Midfield_General

Oh well that’s that then. He wouldn’t have saved one goal in one match so therefore he’s no better than him and we shouldn’t sign him. You’re on a wind-up right? Who do you think we should sign?

Quite right, nowhere near good enough for us and certainly not an upgrade on our current options. Who do you think we should go for - Donnarumma maybe? Alisson? Neuer? Maybe get Ter Stegen as well, he'd be a good bench option if one of the others gets a knock.

‘Very good’ isn’t always a quantifiable thing though unfortunately. Worth noting that some of our biggest flops have been the players we paid the most for. Sulemana, Vestegaard, dear old Guido, Onuachu and Elyonoussi are all amongst our top 10 biggest ever signings, with Lemina, Hoedt and Djenepo not far behind. All disasters. Just paying more for a player doesn’t guarantee quality or that they’ll be a success. Not putting all our eggs in one basket is a risk mitigation strategy, although on the flip side you could also argue of course that buying cheaper players with less of a track record brings it’s own set of risks. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t, basically.

Superb goal from Leeds, playing out from the back. Perfect passing move starting with the keeper.

The season we went down, when we were absolute horseshit, we still beat Chelsea home and away, drew with Arsenal home and away, drew with Man Utd away, drew with Spurs, drew with Liverpool and knocked a very decent Man City side out of the league cup. Our problem was that we were absolutely shite against everyone else. If we can make ourselves hard to beat this season then there's no reason we can't get some points against the big boys. Need to combine that with winning the games we 'ought' to win at home against the bottom 6-7 though, which we singularly failed to do last time round. And that needs to start with Forest tomorrow.

This will be the first game I've taken my nephew to so raise your game please lads, if it's rubbish tomorrow he'll end up wanting to support PSG or some shit

My guess: BBD: 7 Arma: 5 Archer: 4 Insane shock coup deadline day loan signing no-one saw coming: 25

Saido Berahino, who scored 20 in 45 games for West Brom in 2015, almost signed for Pochettino's Spurs and was being talked up for England has just signed for Rajasthan United in the Indian second division. Could have been the final part of the jigsaw.

Keys and Gray haven't been on TalkSport in 10 years

Fake news, fake news

.

If that's accurate (I have no idea who Sam C is or whether they are a proper source) and they're just quibbling over £2.5m then just get it done before Wolves snap him up, that's pocket change in today's market

The last few times we stayed up we had a player who could score out of nothing. Either Ings, who was good enough to be able to carve out and finish his own chances when it looked like nothing was on, or JWP who got so good at direct free kicks that being given anything within 25 yards felt close to being given a penalty. I think we've added some decent breadth and depth, and I think Lesley, Fernandes, whichever keeper we sign and probably BBD will probably all end up being upgrades on what we had in those positions last season. But I agree with you that it's hard to see where that bit of magic is going to come from. Someone who can pull something a bit special out of nowhere and win you a game that you don't really deserve to win, against the run of play. It would be great if we pulled someone like that out of the bag at the end of the window. No idea who, but someone exciting who really gets people off their seat, and is a proper goal threat either by scoring themselves or by drawing people to them to create space for others. I keep thinking of Barkley going to Luton last season - someone like that.

Yeah I'm not sure that's entirely accurate actually

Janny B's far from perfect, but you have to say that for the £5m we paid for him we've done alright

Yeah I'm not sure he's going to be able to time injuries to suit our schedule. Anyway. Fingers crossed that the Feyenoord fans are wrong and he's ready to play a full season.

This, exactly. Without a proper keeper, we're relegated, it's as simple as that. This guy looks decent, but carries much higher than average risk with respect to a history of injuries. Why even take that risk? I get the point above that we're not able to compete for the Ramsdales of the world, but one notch down from him would do just fine. We've spent £85m so far this window, and we're playing the loan market. It's not like we literally don't have a pot to piss in. If this guy's calf goes ping again in his second game in, then McCarthy is back in goal and we are utterly, utterly fucked. The stakes (staying in the PL) are about as high as they can be, and despite that, instead of playing the percentages and getting in a solid option like a fit Johnstone or whoever, we're still choosing to take a very big risk where in my opinion we don't have to. And surprisingly I don't entirely trust the judgement of our medical team/ medical procedure after the absolute clusterfuck that is Ross Stewart, and now seeing Lallana signed and playing the grand total of zero minutes so far because he's fucking injured, when he's also had a history of injuries. I really, really hope this works out, because it doesn't matter how good someone looks on paper and how well they're going to fit into our system if they never play. I just can't believe we're risking it.

If it's Biljow, we just need to pray that his multiple injury problems are in the past. We're still taking a big risk there IMO. Personally I can't believe that there isn't a keeper out there who is within our price range, is decent enough with hands and feet and doesn't have a history of injuries. But Saints do so love to be cleverer than everyone else and take a risk with injury-prone players, so time will tell.

He was unspectacular but he got 63 caps for the Netherlands, I think ‘crap’ is a bit harsh

Victor Hugo? Another central midfielder arriving might make Les Miserable Edit: damn beaten to it

He was exactly that. Everything that you thought he should save, he did. Everything that looked like it was probably going to be a goal, was. The definition of ‘steady’. Just a perfectly solid 7/10 every week.

Originally a six year deal on £300k a week. Which they then extended. You can't blame him for staying put when they decided they'd changed their minds. Doesn't work like that lads!

Same reason why Ivan Toney wants to go and trot round in front of 1,000 people in a pub league in Saudi for the next four years. He'll earn £100m doing it and retire at 35 able to set himself and his family up for generations to come, if he doesn't piss it all away on Betfair.

Yep, contracted until 2027. That contract alone will earn him over £90m.

Well they can, if they go to a club that is going to pay them the most because they want them to play for them.