Saint Charlie

Good signing, we beat of European competition for Duncan, and he is a young, hungry professional. We just need to give him time to develop.

Barry has made a great start to life on the SWF.

Good that its all progressing...

It was 6m, plus he has started some games - we have a player even more expensive than him who has taken his place for now - but if RL gets injured he is our first backup. Again - if we hadn't brough him in then would we rather have Sharp or Lee as our backup to RL?

Delldays would!

Because of a clause in his contract! Hardly the same. If that didnt exists then Newcastle wouldnt sell for less than £15m. Look at the cost of Jarvis or Fletcher for a better idea of the going rate, both more proven than JR, and both cost more coming from CCC clubs. If Charlie Austin leaves Burnley it will be for 4-5m, and his allround game is nowhere near good enough for the Prem. Rhodes cost more than JR and he only had scored in League One!

Bumping to see if Barry Sanchez will share his agenda? Joined in Nov 2012 with a stream of negative posts - another SWF troll?

And we clearly have been competitive. In the games so far only really Arsenal, WBA and Liverpool away have we been considerably outplayed for the whole game. Also Barry Sanchez - on your OP you said did Adkins sign the players? The answer (as we all know and have debated many times) is no - the transfer committee buys them, Adkins is a part of that. Plus you conviently missed out Ramirez, Clyne, Davis etc and inflated the cost of Yoshida and Gazza...trying to be negative?

I knwo what you mean, but if RL got injured tomorrow and was out for the season then he would be a first choice, and expected to get the goals we need to stay up. If we had a 500k League 2 rookie to come in instead then the transfer policy would be criticised the same!

I knew you wouldn't agree, but I will let JR show what he can do in our first team (rather than reserves Capital One Cup team) and in his favoured position ie up front. If you want to write him off then I don't really care. Until now in the league he hasnt played in our favoured system in his favoured position part from away to WH where he did quite well, and Ramirez wasn't playing then (and we all know he is a big part of our attacking play). Oh, and Gaston is 22

Judge Rodriguez when he has played 10 games up front with Gaston playing off him. So far he has played arguably once like that vs Everton away but he was out wide then really. Never has he played in the 4-4-1-1 system as the one up front with Gaston playing.

Pogrebnyak is on 60k at reading and can't get in their team. For msot of the Prem a 6m fee doesn't guarentee a starting place. We are playing 1 up front and Lambert is the 1 at the moment - seems fair enough. Would have foolish to have no back up to RL.

Yes, maybe now. But clearly we are also planning for the future and feel he will be a quality player. As someone said, if tomorrow Adkins says that RL is out for the rest of the season then JR suddenly becomes very important. Similar re Mayuka, he is 21 and learning English football. Time will tell how good he is, but just because he hasnt really figured yet, it doesnt mean he is rubbish. Not every signing will have the impact of a Michu. Van Persie cost Arsenal 3.5m and barely figured for ages before showing how good he is. Not saying Mayuka is the same, but not every signing will go straight into the team and be a huge success from day 1. I would rather have Mayuka/JR on the bench than a 30 year old Mercenary European player who has been round the block.

Pretty sure we have other threads that have discussed this in depth. A couple of points: 1. Some of the prices you quote seem higher than were reported 2. Bit silly to write of some players after 3 months - clearly they are also bought with the future in mind. 3. Not every new addition can be a starter 4. Sums of money are big but as a promoted team you are playing catch up - the established teams always add each summer so you probably need to do 3 summers worth of work in one. Did we have a perfect summer? No, clearly not. Was it horrendous? No, clearly not. Did we bring in some very good players? Yes. Did we make our biggest ever signing? Yes (two years ago it was Brian Stock and Brian Howard everyone wanted, we got Gaston Ramirez...)

Agree - for me if Ramirez wasn't back to play I would match Reading's 4-4-2 and put Mayuka in for Ramirez, moving up front with RL. If we needed Mayuka could drop out wide with Lallana moving centrally so we could play 4-4-2 or the favoured 4-2-3-1/4-4-1-1 with the same starting XI.

Plus Jonno Quick - don't write him off. He is quick.

Get a life, you are deranged.

Agree - I guess its just gutting if you happen to be affected just at the point you could have taken advantage of it.

We have had some debates, and I have diasgreed on some of his opinions on Saints, a few of which I have found pretty ridiculous, and I have told him that - he is big enough to take it, and I can accept his rebuttals as well - that what the Forum is for. However, it has always been on topic, and never resorted to any personal digs - the kind you specialise in. That is not what the Forum is for. I'm sure DPS sees it this way as well.

No - I just look at the popular threads and see in nearly every one of them you have a pop at DPS as if you forgot the meds this morning. As he said he setup a sensible discussion about the government mugging him off and you reduce it to petty insults - if you hate the guy that much just call him a **** once and get it over with - all the mongy little insults and digs are tedious in the extreme.

Did DPS beat you up in the school playground? Following him around on an internet mongboard is a sad state of affairs!

Why do you think some players have "must play" clauses but not others? I reckon Gaston and Yoshida have them TBH. Lots of others teams also use them - I believe Messi has one (Reed probably discussed the approach with Barca when he did that coaching course with them) and I think Ronaldo also does at Madrid and possibly Van Persie at Utd.

I reckon this is an example of Reed acting outside the confines of the Committee. IMO if we sign him it is 100% Reed and Adkins won't even know who the lad is when he turns up for training. The key will be if his agent agrees a "must play" clause with Reed - then we are in trouble because the lad must be crap because he doesn't play Intl footy.

With the recent Liam Ridgewell incident casting footballers in poor light, it is worth pointing out that the players often do great work for charity and in the community - but who comes out on top? For me Lee Holmes was a great ambassador for the Saints Foundation - although he did have a lot of time on his hands. Also remember Trond Egil Soltvedt did a lot of good work during his time here and was a nice bloke. Soltvedt with Claus Lundekvam:

So its 'Forum Hardman' vs 'Nasty Poster of the Year 2012'.......sort it over PM, some of us want to talk footy.