Jimmy_D

Kelvin Davis vs Leeds was pretty unaminous too, can't remember the exact figures though.

I nearly just put all 14 options as Lemina.

Gerrin. Where the **** did 6 mins of stoppage time come from?

Refs head's gone there.

Lemina's been awesome today, can see why people were comparing him to Schniederlin when we were linked with him.

**** me that was a hell of a save!

A few sloppy moments, but we're playing really well so far today.

Bloody hell! Good save, got away with one there.

We haven't just turned down 70M to let VvD rot in the stands If he wants to do that himself now, that's up to him.

Apart from all the players that aren't VvD that we still have.

Potentially we get to see a world class player in the team this season if he knuckles down and gets on with it, maybe even beyond that. There are other more intangible benefits though. Players hopefully realise that signing a long contract means they're signing it to play for Saints. Keeping a player like VvD, appearing to knock back a world record fee, and humiliating Liverpool in the process, it starts to change the perception of Saints. Out of the teams above us, Liverpool are possibly one of the weakest with that defence, with the potential for a terrible season, especially with Europe to possibly bog them down. If we're going to to get higher in the league, avoiding strengthening them is a decent start. For me the big one is that teams might think twice before tapping our players up. The damage might have already been done with VvD himself, but if doing this means teams are reluctant to get burned again, that we know about interest in our players as it happens, and it's more difficult for them and the players themselves to go behind our back... that could be a huge benefit for us going forward.

They've missed out 'and will now hope to sign him in January...'

Makes a change to be watching that sort of silliness from the outside

So everything you're right about is you being ITK, and everything you turn out to be wrong about was you speculating or it changed then?

You'd be surprised just how tiny the next club markets are. Besides, newspaper stories about him going to Arsenal were always going to affect the odds.

Of course I was being completely serious when I posted about not being able to sign promising young players on long contracts in a thread about signing a promising young player on a long contract...

Would imagine VvD would move over to the right as he's right footed. I believe he can play both sides of CB?

Haha, that has to be a direct message to Liverpool.

Sounds like he's potentially an awesome signing. Not much more than we paid for VvD either... when you consider the inflation that's occurred since then... If we can get VvD's head back from wherever it seems to have rolled to, our defence could be looking very strong indeed. Obviously our stance with VvD is absolutely killing our chances of signing young promising players on long contracts...

Shane Warne put less spin on a cricket ball than that headline puts on that article.

Very sad news. RIP

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2017/08/21/chelsea-ready-wait-virgil-van-dijk-step-transfer-activity-window/ Maybe clubs are finally starting to think there might be some teeth in the tapping up rules?

http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/sport/football/transfer-news/steven-gerrard-says-signing-virgil-13503845 A current Liverpool employee spouting off about signing van Dijk yet again. There's absolutely no way we can let him go there.

It's worth pointing out that 'no extra funds this window' is a window where we've broken our record transfer fee, and since they took over have stated we won't be selling VvD, potentially turning down a world record fee for a defender. General consensus from the media was that we wouldn't be splashing the cash, but are now a bit stronger financially than we were. Also as has been pointed out elsewhere, it looks like their debt is secured against other assets they already had, and is theirs, not the club's. We've seen first hand what can happen when ownership goes wrong, so it's right to be cautious, but I haven't seen anything that's actually happened to be concerned about yet.

Absolutely cracking goal tonight, Le Tiss himself would have been happy with that finish.