Midfield_General

A new takeover thread, hooray! Let's dust off the Saints takeover bingo card so we can all play over the summer. To kick things off: - Yacht spotted in Ocean Village - Barry the Briefcase - Earlobe identification (hopefully the advance of AI will make this process more efficient) - Posts that start with "I can't post it on here but I have it on good authority", people using each other's real first names to demonstrate they are on the inside and saying "I've PM'ed you Brian" - One or two people who actually know a few things drowned out by loads of absolute fantasists making stuff up and pretending to be important - Micky Fialka mounting a late bid from his bedroom in his mum's house What have I missed?

Still reeling, 18 months later, from the BOMBSHELL revelation that Alpine and Glasgow were one and the same Absolute scenes

Just grind out the most boring point imaginable please lads Then you can all leave

Because we haven't had a decent ginger since Svensson and we have a duty to get our numbers back up

To be fair, Russ made Fatawu look like a world beater by bringing on his old buddy Fraser at left back for him to absolutely destroy. Fraser got skinned all ends up by him for their first goal, then straight after that stood off him and let him get a shot away which hit the bar. For good measure he then gave away a penalty, from which they equalised, and got sent off. A masterful substitution which turned a 2-0 lead into a 2-3 defeat. Although in that match the penalty not given by that wanker Taylor for the blatant foul against Onuachu remains the most outrageous decision we've had against us this season.

Sounds like De Zerbi is about to become available following a monumental fall-out with his entire squad at Marseille. He'd obviously be aiming way higher than us, but could see Bournemouth going for him if Iraola goes, or Leeds if they're looking for an upgrade on Farke.

We should hire him, let him get us promoted, then immediately sack him too, just for a laugh

So you’re saying that his weakness is that he has no strength

If I was a betting man I’d say that if Martin stays in this country he’ll end up at Leicester for next season. He’s not getting a PL job any time soon so I’d say that’s probably the next best thing. Could see him going to Rangers though, battering pub teams most weeks in a two-horse race would be a great way to make himself look good.

Ah, Tony Mowbray. There’s a man who single-handedly showed Martin’s ‘philosophy’ for the meaningless propaganda it was. I’ll always remember our game against his Sunderland side in the championship. Possession stats: Sunderland 32%, Saints 68%. Final score: Sunderland 5, Saints 0.

And Adam and Ben and Kamaldeen and Jan and Joe and Alex and another Ryan hopefully 🤞

God yeah I hate seeing the team celebrating on the pitch after a win. Much better to do what this season’s managers did and cleverly swerve the need for it entirely by simply never winning any games

Armstrong scores for WBA

Nathan Jones' Charlton go 2-0 up away against fellow promotion contenders Wycombe to put themselves* 2 points off the League One automatics with 6 points left to play for. Fair play to him, they were rubbish when he took over and he has turned them around. He's an absolute knob obviously, but credit where it's due. (*assuming they go on and win it)

I for one would like to opt out of the 'we' in this instance

Nope. Not a link, not a rumour, not a suggestion either party is remotely interested, and he's miles out in the betting among the complete randoms, where he has been since the start. We 100% aren't getting Cooper. Because that would be way too sensible.

Yeah, if there is then he's keeping it pretty damn well hidden. 23 appearances for Strasbourg this season - 1 goal, 1 assist. Playing for one of the better sides in a poor league. I wonder when the player in there will come bursting out?

Oh dear. There is no such platform as 'Twitter'. It's been called 'X' for 21 months. A basic factual error, there.

He’s never been anywhere in any of the bookie’s odds, no mentions, no links. Seems pretty obvious we’re not interested in him (or maybe him in us, though I’d find that surprising). Seems mad to me. Even if we have a preferred candidate (eg Rohl, who I’m pretty sure we’ll end up getting), Cooper should still be one of the first people we speak to if we’re doing proper due diligence, it’s a no-brainer. But this is SR.

It was certainly utterly ridiculous in the Premier League. But probably not in the way you mean.

Blimey. Just as context, with four games to go, the current top goalscorers at each of the top 4 sides in the Championship are: Leeds: Piroe (15), James (12), Aaronson (9) Burnley: Brownhill (13), Flemming (9), Anthony (7) Sheffield Utd: Campbell (10), Hamer (8), Rak-Sakyi (7) Sunderland: Isidor (12), Mayender (7), Mundle (5) So to suggest our numbers would be in the region of Armstrong (20), Archer (20), Diaz (20) seems... a touch optimistic?

For clarity, I'm guessing you mean that if those three are our main strikers next season then the entire team, including them, should be OK to score 60 goals? Not that they are going to score 60 between just the three of them i.e. an average of 20 each...

Yep, when I think 'Adam Lallana' I think 'workrate'. Getting up and down, running all day, putting his body on the line, getting his foot in, shrugging off injuries and putting the team above everything. That's Lallana alright. in the 357 minutes he's spent on the pitch helping us this season, of all the things I've most most admired about Adam - and what a guy he is - I think top of the pile must be his his amazing engine and the way he busts a gut. You can tell he just bleeds for the Saints cause.

Which Niemi? Last I heard, he was 52 (and Finnished)

Thanks for explaining how bookmakers work, I had literally no idea. How do you think the stories get written in the first place? Journalists often base their stories on leads, tip-offs and insider knowledge from connections at clubs, from agents and elsewhere within the game. Clubs and agents also feed information to selected journalists. All these factors contribute to the stories which go into the media and which create the rumours, which people then place bets on which impacts the odds the bookies offer. Not all of it will be accurate of course, there are plenty of social media bullshitters pretending to know things they don’t which can influence people, lots of the rumours will be serving different agendas, and things will change over the course of the process for any number of reasons, but to dismiss bookies odds as basically meaningless is simplistic, ill-informed and reductive, and shows a fundamental lack of understanding of how both football and the multi-billion pound betting industry works.