SNSUN

This thread would probably be shorter than if there was a "players we thought were amazing when we signed them but turned out to be rubbish"! I don't know about "rubbish", but Chris Marsden was a journeyman footballer that had barely played top flight football when we signed him, and he turned out to be a great bit of business. Likewise with Beattie - part ex for Davies, plucked from Blackburn's youth team with no league goals to his name, barely anyone had heard of him, and he went on to be one of our best strikers of the 00's. It's hard to define rubbish in this context though, as why would Saints sign someone who is rubbish! I suppose, for me, some of Dave Jones's older signings like Hirst and Palmer raised eyebrows, but both did jobs for us.

Should be completed this week. Direct replacement for Okazaki. Newcastle fans will be fuming (again) but it seems he wasn’t going to extend his contract even if Benitez had stayed. As for Leicester, their squad being good is dependent on whether they hold on to Maguire and Chilwell, and whether they can get Tielemans on a permanent. There’s a lot of the transfer window to go, although at the moment as it stands they must feel like they can challenge the top 6. Personally I’d like to see us up with Leicester, Everton and Wolves this season, we’re certainly making the right noises in the transfer window. West Ham will probably think they can push upwards too. On the flip side I can’t see Watford doing as well this season.

Been saying it for ages, need a dominant DM to shield the defence, especially if the goal is to play Hasenhuttl’s preferred 4-2-2-2 system. It seems Romeu’s best days are behind him, Harrison Reed is titchy, Hojbjerg is more box to box, Armstrong and JWP play further forward and Slattery is not the answer yet eithe and from what I’ve seen of him is more attacking anyway. Lemina could fill in but is he disciplined enough? It won’t matter if we sell him. A proper DM is very much needed. I think we will see some Outs now before we get any more ins. Clasie, Gallagher and Austin all seem to be touted with leaving pretty soon, and there are still the futures of Hoedt, Carrillo, Forster, McCarthy, Cedric, et al still to be sorted. That’s a quite a few million quid to be added to the kitty.

Welcome Che! Excited about this. I hope he’s as good a signing as JRod was from the same league. He at least seems to have all the right attributes. One Birmingham poster on SHA forum stated his stats are better than they seem; when played in attack he has played 96 games, scored 36 times and assisted 12 times. In a fairly poor team, that’s an impressive better than 1 in 3 strike rate. Out wide he only scored and assisted 3 or so. Now look at his age and ability to improve and you can only say we have a bargain. So in attack that’s: Adams, Ings, Long and Obafemi. That should be that this summer. If we sign another striker for whatever reason (Okereke perhaps?) then I’d assume Obafemi will go on loan. Behind them we have Redmond, Elyounoussi, Djenepo, Armstrong, JWP and Sims (and youth like Johnson.) If you include Boufal in that, we’re strong enough there too, but if we sell him, we need a replacement. (Especially with question marks still over Moi.) Otherwise I think our attack is top 10 quality again.

Funnily enough when I saw Targett sold, and good luck to him, my thoughts went to McQueen. Now obviously Bertrand and Vokins will be our left backs of choice, but as it stands, with his injury and most likely space in the 25 man squad, it’s possible he won’t go on loan and will make it into the 25, meaning if the Vokins experiment doesn’t work out, at least we have another choice in the ranks when (if) he gets back to full fitness. Good luck Matt, decent money for a back up and despite his flaws he always gave 100%.

Celta Vigo splashing the cash... and they want us to lower our asking price on Boufal. Erm... https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/transfer-news/former-arsenal-loanee-denis-suarez-17283952 Tell you what, we’ll lower our asking price on Hoedt. Sound fair?

I was on holiday when I watched Palace vs Saints in 2017, early days under Pellegrino. Lemina ran the park that day and looked exceptional. Sadly we’ve seen little since. I’d be great if he could become first choice again in a revamped Hasenhuttl team but if we need the cash for other transfers, he’s one of the jewels we have left. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/41210053

My choices would be CB, RB and DM. Upamecano, Maehle and Cyprien. Job done, win the league. Jarrod Bowen as an extra would be a bonus.

That was my initial thought. Plant a few stories, watch Brum sweat. Perfect conversation with Che would go... “Southampton have bid £14million for you.” ”Cool, I want to play in the Premier League.” ”We’ve rejected it.” “But I want to join them.” ”We are holding out for £16 million.” ”Sell me, or I’ll put in a half arsed effort all season.” ”Umm, Saints, we accept your £14 million offer.” ”It’s £10 million now.” ”Oh. Well we accept anyway.” It’s cute that the lower league clubs want to hold us to ransom. Someone inform them that being in the Premier League doesn’t make us super rich. The prices for these players are fantasy. Yes if we were Championship I’d want to hold on to our best players, but they’d probably rather play at the top level. (Hence why securing our Premier League safety was so important.)

He is heavily overpriced (£45 million up front acc. to the Beeb) because he's young, British and came from a Premier League club, but despite his recent wobbly showing for the U21s, he still has decent stats from last season, and him and Shaw (with Dalot behind them) would sort their full back slots out long term. Now they just need two decent centre backs in the middle of them!

I think Lampard is a good choice for Chelsea this time. OK, he has inexperience in management and of course a massive piece of the Chelsea jigsaw has been sold in Hazard, but he knows the club inside and out, probably knows most of the youth and even had the likes of Tomori and Mount on loan last year, and in a season when they have a transfer ban, I think it's good chance for their youth/fringe to get some experience. Now if they'd only done that when the likes or de Bruyne and Salah weren't good enough for them... Besides, they'll sack whoever is appointed in a year's time anyway, so it's moot whoever they get.

Scored about 9 league goals in 5 years or something. Was a good young player but career decimated with injuries. Very risky signing even on a free. Mind you they already have their main striker so I guess it's not so bad.

Mental. Absolutely mental. If it weren't for Rafa they'd have gone down the season he brought them up. The Newcastle FC forum isn't great, but I'm off to see the reactions on this news...

When is the start of our pre-season training? The fitness tests etc? I see Birmingham posted that they are already back and undergoing fitness (not surprisingly as they're in the Championship so start earlier) so maybe if he's undergoing fitness tests/training with them, it's less important to get him in for our fitness tests at the start of pre-season training, hence why we've put the offer on the table and backed away... ...does that make sense? Bit convoluted but still...

Shows that Genk are selling if the price is right. (I.e Maehle) Trossard has good stats on paper, but can he make the step up, as Jahanbakhsh and even our own Elyounoussi have failed to do? We shall see. Has been linked with Arsenal though.

I quite like this approach, it might make them think twice about standing resolute. If they're in that much financial shyte (and having had Harry Redknapp as manager they most likely are screwed) then turning down £14 million would be madness and surely people they owe money to will be pressuring them to sell their assets as they already have with Jota. And if this falls through, I hope they go into admin and get deducted 10 points. There, I said it.

Targett + Vokins and Valery + Ramsey as our full backs going in to next season would leave me very uneasy. Yes there’s the January window but we don’t want to be scrambling around at the bottom of the league come December due to a lack of foresight. Still, in Hasenhuttl we trust I guess...

Unless Potter can pull a miracle or two out the bag, I have Brighton for one of the relegation spots this coming season. Along with Sheffield United and, dare I say it in case the wife sees this, Norwich. Burnley could struggle too with an ageing squad. Of course Skatesmouth are now minted, so they will be promotional certainties.

Speaking of debuts, Martin Cranie was far from a bad player, but he had a poor debut starting in an unfamiliar position at left back. Probably not the worse debut but IIRC he scored an own goal...

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.birminghammail.co.uk/sport/football/transfer-news/fans-saying-same-thing-birmingham-16447690.amp They sound pretty ****ed off about the fee. But they need to realise they're in financial trouble and, as supporters of a team that has also been in financial trouble in the last ten or so years, we know what it's like to have your jewels sold on the cheap. If 14 million is classed as cheap these days! I think it would be a decent signing. I have echoes of JRod in my head when we signed him from Burnley and he certainly made the step up.

Yep clearly, we totally are. Bunch of screw ups. I mean, the FIFA transfer window has been open one whole week and we've done nothing in that time. (Apart from confirming Djenepo of course but that's irrelevant.) We should write off the next nearly 8 whole weeks and use the squad we have, Hoedt, Carrillo, Clasie et al.

Jack Butland >>> Joe Hart

...from West Ham and Valencia. I still think Boufal has something to offer Saints now that we have Hasenhuttl in charge. Maybe they can have Hoedt instead...

A quick Google search - the bloke looks like Alfred E Neuman from the Mad Magazine covers. You can't unsee it.

Ings/Adams (or equivalent signing, we seem pretty keen on getting him)/Long with Redmond around - it doesn't look like he'd get much game time if he stayed. A loan would be sensible with a recall clause after 6 months IMO. Who is the next young striker we could call from the youth teams if the shyte hits the fan and everyone gets injured? N'Lundulu?