Turkish

I'm all for buying potential but until we've got a good solid core of players to mix them in with we are always going to muddle along. As others have said every good team has a blend of youth and experience. Even Fergies "dont win anything with kids" team of the mid 90s was built around players like Irwin, Bruce, Pallister, Cantona. Keand and Giggs were in their mid twenties, Schmicheal had been there for 4 years and was an established international keeper. It's actually a bit unfair of us as a club to just throw these players in and expect them to perform at premier league level when they've never done that before. Some of them will come good, but some of them wont.

It beggars belief it really does. A decent centre half, one that can actually mark, defend and organise the others and a competent goalkeeper and we've fixed a lot of our problems.

Is't over 50% of the cost of fuel tax these days? With VAT being applied after fuel duty so we are being taxed on the tax.

It really isn't just about "are they any good" Fonte wasn't the best defender in the world, he wasn't even ever the best defender at Saints in the premier league but he was experienced and a leader and complemented Lovren, Alderwierld and Van Dijk really well. It's not just about being the talented, especially in a postion like goalkeeper and defender where communication & organisation are just as important as being a good player. You might have it a bit as a young player but you really only get that from experience. People keep going on about his international experience. He's played 10 games at International level, he's played against Portugal & Serbia who are a decent sides but the rest of his appearances have been against the like of Andorra, Azerbijan, Qatar and Luxembourg. I hope he turned out to be the new Buffon but however talented he is it's a huge gamble to expect a keeper who has never even played in the championship to potentially be our number one keeper and if we are stuck with it being McCarthy god help us. It'd be different if we had a competent number one and he was being brought in to challenge him, or even if we had a decent defence, but we dont have either.

I was talking about being our best goalkeeper in a decade

That’s not a particularly high bar

Yep we’ve shot ourselves in the foot keeping McCarthy. I disagree the money is better spent elsewhere a good keeper wins you matches and points. A crap one costs you them, as we well know

Hed have to stop being Irish first

Let’s hope so. We don’t have a great track record when it comes to signing YHGTIs in key positions though do we.

Exactly. Get one or two in a summer brilliant, but not when we’re desperate for quality in key positions. Still we know best.

Pope obviously won’t be costing £40m he’s got a year left on his contract. Forest and Fulham are meant to be interested in him FFS, if they can afford him no reason why we can’t

By the way in case anyone is interested his international appearances have been against Portugal Luxembourg Qatar Andorra serbia Hungary Azerbaijan Hardly an array of the finest national teams on the planet. Some of them will be lower level than his league matches

That’s why I said league game above league one level, you donut

Relying on a keeper who has never played a league match above league one level is a huge gamble, especially with a defence as shite as ours. relying on Mcarthy is just insane. Excuse me for not leaping around with joy.

Seems like we’re doing what we’ve done with the centre back situation for years. Needed an experienced leader there since 2017 instead of getting one we’ve wasted 10s of millions trying to be clever. Rather than get quality in as glovesman we seem to be going down the same route again

You think McCarthy won’t be our number one come “match day 1”?

We are smarter than that. We don’t need to buy proven, we buy young and develop. Ever seen a fly on Semmens or Ralph? Thought not.

You’ve got to laugh. What a shambles

one for the pre match entertainment

That’s it.

They always hide behind how they bought it at a higher price so cant cut the cost now.

I see Shell have reported Q1 profits of $9.1b up from $3.2b in the same period this time last year. Meanwhile fuel is closing in on £2 a litre. Yet we get told it's not their fault prices are going up whilst they report biggest profits in over 15 years during a supposed energy crisis.

calling @Crab Lungs to the forum, FFs biggest fan

Bloody hell, Slutskeys what a place. Another sunday night favourite was Flatfoot Sams in Sarisbury. Anyone remember that place by Fareham station, thursday nights all you can drink for £10. Used to sometimes jump on the train down from Bitterne. Full of 16-18 years olds getting out of their box, usually ended up pulling or in a scrap, sometimes both.