Midfield_General

Also is it slightly weird that Hoffenheim have tried to sign three different centre backs and all three have failed their medicals?

Wouldn't the first choice 3 CBs be THB, Bednarek, Stephens*? (*Not mine, but RM's)

Re-signing KWP on a new contract to play LWB would be a boost at this stage. Not sure it will happen though and if it did I’m not sure where that would leave Taylor

Yeah I was originally thinking about who the last one was, but it’s interesting to hear either way. Says a lot that quite a few haven’t been excited by a signing since Keegan 44 years ago - I suppose if you’ve witnessed Saints sign the twice European player of the year, literally anyone else is a bit of a comedown!

Still, good news about the chocolate oranges

Yeah I got very excited when Hughes joined. Then for some reason we seemed determined to play him in midfield, and he just fouled people all the time. Apart from the phantom ‘goal’ against Leeds that hit the boards and came out, I can’t really remember a single thing he did. Kanchelskis was another one. A massive name where I remember thinking ‘wow’ but we got him too late and he had too many injuries to ever really make an impact.

Rak-Sakyi in the crowd at Sheff Utd vs. Wrexham, ahead of signing for Sheff Utd.

Wan-Bissaka completes his move to West Ham. One less KWP shaped hole that needs filling elsewhere.

I had the formation the other way up actually, keeping it tight with two keepers, eight at the back and Stephens as the false nine, but this way works too

Funny to think how divisive Tadic was amongst some of the fanbase before he moved on. Then he went to Ajax and had a hot spell where for a while he legitimately looked like one of the best players in the world.

Yeah he was a weird one. Really felt like we’d pulled something big out of the bag and brought in some highly experienced international class, then I don’t remember him ever actually playing for us. Don’t remember ever hearing that he was trouble or even that he had injuries, he just never featured. Very odd.

Feels like there's a general lack of excitement about the place at the moment, which made me wonder: who was the last player that got you genuinely excited when you heard they'd signed for us? I don't mean players who turned out to be good, or who we'd already had on loan like THB or Downes. I mean players who you saw get announced and thought 'wow, I never thought we'd get him', or who you'd not heard of but got really excited about when you read about them or saw their YT reel. Seasons of signings of 'potential', damaged goods or solid Championship-level performers has got me reaching back a bit. My last one was probably Boufal. Had never heard of him before, but his skills videos were off the charts and he'd just scored 12 in 35 from out wide in France. Genuinely thought he was going to be a Mané-esque world-beater. Before that it was probably Pelle: a proper physical, goalscoring centre forward, brought in by a great manager who rated him, who'd got 26 in 33 the previous season and had hair to die for. Who was yours?

That plan in full: Stephens Taylor - Manning - Bednarek - Edwards - Woods - THB - KWP - Sugawara Lumley - McCarthy

Remember when Pelle had to make the difficult decision whether to stay at Saints or go to China and become the 7th highest-paid footballer in the world on £350k per week? No loyalty, these modern footballers.

I mentioned it before on a different thread but there is no issue with his feet - I have a mate with an Arsenal season ticket who says he is excellent with his feet and his range of passing is fantastic. Apparently the main issue is that Ramsdale has come out before and has admitted he has problems with his concentration when he has to go long spells without being needed, which Arteta didn't like at all. Then he made a couple of errors which appeared to be linked to that loss of concentration, and that was that. Given that playing for us he would see rather more action every week than he would playing for Arsenal at home to Ipswich or whatever, it's probably not something we need to be quite as concerned about. He would be an unbelievable signing for us, whether loan or perm, but unfortunately for the reasons given above I think that he's probably out of our reach financially.

Like any local journalist given access to the players, manager, board and club he has to walk a very fine line. If you soft soap it all the time to keep the club sweet then the fans attack you for being a mouthpiece. If you push the club or put them in a difficult position with really awkward questions too many times, they will get tired of it and deny some or all of your access which leaves you with no more insight than the randoms making stuff up on Twitter. It’s not easy to strike that balance but I think Blackmore generally finds a decent middle ground, as much as he can.

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Of course none of us will never know the full details but I'm basing it on 1) the fact that Martin clearly has his reasons for wanting him out, and 2) multiple rumours that have come from people well-connected to the club that that's what happened. We've all seen he's a good player when he's committed, and Martin would presumably love to have a player of his ability available to play, but he has completely frozen him out so there has to be a reason for that. It's clear he doesn't want him around his squad, so it must be something other than an ability issue. Not from me it doesn't. We've had plenty of players with bad attitudes before, from all kinds of different backgrounds, and wanting rid of them because they negatively impact squad harmony and team spirit is nothing to do with racism. Mark Dennis threw his manager into a bathtub. David Speedie nutted one of his team-mates on a pre-season tour. Osvaldo attacked his captain during training. Wesley Hoedt was just a total cock. They all needed to be moved on for the greater good. It happens. Why should ABK be any different?

Sounds like we've got £13m for him. We bought him for £8.6m, he's had injury problems, and by all accounts is a knob with an attitude problem who downed tools and became toxic when we needed him to step up. It's obvious we want him out yet we've still turned a £4.5m profit. Do you honestly think anyone was going to pay £26m for him?

Yes, to a point - but they would also still have to want to stay and play for us in the Champ, because we know that keeping players who want to leave rarely works. We were lucky last time that KWP for example is a good lad and didn't agitate for a move - I'm not sure how many other players who know they are good enough to play (and more importantly, earn) at the level above would be so accommodating if it happens again. I think you'd still be looking at losing 4 or 5 of the better players if we went down, which has risk attached. @Turkish made the fair point about who might stay and who might go, and that we'd probably still have a pretty strong core at that level even if we had to replace THB, Downes etc, but there are no guarantees that the players you are able to attract to replace them are necessarily going to be like-for-like in quality, and we all know that the Champ is a bitch to get out of, however strong you look on paper. Just look at Leeds, and the Championship is full of relegated clubs who haven't been able to get back up and are stuck down there now the PL money has run out. One bad managerial appointment for example and it can all go wrong. I just wouldn't be too cocky about our innate ability to get promoted again. Everyone thought we had a very strong squad for the Champ last time and it was still a very close-run thing.

True, but they'd still have to want to stay and play in the Championship, take the pay cut and so on.

Out of interest, why do people think that if we got relegated we would be able to keep the same team together in order to then storm next season's Championship? Surely it would be like any other season - even if we got relegated, any/ most of the players who did well would just get picked off and bought by other clubs. If for example Sugawara turns out to be amazing, he'd almost certainly want to stay in the top division and earn PL money, and someone would buy him. Same with THB or Downes or anyone else half decent. We'd be left with the players that other clubs felt weren't PL quality, and would have to rebuild again with players who were happy to play in the Championship, with all the risks that that involves. I'm not sure it's as simple as 'oh well, if we go down then this team would get straight back up again'.

My brother-in-law supports Leeds. I went to Elland Road with him to watch their friendly vs Valencia last weekend and Rutter was their best player by a distance. Great on the ball, quick, creative and scored a fantastic goal. Yes please.

£39,995,000 on coke and hookers and the rest on a lovely old bullnose Morris