hypochondriac

Apart from the bit where he said "who's next to leave the club? Everyone basically."

Tino Lavia JWP Walcott Elyounoussi Salisu Makes six unless you don't want to count Tino due to his injury but you could also add Caleta Carr if you classed him as a first team player. I can easily see a scenario where we sell Perraud, Sulemana and Adams before the end of the window so we'd been at 9+ even if I agree with your opinion that we won't sell kwp or Tella.

Well if that comes to pass I will absolutely give the club credit. Keeping kwp, Alcaraz and Tella will imo be a statement of intent that we are gunning for immediate automatic promotion. Assuming they both do go, would you be more aligned with pilchards and his opinion?

So you think we are keeping Tella and KWP then?

What are you classing as first 11 players? Theo Walcott and Elyounoussi were first 11 players that we have lost from last year. Perraud will also be if we lose him too but I can't imagine any saints fans will be in the least bit bothered about the loss of those 3.

True it wasn't everyone but a large enough number. Plenty of people got slated for saying 6 or 7.

Sports Republic haven't done anything yet to prove things have fundamentally changed from last year. I gave them credit when they spent money but if they spaffed a load on the likes of Onuachu, only to recpup the majority the following summer through sales as some are suggested coukd be the plan then they don't deserve any credit really. Most fans have swallowed the sales up till now but are getting concerned and rightly so.

You said you agreed with pilchards who said that's what we would be doing.

Everyone said that exact thing last summer and then when we failed to sign a decent striker that we needed, judged the window to be a 9 or a 10.

So you think kwp and Tella will stay?

I think it's clear and obvious what I am saying as I've elaborated on here more than once now and everyone else seems to have understood. Maybe go back and reread if you're having trouble understanding. Failing that, maybe best just to slip my posts if you consider it whinging.

Confident of what? If we sell the remaining quality in the team with maybe only Alcaraz left and replace them with loans or cheap gambles that will significantly harm our chance of promotion.

I see you missed the bit where I said "players we could lose". Just to be clear, you don't think we will lose them?

Depends what you mean by starters but there were certainly some considered starters last year who have left. The players below I believe would be starters in a championship team: Tella JWP KWP Salisu ABK Adams Lavia Tino Sulemana So that's 9 we could lose with the only players of real quality who we have a chance of keeping imo being Smallbone and Alcaraz. I'm not sure what other players you have classed as starters for other teams, but you could even be pedantic and class players like Walcott or Mo as starters that we have got rid of.

Large numbers of outgoings yes but that wasn't what I was arguing was it.

I'm not saying I disbelieve him. It's just depressing and will imo result in significant fan backlash after the debacle of last year.

No you're wrong. It is a surprise. No other team has sold this many. There are no examples of relegated teams selling this amount of their top players. Saying its no surprise and the way of the world is a false narrative designed to make us feel better.

I wonder if the Sheffield Wednesday game with our premier league players stroking around the park will be viewed with hindsight as the high water mark of the season. Most players we have got rid of so far haven't really featured this year and so aren't really any sort of loss, whereas the ones being linked with moves away now will weaken us significantly. It will certainly be an interesting fortnight whatever happens.

This basically. Unless he goes on strike and refuses to play or something.

Fair enough. I think everyone knew there would be a significant turnover of players. I don't think many people predicted we would be in this position three weeks into the season and I'm not sure anyone believed we would be selling virtually every single one of our decent players with the only ones left the ones with significant weaknesses. I thought I was being pessimistic when I predicted us to keep two or maybe three.

And then if we sell everyone, leaving us with less than two weeks to adequately replace everyone and train them in the managers way of playing and then we miss out on promotion as a consequence, it's going to end up costing a heck of a lot more than whatever premium we got on Tella and Adams.

I'm not sure what you are disagreeing about. If we end up selling kwp, Sulemana, Adams and Tella then sales are literally unprecedented for any relegated team. Unless you can find an example of a relegated team who did similar and prove me wrong of course.

Hence "if true"

TBF though as I said earlier, the level of sales in one window is unprecedented for any other relegated team so it is quite unusual to predict the volume of bodies out the door.

Well that's going to go down like a cup of cold sick if true. What a way to waste fan goodwill (why bother publically talking about automatic promotion?)