Midfield_General

Glad to see that Mara has been given yet another chance to really put a shift in and bust a gut to help the team, he deserves it

What an absolute joke

For the right price he could be a good fit for us. Young but not a kid, English which we know Russ likes, played 74 times for Spurs so has decent top-level experience, and in a position we need to strengthen. Also flexible as he's a proper DM but is also very comfortable at LB. Probably considered not quite good enough to be a regular for Spurs first team, but then neither was Winks, and he's gone on to do very well. Not sure how good he is on the ball, but Spurs fans seem to think he's tidy if unspectacular and generally speak pretty well of him. Quite hope that this one has legs, as he feels like the sort of signing that is realistic, probably not ridiculous money in terms of either transfer fee or wages, has some potential upside in terms of future value, and would actually improve our first team.

PT

Best get working on that Molotov cocktail then because a fair percentage of this site still can’t get the six letters of ‘Bazunu’ right, and that’s after two years

Sorry - you saw him sign some shirts once and now you think you have more insight into his personality and impact behind the scenes than the guy who reports on Saints for a living, has done forever and knows most people inside the club? Is that right?

What has Mara contributed since then?

Absolutely spot on

So if you can see with your own eyes that Mara is absolute dogshit and not worth wasting anymore time on, you’re supporting the wrong level of team? Because we could never, ever expect to do better than him, and it’s only fair that we should wait until he’s at least 24 before we can expect any sort of meaningful return? Righto 👍

Spaffing great chunks of our limited wage bill on wastes of space like Lallana doesn’t really help either. What a contribution he’s made to our pre-season. Start as you mean to go on eh ‘Adz’. Bet he’s a really really great lad to have around the dressing room though, and that’s a great reason to pay him £60k a week or whatever the fuck we’re wasting on him that could have gone towards paying the going rate for a striker who can actually walk or a proper PL keeper.

"Now you're talking"

I’ve got a mate with an Arsenal season ticket who says that Ramsdale is excellent with his feet - that’s not why he got dropped. The main reason Arteta doesn’t fancy him is that he is slightly more error-prone than Raya now that Raya has settled down, but more specifically it’s because Ramsdale has admitted to having concentration issues when he had to go for long spells with nothing to do - which to be fair I don’t think would be quite so much of an issue if he was playing for us! He’d be an enormous upgrade for us and would fit perfectly with the way RM likes to play.

I know what you mean, and I would sort of like one of those players too, but Vic couldn't pass for shit and Martin wouldn't play a player like him in a million years. What we really need is a new Romeu. Happy to sit, get his foot in and do the dirty stuff but also totally comfortable receiving the ball in tight areas and good enough to play his way out, keep possession and pick a pass. How we find someone who can do that to the level he did, on our budget though I do not know. Romeu was absolute class.

Great minds #JusticeForMacca

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That's actually not entirely true. When Macca has the ball at his feet, isn't being put under too much pressure and has got a little bit of time to get his head up and have a look, he's actually quite capable of playing quite neat 40-50 yard passes, normally clipped over the nearest attacker to someone a bit further wide or in space in the midfield. Where he struggles is in receiving the ball. His control is poor, he's very one-footed (understandably), and he has a tendency to panic because of this. He also can't play one-touch passes or passes when he's being closed down and given less time. Rather than recognise when he's in this situation and just put his foot through it, it looks like he feels (or has been told) he has to play out at all costs, and that's when the really awful mistakes occur. So it's not playing it back to him that's the problem per se, it's about being selective and intelligent and only doing it when he's not immediately going to get closed down and put under loads of pressure. When he came back into the side at the end of last season we got quite good at making those decisions, and looked much more solid and less heart-attack-inducing at the back as a result of that.

Sorry - that was a reply to a previous post about McTominay saying we have no chance of getting him

Why? £25m asking price and apparently currently on around £60k PW. It’s not a completely outlandish idea.

Guardian also hinting at interest in Rodriguez in their round-up of available free agents: Guido Rodríguez A reigning world and Copa América champion with Argentina who looked set to move from Real Betis to Barcelona, only for the transfer to fall through. Rodríguez is not a flashy midfielder but is intelligent and has been recognised for some time as being one of the best No 6s in La Liga. The 30-year-old has been spun through the rumour mill more than most and could surface in Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Italy or even Southampton, depending on who you believe.

Do you think the management team don’t know this too?

Quality defensive mid. Yes please

Maybe, but having already replaced him, and with him in his final year, I’d have thought that any fee was better than letting him for nothing. Could of course be wrong though, and selfishly I’d love to get one more season out of him.

Yep, fair point. Personally I love him and until he's actually gone I would love to think that there's a place for him in the side, even if Yuki is now clearly our first choice RB. But he's not injured as far as I know, so I can't think of any other possible reason for not involving him.

Not really. Russ has said more than once that if our valuation is met then he'll be sold. That couldn't really make it clearer that we need to sell him, so as the window goes on I suspect that valuation will be reduced until someone buys him. Management know that one way or another he won't be here this season, so there's no point playing him or planning for having him.

I think that a conversation of that type took place too. The best I think we can hope for though, is that he was told the shirt was his to lose. So, Macca will start the season in goal, but we (and he) could still expect another keeper to come in and start on the bench. Then when/ if Macca has a bad spell, he can be replaced without the agreement having been compromised. All speculation of course, but I just can't believe that a) Macca would have signed otherwise, or b) that Russ would be willing to risk everything, including his job, on blind hope that Macca can be relied upon. Especially given how shaky he's looked in pre-season.