as long as it was not "any Guly crap". Quite an old guy, probably my age, late 50s or so, wish we didn't have these type of ignorant ****ssupporting my team, but sadly I guess they are entitled to their misguided opinion.

You are confusing work permits and international clearance, they are very different. One is a sporting regulation (by FIFA) one is a UK (or EC) law. He will need both before he can play, international clearance is not an issue, it would be granted, work permit could be if he doesn't automatically meet the very precise criteria, but we would almost certainly still sign him anyway (I'm sure we would not have got this far if there was any question of not getting a work permit). It might go to appeal, but even in very dodgy cases, such as Marian Pahars, the appeal is usually successful.

Why do you think the work permit application will be rejected technically? On what grounds? I thought he had played enough internationals for Uruguay for which he has been available for selection in last 2 years. There certainly is no issue with Uruguay's ranking. Or is the technical issue that we are not Manure or Citeh or Arse?

He was one of our better players Saturday, though that's not saying much, along with Lallana and Guly. Unfortunately with Davis not fully fit and Cork injured the MF is currently lightweight to say the least and a lot of responsibility is falling on Morgan as a result. But his ability to break up the play of Wigan time and again is very important, and I was shocked when he was once dispossessed, as it is so unusual. I think Ottery's coaching is working well.

Its not a question of passing or failing medical. The medics will assess the injury and whether he will recover fully or whether there would be some lasting damage. We would probably still sign him unless there was a serious risk that he would not fully recover. As long as we don't use the same medics as we did for Tin Man a few years back we should be OK.

We don't play Arsenal for nearly 3 weeks. Unlikely new signings would start against Manure on Sunday anyway. Reality is that very few transfers have actually completed in the PL as yet (of course there are exceptions), the reality is that all clubs do their business at the end of the window. We are actually quite fortunate to have brought in 4 new signings early on. It is ridiculous that the transfer window remains open after the start of the season which is why we have this farcical situation, but thats how it currently is, and until that is changed the way of doing business will change little, if at all.

Fonte made 1 mistake on Saturday, which admittedly was a BIG mistake and lead to their 2nd goal. Quite frankly it made no difference to the result. We were already 1-0 down with a couple of minutes to play and we would not have scored if we had played until midnight. But hey, make 1 mistake and some dumbasses on here will call you a donkey. Presumably didn't see the heaps of mistakes that Lambert made with some awful passes. Fonte played well at Man City, Jos made 1 glaring error. In fact are 2 CBs who are not good enough for the PL have really made 2 serious errors between them in 2 games.