angelman

Just been thinking and like others, wondering about where the width is going to come from. Could the wing backs (ie Shaw/Clyne) do the job, in a sort of 5-3-2 role?

Depends who for. Lukaku cost Chelsea £19.4m two years ago. Loan fee is apparently reported at £3,080,000 Osvaldo has all sorts of figures attached to him, but let's use £13.288m for a 4 year deal, maybe rising to say £15m. So the annual cost of Osvaldo is about the same as the one year cost of Lukaku for Everton. Wages - who knows? All in all, seems rather expensive for Chelsea, but then I guess if he signed a 6 year contract, the loan fee pays for it pro rata so in fact it might not be that expensive for them after all.

How does it work? There is a loan fee and the wages. As far as I see, the loan fee can be in the millions, and with Lukaku, one might imagine that it would be quite high at least as high as Victor Moses's fee that is reported to be £2m (Chelsea were initially asking £3m). Then Moses's wages are a reported £3m on top of that, which I think Liverpool pick up (and Chelsea presumably pay any difference that there might be in the contract). So Moses is costing Liverpool £5m for the season. IMO Lukaku is a more attractive proposition so I would suspect could command a higher price. Maybe £3m loan fee and £3m wages????

I think we did OK and looking at a lot of other clubs scrabbling around in an undignified manner, I was pleased that we had got in what we wanted. Having said that, I do think that we wanted one more but only if the price was right, which one might presume it wasn't. Looking at other clubs over the whole transfer window (and not just the last day), I am amazed about the number of players in. I know that there are many leaving as well, but they are mostly peripheral players (with some obvious exceptions) Arsenal - 4 in Aston Villa - 7 in Cardiff - 8 in Chelsea - 8 in Palace - 14 in Everton - 7 in Fulham - 9 in Hull - 11 in Liverpool - 8 in Man City - 5 in Man Utd - 2 in Newcastle - 2 in Norwich - 8 in Saints - 3 in Stoke - 6 in Sunderland - 14 in Swansea - 10 in Spurs - 7 in WBA - 9 in WHU - 5 in (inc Carroll) Those clubs promoted, do need to strengthen, but I look at us last season, where in the summer window we brought in 8 players (including a future goalie in Gazza and an unemployed one in AB), although I do see us as being a little different and having largely still the team that we had in L1, unlike say Cardiff, who have been established as a top nPC team for a number of years. I think that we can all agree that team harmony is important, and I can't see how those teams who have brought in 8+ players into an already established PL team can be that great, but I guess they soon learn to get on, or they do a QPR.

Thank god we still have Billy Sharp and Guly.

As it is, I wonder how much Lovecum is spending on solicitors to get most of the £1500 back?

Can't see why Lowe should pay for the damage caused by the stalker, and if my tenant brought that upon my house, in all honesty I would ask them to leave as well. Repairs and cleaning might well have eaten most of the £1500 up. So what exactly is the problem, save for an obvious dislike for Lowe? There has been no con as far as I can see it, and I note that the violins have come out for a lone parent.

I feel the same, but I still for some reason want to see English players playing for Saints and preferably ones that we have nurtured. I don't really care of they don't play for the national side, as we all know that successive English managers chose from a preferential pool of about 6 clubs.

This is nice to read: http://www.tribalfootball.com/articles/pochettino-delighted-southampton-market-work-3977394?utm_source=main_feed

He didn't have to accept such a high wage did he? I am sure that the club would have been more than happy to have paid him less for his services.

I know that it is a little different due to a huge windfall coming their way, but I look at Spurs and wouldn't be surprised if their starting line up will be entirely made up of non-English players. I recall teams of old from Arsenal and Chelsea who didn't have a single English player in it. Does that matter to the supporters? It does to me - even if it meant not being as successful as we could be, I would hate it if we only had 1 or 2 English players in the squad. Fortunately the Academy seems to be turning out some pretty good prospects, long may that last, coupled with a manager/chairman who want to bring them through to the 1st team, so maybe we will always have more than a token Englishman. [As an aside, I also look at the national cricket side and dislike the way we import South Africans into the squad, especially when they are over 18] Just wondered whether I am the only one who thinks like this, as I do realise that some put the most emphasis on success (which equals more money) being the be all and end all of things rather than how you get that success. I was very proud of little old SFC for having 6 English players starting against WBA.

Who in PL would buy him? Would think prob only Palace or Hull.

Tunnel isn't the best option IMO, not by a long shot. From Bucks, if you can face getting to Skatesville, they have a decent service to get you out of that **** hole ASAP. Go from there to Caen, or if times are better, Le Havre. I just did the fast boat from there which left at 7am and took 3 hours (somewhat more peaceful than flogging your guts out to get to the Chunnel and then the extra 160 odd miles that you would incur from Calais (plus the extra 30 or so miles getting to Dover from Bucks rather than Calais, which is about 3 hours worth of driving - might as well let the fery take the strain IMO). 7am is not good if you are coming from Bucks, so you could take the slow boat that goes overnight and arrives early in the morning. From Caen it is 3.5 hours by autoroute (via Le Mans and Tours) to get to Poitieres. If ferries work better you can go from Poole as well, and also look at Cherbourg. It's an extra 60 miles of dual carriageway/autoroute from Cherbourg but then the ferry crossing is that much shorter and quicker.

It will be interesting to see what squad rolls out tonight. If not involved then I guess you'll never be, unless the game is going to be treated as a practice match to bed in Osvaldo et al.

I take that on board, but disagree that the two aren't connected. Buying clubs can still pay the same amount but offset that amount over the period of the contract by offering less to start off with. Surely that way we can get these players off the books. Sending them out on loan, will a] get a loan fee but b] more than likely still involve us paying some of the wage. Maybe it would be better to cut our losses and cancel the contract by mutual agreement meaning players can move as free agents and get that higher wage. I realise that this has to be agreed by both parties, but the majority of football players want to play week in week out. As things stand, we have these players on our books and not playing and having little prospect of playing.

I can't really understand why we don't sell players rather than loan them out. I realise that the valuation we place might not be met, but running their contracts down so that they can leave as free agents surely is worse.

Not commenting on the attendance, save to say that the 3 rows behind me at the back of block 30 have been removed so that they can extend the TV gantry (why they need to do that, I have no idea - is it a BT thing?) so that must knock total capacity down by about 100 I guess.

I will agree with others, that the KO times were better in the Champ and those for PL matches is just a **** take. I like Sat 3pm and Wed 7.45/8 pm. I love mid-week evening games. I guess if we were ever to be televised, then the Monday night one might just be OK although it means that 3pm Sat has been binned. Now you sometimes get as few as 4 games on the Sat. Look at the opening day - what was it, six 3pm KOs?

Currently [and every summer]....grockles who drive through the Forest (esp on the A35) at 35-40mph when the limit is 60mph and they have a damn big queue behind them.

who cares what is written on the seats? I just wished they got someone older than 8 to do it, as it looks really cheaply done.

Banega was 5/6 this morning on SkyBet. Still is http://www.skybet.com/football/transfer-specials/event/15457864

The press seem to always big up Swansea and their chances for a European place, but I am wondering how good they really are. Against us at home last season, we should have beaten them but let in a soft goal for a 1-1 draw, and the away game was supposedly a little dire and a 0-0 draw but quite evenly balanced. They've reinforced with £20m of signings, with the biggest being Bony, Shelvey and Amat. So they should be stronger than last year, provided they can keep Michu and Williams. Are they a very good side? Are they much better than us? The odds being offered are a little strange - we seem to be shorter to finish higher, but longer to get relegated than them.

Was told by someone who knew him, that Mick Channon never earned more than £750 a week. Not sure how true it is, but.....

He seems to be being offered out to one and all. I know it is a little bit petty, as Man U or Saints isn't really a hard choice, but good. As for £10m, if you want to sign a player, you don't go in with an OTT offer first up. You start low, the selling club starts high and you go back and forth and meet in the middle. Usually if someone puts in a really stupidly low bid, you consider them as a tyre kicker and ignore them and move on. Can ManU be thought of as this, chancers or testing the waters to see what our resolve is?

Punch is left footed - surely he could change position and be LB cover! (joke, of sorts).