angelman

IF it is to happen then I imagine that it would only be announced once they have a replacement. Deeny seems to be in the £8-10m range - I will confess to not knowing Burnley's finances and whether they can easily afford that, but I imagine that it would be nicer for them to have us finance all/most/some of it through Ings.

Winning the FA Cup,is worth about £1.8m and each league place is worth something like £1.25m

Steve, if all the leaks have come from the Lovren Camp, what was the point of the Chelsea interest, and more recently, murmurings of Man Utd interest? Is that them as well?

Have we, since being back in PL, put out our strongest side for a cup game? I refuse to pay £45 to go and see a Saints XI be trashed by Chelsea. If the Club came out and actually showed some intent in the Cups, then I would be much more likely to go.

It would be interesting to see a reply if someone DID bother to send a dossier to the PL/FA.

http://www.express.co.uk/sport/football/491238/Spurs-set-to-offer-Holtby-and-Dawson-to-beat-Man-Utd-and-Southampton-to-Villa-s-Ron-Vlaar Vlaar is in demand. Would be surprised if he stays at Villa.

It makes no difference if it is true or not. Report in paper (local or national) that Man U interested in Shaw. Shaw sees it and says "Oh that's nice. I wonder if it is true? I hope it is. I'll give my agent a call, get him to see if it is true, and if so, get it done." Actually, I would have thought his agent, if he was any good at his job, would know about it before him. All it would take is a quite word with a journo from Man U, journo asks Shaw's agent whether it is true and then the ball is rolling. Actually, there are so many ways of doing it, that it isn't even worth worryin about the minutiae.

"Tapping up" only seems to be a problem when the "Big 6" do it to each other. Outside of that, the reason given seems to be more money on offer/opportunity/Champ League so of course they want to be off and there is nothing wrong with it. It's just part of what football has become, so if anyone hasn't come to expect it, then it surely is about time that they do. There are 6 clubs in this country, 2 maybe 3 in France, 2 maybe 3 in Spain, 4 or so in Germany, 3 or 4 in Italy, 3 or 4 in Russia, some in the Middle East who have so much money that they can do what they want. Even if they did contravene rules, they are not going to be taken to task for it. OK, Man City have had a slapped wrist for breaking FFP rules, but it is hardly going to affect them. Barca has a transfer embargo placed on them which then was put on hold pending an appeal, and they go out and sign £125m worth of players (Admittedly selling £70m worth as well).

Maybe he read a newspaper?

I know wiki is not the be all and end all. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_sale I've put the relevant bit in bold, but then again, maybe you think that the fee received for Lallana and Shaw were extremely discounted.

I would love someone ITK to confirm his fee that we paid. It was supposedly a lot less than the £15m oft quoted. There are a lot of people saying it was actually £12.9m but then someone said it might be as low as £9m, with appearance fees (obv not worth much, and other add ons). Fortunately any o/s payments have benefited with the FX rate moving in our favour.

Some people are too stupid to understand what a fire sale is.

If ever there is a lame poster, St Richmond is right now, Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!!

Ticket prices are NEVER going to come down while FFP rules are in place. If you want to have good players, they need good wages and we have to live within our means. Say we get 30k per match, knocking £5 off the 19 home league games would equal £2.85m or the wages of one top earning player.

Yes of course, but I think that that is probably in the eyes of fans, not managers.

Why would MS's value be any less than that of AL? His defensive record over the past two seasons to me is the equal (if not more) to the goals/assists of AL.

http://www.tribalfootball.com/articles/juventus-plan-re-sign-southampton-striker-osvaldo-4032144?utm_source=main_feed It's the hope that kills. These guys seem to be so inaccurate that it is hardly worth getting excited.

Not sure they have, but I have been hearing (admittedly on Talk****e) more and more murmurs about DL to OT. As I said earlier on this thread, I always thought that when Vidic announced he was off months and months ago, I thought that DL would be a perfect replacement.

Reckon that Lovren will end up at Old Trafford.

There are also reports that Juve are interested in Gaston. May come to nothing as Juve seem to like taking people on loan. http://www1.skysports.com/transfer-centre/

I like the analogy!!

St Paul, at least we are not like Spain where each club negociates their own deals, thus giving an unequal share massively skewed towards Barca/Real. There is one more thing I would look at and overhaul and that is the loan system.

Don't get me wrong, I think being a Saints fan (or any fan for that matter) you can have bouts of pessimism. Sometimes it is justified - my neighbour looked at me in a rather strange way when I asked in the 85th minute and when we were 3-0 up against Norwich at SMS last season, whether he thought it was in the bag yet. The descent into Championship, financial meltdown, the brink of liquidation etc. But amongst all that, with me there are times of huge (and unrealistic, like most fans) optimism. It is the lack of these optimistic times that pervades the posts of too many posters. Maybe it's an age thing.

My God there are some negative posters on here, so negative that I can only think they are WUMs. Why on earth do you think that he won't be here?

St G and Androu, both of your suggestions, while acknowledging things are ****, won't work. To me, there is only one possible solution to all this, one which will NEVER EVER be accepted, and that is a Europe wide wage cap. But then if that happens, who knows how many would then go to countries without wage caps - South/North America, Middle East, Far East, Australia...... It would need more than UEFA intervention and I can't see FIFA doing it. There's too much money at stake and where there's money, there are a lot of nefarious characters. If UEFA & PL are so keen to have FFP, then surely a wage cap makes entire sense, as this is the main expense for clubs.