The Kraken

£25m would be a decent deal.

I don’t think it’s funny, it’s really just a natural comparison of male sports versus female sports. High school boys will, on average, be faster and stronger than adult women. With football it’s kind of difficult to make a direct comparison, because it’s skills plus strength/pace/fitness, but nonetheless it’s still a valid comparison. https://boysvswomen.com/#/ There’s another chart, which I can’t find online now, but shows the womens world record for athletics events and what the lowest male age group equivalent is. In some instances the male record at 12 and 13 years old beats the womens equivalent. Just biology innit.

The only way a lot of crowds are going to grow is by bolting on to the mens teams. I don’t have a problem with that, it’s a pretty logical step really and the best way to quickly grow interest in the game. The FA fucked over the womens game for long enough, so they’re not exactly starting from a level playing field, a bit of a leg up isn’t unreasonable.

I find it sad that he’s gone so far off the reservation. He’s clearly not the brightest star in the sky but he’s gone so far down the rabbit hole there’s just no way out. Utter crank, which saddens me.

Tbf the black socks we had in 89/90 were absolutely brilliant. They had a little Saints badge stitched into them. I bought a pair for 1.99 from sportskit and used to always wear them for kick abouts and 5 a side. That kit was the best stripes kit that saints ever had Imo, and saw the 4-1 dismantling of Liverpool at the Dell.

No thank you.

No thanks. White socks. Never liked it when we had red socks.

More importantly, what does it look like when worn over a hoody?

Yep, that’s a pearler. I reckon we’ll get it at some point.

One would hope that the idea of him being on loan is that the club he’s at pays all/most of his wages, so that it’s a very low risk approach. Hes been signed from division two Polish football so I can’t imagine he’s on a huge amount as it is.

I don’t think anyone would suggest getting someone crap in just because they have experience.it’s just good to have a proper starter with experience in key positions through the spine of the team. We’ve got that with JWP at CM. A proper “captain” at CB would be really good addition. But they need to be good enough too. Not easy to find and maybe not cheap, but a key addition IMO, especially so when the club is focused on bringing on lots of young talent in other areas.

Agreed, I’d like to have a decent experienced CB alongside Salisu. I think we’ll only sign one CB this summer, unless Salisu goes. Bednarek and Valery may go, but Stephens and Lyanco maybe likely aren't going anywhere, so we don’t have too much to work with. So if this lad is the CB we get in and we do lose Bednarek, it’s a pretty young pairing.

More likely Caballero moves on and Lis becomes number three IMO.

Fucking hell Jamie, have a word with yourself sonner.

I’d probably disagree about the Forster comparison, though I was (and still am) a fan of Boruc. Forster in his early years at Saints was IMO a very solid keeper and a little bit of an upgrade on Boruc. He lost his way a bit, then showed this season glimpses of what a good keeper he can be. But they were both two decent glovesmen for us and not much in it.

Don’t like that much, it’s like an Arsenal / Denmark hybrid.

Me neither, but it’s (likely to be) a low cost gamble and an opportunity it’s to see if he can be a step up on Harry Lewis and therefore actually reasonable enough as our third choice keeper.

Like plenty of others, I’ve always said that I’ll be concerned if Alex McCarthy is our number one glovesman at the start of the season. That doesn’t mean that Bazunu may not be a cracking signing, it sounds very optimistic on that front. But we’ll find out if he’s been targeted as an immediate number one or if the club want to give him some time as understudy first. Personally I think he’s been signed as the new number one and will be the starting custodian come season kick off. So, yeah, I guess I’d be concerned if it turns out to not actually be the case.

Two keepers in one day #noholdsbarred

The apartments look like they’re being done as cheaply as possible. It’s a real shame they’re not doing something to incorporate the gasworks, there’s some lovely buildings built or proposed around the UK that have done it.

Oh god, you just know that will actually be sung

Exactly this. If Man City take him back it will be because he’s done incredibly well for us, and then Saints will be up on transfer fee in/out by £25m+. We will also have had a great performing player in the team for all that time. I don’t see a downside to the deal. If it encourages the big clubs to deal with us for the very best of their young talent then great, good move.

Stephens won’t be leaving IMO, he’s on a new (ish) contract. If we were going to ditch him we had an easy chance to do it, and didn’t. I think Bednarek may be off this summer though.

How the benchmark has fallen. From the days of Shilton, Flowers and Niemi to keeping your fingers crossed we get somewhere better than Alex flipping McCarthy.

Apologies for going all MLG, but he never supported Saints and he never claimed he did. IIRC, he grew up a Spurs fan. In fact, as has been said before on here, Saints treated him fairly shabbily when they let him go from the youth team when he was a schoolboy. I like Ings, and him leaving for Villa didn’t really bother me. His wages, age, injury record, current salary at Villa and likely transfer fee do bother me. For me it’s a no. If he was a free transfer and reasonable wages then it would be a no-brainer. But he isn’t, and those factors must be taken into consideration.