SNSUN

Southampton - "Mmm, how about £70m?" Chelsea - "We won't pay a penny more than £80m". Liverpool - "We'd like to put a fresh bid in of £44,000,001, with add ons if he ever flies to the moon or skateboards down Everest or plays for Brazil."

I got an email from the club today that said they are in the final stages of getting the season ticket stuff sent out and then they will do the membership stuff. (not verbatim).

West Ham fans are fuming at that one. They haven't signed anyone all summer and the one player they thought was a 'done deal' has gone elsewhere. I can see them panicking and coming back in for JWP.

Exactly - and we'll be making money from other outgoings anyway. Tino most likely, Salisu, DCC etc - even if we keep Lavia until the last day of the window we would still have money available to bring players in to make sure we're not left light in that position. City have a 20% sell on clause. We want £50 million because £10million of it will go to City, meaning we're left with the £40 million that we would have got next season if City had bought him then. (Less if you factor in the sell on clause). It is simple maths - we want £40 million for him so we have to ask for £50 million to cover City's sell on clause. There is enough interest in Lavia that I'm not concerned right now. Liverpool will, I'm sure, get their thumbs out their butts and come up with a deal we're happy with. What is noticeable is that, despite Liverpool fans saying that he's stated he really wants to join them. I've heard no moanings from the player about staying.

This'll be funny as they keep incrementally increasing their bid by a million each time, with the media continually saying the deal is "nearly done", only for us to keep rejecting it until we get what we want. One month to go Liverpool, and plenty of teams like the look of him...

I agree, in so much as I think the three teams that went up will probably go down (although if anyone has a shot of survival it'll be Burnley) BUT I disagree that it gets weaker year on year. I said at the start of last season that the three teams that got promoted would be strong, and sure enough they all stayed up. (And somehow Everton still fluked themselves out of it). It's only weaker this season because the three teams that got promoted were a bit of a surprise, and are noticeable weaker on paper than the established Prem clubs.

I heard the Aarons link on Talksport. I’d be happy with him to replace Tino. As a Championship club, there aren’t many better we can get realistically. He’s stalled a bit at Norwich but has played a lot of games and he’s still only 23 and was recently in the a England U21 winning side. Been linked with big clubs in the past too. It’s a no brainer signing for me. I still think he’s Prem bound but I think it would be a bit of a coup for us.

RAWK and KUMB are some funny forums. RAWK in particular are getting worried about Chelsea's interest in Lavia. One poster saying that Chelsea should just "Pay the Money" for Caicedo. Well the same could be said for Liverpool and Lavia! KUMB meanwhile don't think JWP is worth anything over £25 million and that we should be desperate to sell because we've been relegated like they'd be doing us a massive favour. Little remembering that we're actually not poor anymore and are about to make tens of millions of pounds from other players sales. It's definitely a summer where we should stick to our guns as much as possible valuation wise.

According to reports, we're interested in Foo-Kin Gno Wan. I'd be interested to see if Awe is another Simeu. Simeu was signed with some promise from Chelsea and has been loaned out three times and doesn't look like he's going to make it at 21. (Mind you we're going to be very short of CBs if we ship out the ones we expect so...)

Piggy backing on this thread - for anyone that knows - possibly a stupid question - I bought 2023/4 Membership (Saints Plus) a good 3 weeks ago. Am I supposed to get anything physical (like through the letterbox?) I know the membership has worked because it is on my SaintsFc account. I was last a member 3 or 4 years ago and I definitely remember receiving something then. TIA.

I have us in the play offs. But differently to you, I actually think we start strong with the jewels we still have, then suffer a bit post the slamming shut of the window with a lot of ins and outs, then pick up our form through the season and finish strongly. I'd love to be top 2 of course I just think that with a week left to the start of the season there are still too many transfers to be done.

Sod the Prem. The most important thing this season is just to get promoted. We absolutely should be keeping someone who was instrumental in getting the Champions promoted last season and won multiple awards last season. If we don't get promoted then it's irrelevant wondering how he'll do in the Prem the season after next. I'd rather the known quality of Tella than bringing in someone unknown. Like Steve de Ridder. Yes we will probably sell him when we get the right offer but I think it will be a dodgy move, particularly because we'll be selling a lot of other top talent too.

We should absolutely keep him. Even if we get the £20 million for him. He's not angling for a move (yet at least), has a great Championship season under his belt and we're going to lose plenty of talent by the end of the window too so keeping Tella could be the difference between top 2 and the rest. Yes there's the allure of the Prem and I'm sure £20 million will do it but still... I'd keep him. They can do one for 9 mill though.

Actually for a team like Liverpool, 37 Mill isn't a bad opening bid. Unlike West Ham's typical low ball offer for JWP. I can see us getting 50 mill for Lavia but I think around 35mill (with or without clauses) would be about right for JWP. Bang in 15mill for Salisu or Adams and that's 100 mill right there, not to mention what we'd get for other players. My biggest concern this summer is that we are going to sell too much talent and end up with another mediocre team relying on youth. We absolutely need to be keeping the likes of Tella and Sulemana if possible, as well as one of Tino or KWP. We need a couple more incomings too. Piroe would be huge.

Not a good day for footballers... Chris Bart-Williams died yesterday too, only 49. https://talksport.com/football/1510268/chris-bart-williams-sheffield-wednesday-nottingham-forest/

Mmm... maybe. We do need midfielders and Choudhury is a good age... but I've never seen much from him bar running about and making fouls. Mind you I didn't see him at Watford last year so maybe he's improved. We want a passing game. Can he pass well?

So who are the players we think will definitely be here in September? Are we thinking: GK: Baz/McCarthy RB: Bree/Abu/Payne LB: Manning/Larios/Meghoma CB: Bednarek/Stephens CM: Charles/Smallbone/Doyle AM/Wingers: Amo-Ameyaw/Edozie/Djenepo Str: Mara/AA/Ballard Does that seem about right? Then you have: Jewels: JWP, Lavia, Livramento, KWP, Sulemana, Alcaraz, Tella, ABK, Salisu, Adams - would we really ship out all 10? Other players that could be moved on: Onuachu, SArmstrong, DCC, Perraud, Lyanco, Aribo, Small + other youth like Finnegan, Simeu etc I don't think we will lose every jewel but we may struggle to keep most of them if the offers start coming in (and Salisu's transfer is imminent). ABK being injured may mean he stays at least until January. Alcaraz has made positive noises about staying too and I hope he does, Tella too. Does Aribo really have a future? It seems like a LOT of "outs" could still happen which would leave our squad (pre-bringing people in) quite small. We definitely need a new spine.

Would be brilliant as we need a striker that can ACTUALLY score goals - but I'm not going to get too excited just yet as about six clubs (if not more) are interested in him. When was the last time someone chose Saints over a raft of other clubs? (Pre-Manning, I won't accept him as an answer!) We can only hope the Martin link is a strong one. He won't come cheap though.

I'm outnumbered as my wife's entire family support Norwich and I'm the lone Saints fan in mine but I do what I can to keep her from the dark side. To be fair the only sport she's shown any interest in so far is basketball and swimming so it could be more of a task than I thought. Maybe a trip to the Saints Megastore could swing it...

Got my tickets today - as the missus is a Norwich fan it's been a few years since we've been to see our respective teams play together. More importantly we're taking our 5 year old to see her first football match so hopefully the experience will encourage her to choose the mighty Saints over the stinky Canaries in life. That's if she's not completely bored by the whole experience.

Personally I would like to keep hold of Djenepo. I think he'd have something to offer at Championship level and is still only just turned 25 so still has good years ahead of him - and has 2 years left on his contract. Put it this way if I were to keep one of Aribo, Stu and Moussa, it would be Moussa. He's also the most versatile. Stu's best days may well be behind him and Aribo has been nothing but a massive disappointment. Yes Aribo could find his feet in the Championship but I wouldn't hold my breath and he'd be out of the door first. As long as we keep Tella, Sulemana and Edozie (with Djenepo and the youth backing them up) I think we'll have a decent season. We do need a new striker though, if not 2.

Think I read recently that we have the biggest squad in the division and Sheffield Wednesday have the smallest. That doesn't mean much but if we can't find 11 players to beat them then it's very worrying for our season. However we should still have some big names by then that could be sold closer to deadline day so we should have enough to beat them. But it is still tricky to predict right now even with 2 and a bit weeks to go.

Martin seems to like AA so I think he's part of our immediate future. Adams will probably go to a Prem team. I think Onuachu will go but we will keep Mara. We definitely still need a striker even with Ballard coming through. As for the AMs then I hope we keep Sulemana and Edozie, I think Djenepo will stay, and of course all the youngsters will chip in but I think Stu and Aribo will go. You've also missed off Tella who, if he stays would be massive but again he could go. Lose Tella and I think we need one more AM.

£20m is a fair bit of money for a Championship striker but even so it would be quite a smart signing for Leeds. He has close to a 1 in 2 goal record in the Championship in a mid-table Swansea side. He's only 23 and is over 6 foot. I'd liked to have seen us interested in him as I think he's the best available choice to be Championship ready (besides Gyokeres who went abroad) but Martin will know all about him and if he doesn't want him (or maybe the club think he's overpriced), then I guess we trust him.