SNSUN

It depends whether they can keep their better players, same as everybody. As long as the window is open, there’s always the threat of losing your better players, in Palace’s case I guess that’s Zaha, Townsend, Sakho. (Zaha alone would be a massive blow for them.) Fortunately for us, nobody seems to be interested in our better players - even JWP whom I thought would have his admirers this summer. As for Newcastle, no Perez, no Rondon and now Bruce. Long season for them. Even before Brighton decided to sell Dunk I thought they’d be relegation fodder, and now I think they definitely will be. Norwich too, and most likely Sheffield United, so the likes of Palace, Newcastle, Burnley and heck even us on a bad day, would have to go some to end up in the relegation zone. I’d add Villa too but they’re an unknown, and Bournemouth have so far done well to hang on to their players but, as I said in the first paragraph, that can change. You’d think Fraser and Ake at least would be heavily poached as the transfer window nears an end.

West Ham beat them 3-2 on Thursday. Strong line up today for a first pre-season friendly.

lol@westham

Good Luck Sam. I think we've done well to get the mooted £5 million off them, especially if there's a sell-on. I wanted him to break through, like a homemade Peter Crouch, but it never really happened for him. I think we're doing the right thing selling off the older 'youth' players that will almost definitely get no gametime. Make a bit of money and free up wages and space in the squad. Let's hope we get a few more sales under our belts sooner rather than later.

If I read it right, the signing of Saliba doesn’t affect their summer transfer budget of £45 million, presumably because it’s made up of future payments. Which makes it a sensible deal. What is baffling is they’ve been linked with attacking players like Zaha (who they’ll never afford unless Palace accept players as part exchange) and Fraser but barely a sniff of a centre back. Granted they’ve been linked with Tierney at left back but they already have Kolasinac and Monreal. They’re a mess and £45 million isn’t enough to sort it out IMO.

Villa are using the scattergun approach of Fulham I see. Although Konsa is a decent signing. McCarthy next? Additionally, lol at Newcastle if they appoint Steve Bruce. Ashley would have truly lost it, well, re-lost it after giving Pardew an 8 year contract! Poor fans if so.

Sorry, I didn't realise you had seen the future. Where does Hoedt end up?

Who says he won’t be replaced? I’d rather a consistent, fit, pretty good defensive midfielder that wants to be here than an excellent enigma that performs once in a blue moon, is injured a lot and doesn’t want to be here. Let him go if the price is right. It seems crazy that we could make a profit on a player that’s not exactly excelled in his time here, but, similar to Mings transfer, that’s the current market for you. With Lemina leaving and Austin, Gallagher, Boufal, Clasie and the keepers incoming transfer fees, we’d have quite the transfer kitty and a huge saving on wages. Not to mention what we’d do with Hoedt, Carillo, Cedric, Reed etc. It will be an exciting end to the transfer window.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/transfer-news/mario-lemina-tells-southampton-manager-17489630 Says he'd like to start afresh at another club if an offer comes in. Nothing much new in that article.

We're still the favourites. I still think we have room for one more attack minded player (especially if Boufal leaves) and with Bowen's age and stats from last season, if the price is right, I don't see why not. But I'd say we'd need to get it done quick before someone else pounces or the price rises. I've been looking at the free transfer lists overnight. (When I should have been working...) https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/spieler/vertragslosespieler/statistik/1/plus//galerie/0?ausrichtung=alle&spielerposition_id=alle&land_id=alle&altersklasse=&wettbewerb_id=alle&seit=alle&yt0=Show You could put together a pretty decent team of: Ochoa Dani Alves Cahill Vermaelen Alberto Merno Honda Marchisio Ben Arfa Brahimi Sturridge Ballotelli I mean obviously if they were in their prime, not injury prone or have behavioural issues! Is there anyone on that list that you lot think CDAJFU? (Puncheon or Caceres anyone? )

Found this thread: https://www.saintsweb.co.uk/showthread.php?57973-One-goal-wonders Tadanari Lee's goal was also a goodun.

I can't believe no-one has said it yet! David Hughes scissor kick against QPR around Christmas time in the mid-90s. I remember thinking we'd produced a decent player, but injuries killed his career.

We didn’t have a lot of players that came out of last season with much credit really, JWP and Redmond are the obvious ones (and we’d be asking ludicrous money for either), but you get the feeling, with Hasenhuttl building a team in his image, any approaches for our better players would be firmly rebuked anyway. Im excited for the new season. On paper we could start a team, even before any other new signings: Gunn Valery Bednarek Vestergaard Bertrand JWP Hojbjerg Djenepo Redmond Adams Ings On paper that’s stronger than most of the bottom 14 IMO. (Although at the same time highlights why Centre back and Central Midfield should be the next areas of attention.)

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.