hypochondriac

A block of wood. It has more influence over the team.

Getting in a top cb, midfielder, striker and maybe a winger will be more than enough for me (arguably only the first three will be sufficient.) With those additions, the club really should have enough about them to be up near the top of the division.

Good point!

Yes we do need improvements to the overall squad but I don't see how you can criticise the club for failing to improve on someone like Lavia or JWP. These are top quality prem players and anyone who would be an improvement on them isn't going to come to saints. What we should instead focus on is getting a team together who can be greater overall than the sum of their parts with some players who know how to perform in this league and with every player clear what their role is.

That's called relegation. We have little choice in the matter.

You can tell we haven't had any proper competitive football in weeks when these conversations start appearing.

This would be incredible. If we somehow manage to keep Alcaraz and Tella and get in a new striker we will have a serious good strike force.

A shame if true in one way but we can get the same positives he would bring from elsewhere.

Was he injured last year? Only played 13 times.

We really should be spending 15-20 million on a top championship striker to suit our system. Bring in someone like Ronnie Edwards at the back to play alongside Bednarek and Piroe or Van Hoojdonk up top and that's our starting 11 sorted (other than replacing Bazunu but I'm not holding out much hope for that.)

I can see both sides of the argument but personally I'd bring in a new striker and probably put Tella in the team before Mara. I don't think he imposes himself on games enough and that's only going to get worse in a physical league like the championship.

With the availability of keepers I just don't see why we'd go through the bother and hard graft of developing a keeper who might be able to be decent eventually. We'd have been better off spending a few more million and buying one much closer to the finished article. It's not like keepers cost the earth and there were plenty of options (there probably still are.)

Mara, Armstrong, Adams and Bazunu are all part of last year's failure and if every one of them left tomorrow it would make no negative difference to the club. You could add Salisu to that as well.

I didn't see much wrong with the football if I'm honest. It's the team who have to carry it out. Imo a team of New gk /Bazunu Tino bednarek new cb Manning Charles Tella jwp Sulemana Alcaraz New striker /Van Hoojdonk? Would be able to start the season and be reasonably confident of success. You could also bring in amo ameyew, a couple of the other youth players and maybe someone like the Swansea captain to replace jwp. That's really only one or two players associated in any big way with last season and thus less tainted. The likes of Armstrong can be introduced if they prove themselves and perform but we mustn't be in a position where we have to rely on them.

I'm not sure if he stays that jwp will be as amazing as people think in the championship. I really would like a bit of a bastard as a captain who won't allow his teammates to fail. Our team seems content with being OK and some of that attitude stems from the captain.

If we had jwp, Charles, Alcaraz, Amo Ameyaw, Sulemana and maybe a new striker to start the season then that's only one player from that first half.

Ball playing cb and a striker is really required. I'm not sure the system suits Tella so wouldn't surprise me to see him go. Ditto Edozie. Alcaraz our best player and needs to stay.

Amo amayew is a serious player

Miles better in the attacking third in, the last ten minutes. Possibly because a lot of the players are nothing to do with last year's turd performances.

Help us Carlos Alcaraz. You're our only hope.

I'm a bit worried that we don't have the players in attack to play a passing game. We have some players who can run with the ball but it doesn't look like we're going to utilise that. I think we need to bring in some attacking talent that can play the way the manager wants to. That might mean selling Tella and maybe someone like Edozie or Sulemana and certainly Stuart Armstrong.

I think it's worth documenting on here how he does this year as he's seemingly first choice. Made a really basic error at his near post today in preseason to allow Goztepe to score. I think my concern about his performance is going to rise after that one.

I don't want it to be one of those things like the striker situation that we don't address and then it becomes really obvious that that is our big weakness for the season.

That was bloody awful from Bazunu. Really worried about him this year.

It seems to me that they need some team bonding time exercises. Get them down Shirley high street trying out an escape room or something.