stevegrant

Well quite, it's not as if it's the most important part of his job.

It also all changes completely this summer with the new TV deal. That £4m annual increase limit won't apply because that was based on the existing broadcasting deal, so every club will be increasing their TV money by around 70%.

The SaintsPlayer highlights show the disallowed goal and Davis is clearly level with Holebas when the ball's played.

So you've hand-picked a single example to back up your argument. Bravo.

Genuinely amazing news

As the title says, we've got a game against West Brom's fans team at BTC on Stoneham Lane next Saturday morning, 10:30 kickoff. If anyone fancies a game, please get in touch. It would probably be fair to describe the standard as "mixed" on our part

Particularly as he switched agents to Jorge Mendes at the start of the season, and the first thing he did was get him a new contract.

Calling Victor Wanyama "a player I admire" is enough to render the rest of it completely irrelevant, tbf.

I meant as in his effort this season has been "fine", no reason to question whether he's been pulling his weight when he's been on the pitch. Performances have been up-and-down from the whole squad.

While we've certainly regressed, I actually think this is because the "general quality" of the league has improved immeasurably. The top teams are all battling to make a complete pig's ear of things, while those in middling positions now have the financial clout to be able to attract players they wouldn't have even dreamed of before, so you've got Crystal Palace signing Yoann Cabaye and Stoke signing Xherdan Shaqiri, FFS Basically, many of the teams we were comfortably ahead of last season have caught up with us pretty rapidly. There's still the nucleus of a very good side in there, and we've not actually had many absolute stinker performances this season (except for the big cup games, naturally ), it's been fine margins that have cost us, whereas last season they were largely going in our favour. Sharpen up a bit in both boxes and we'll climb back up the table, IMO.

There's a surprise

I wouldn't say it's hypocritical for the club's stance to change along with circumstances. The fact is that our first team has (largely) got much better in terms of quality since the "no loans" quote, so the bar has been set much higher for the kids coming through, while it seems as though the quality in those youngsters has reduced in the same period. As a result, while four years ago we were able to throw James Ward-Prowse and Luke Shaw into the first team (a team regularly containing Jos Hooiveld, Kelvin Davis and Guly do Prado) against the best this league has to offer without any prior first-team experience, it's simply not feasible at the moment.

Difficult to change the mentality of a player who never seemed to convince anyone that he ever wanted to be here in the first place. Remember how long it took to get the signing over the line three years ago. I'd take serious issue about him being a "high class player", he was excellent for most of last season, but has been absolute toss this season. That suggests that the presence of Morgan Schneiderlin alongside him had a significant impact on his performances, and understandably so as Schneiderlin is a world-class defensive midfielder, but when he's been asked to step up and be the midfield leader, he's been unable to do so.

I'd certainly agree that he shouldn't be in the side right now, and I guess we'll get a decent look at how we're going to fare without him over the next two games as he serves his suspension. I don't agree that we should sell to the highest bidder - what's the point? The only bidders are likely to be clubs barely better than us. Wanyama has a very high opinion of his own ability which isn't matched by reality. If he, as a player who struggles to pass the ball 5 yards, thinks he would fit in at Arsenal, he's very much mistaken. I doubt if Spurs would be interested anymore as Dier and Alli have stepped up this season and outperformed him by a country mile, so why would they want to disrupt that? So where else is he going to go? Nobody will give us enough to make it worth our while, IMO.

I assume this was a meeting held at the hotel on Saturday morning, so he'd have been in the same building, but each player has their own room so if he's been lazy/tardy in the morning then easy to see how he could miss a meeting there. The point has been made by someone else, but Mané's performances have been fine this season, I don't think his application on the pitch has been questioned once. As a result, I'm not sure dropping him is necessarily the right punishment as it also punishes the team as a whole, given how much we rely on him. Fine him whatever amount of money you choose, but I think Ron's cutting his nose off to spite his face by dropping him. Wanyama, on the other hand, has had a **** attitude all season, only bothering to play at 100% when it's against Arsenal or Chelsea (basically what Celtic fans told us he'd be like). We're not going to make any money from him now, he's got 18 months left on his contract, he's nowhere near as good as he thinks he is and has been stinking up the place in terms of his attitude and seemingly dragging everyone down with him. Given the amount of money we were willing to spend to get rid of Osvaldo, we should be prepared to lose the £8m or so we might sell Vic for, stick him in the U21s for the remainder of his contract. Send a message to players that, while we may allow players to leave if they "deserve" the opportunity to play Champions League football and the price is right, we're not going to bow to players who throw their toys out and disrupt everything.

transfermarkt.co.uk is a good resource for that sort of thing. 12/13: 20 league starts, 6 sub appearances (total 1673 minutes) - 3 goals, 3 assists 13/14: 3 league starts, 15 sub appearances (total 507 minutes) - 1 goal, 3 assists 14/15: 0 league starts, 1 sub appearance (total 24 minutes) - 0 goals, 0 assists 15/16: 0 league starts, 1 sub appearance (total 10 minutes) - 0 goals, 1 assist Total: 23 starts, 23 sub (total 2214 minutes) - 4 goals, 7 assists. 201.27 minutes per goal contribution. Edit: adding cup games: 12/13: No appearances 13/14: 4 starts, 0 sub (total 316 minutes) - 2 goals, 1 assist 14/15: 0 starts, 1 sub (total 1 minute) - 0 goals, 0 assists 15/16: 1 start, 1 sub (total 92 minutes) - 0 goals, 0 assists Total: 28 starts, 25 sub (total 2623 minutes) - 6 goals, 8 assists. 187.36 minutes per goal contribution.

Well you're categorically wrong on the wage bill part for a start. And again, you seem to be under the misconception that transfer fees are the only cost involved in signing a player.

Not necessarily. Long is a decent player, but isn't better than our first-choice striker. Unless we're going to play regularly with two out-and-out strikers - which I sincerely doubt, considering our success has been built upon winning games in midfield - he's not going to be ahead of Pellè in the team when he's available.

In your world we'd only have a squad of 11 players then. Bravo. And you advocate just using Jay Rodriguez. Who will be out injured (again) for a period of time and will need to get back to fitness before being a) available, and b) of any tangible use. Wonderful.

I genuinely find it incredible that people are lumping Long in with Dani ****ing Osvaldo in the "waste of money" stakes. They are not even remotely in the same ballpark.

Most of them have bigger incomes than we do.

And why would we? Our problem is supposedly a lack of depth and people are advocating selling one of the few players who provides a potential game-changing option.

Yes, because transfer fees are the only cost associated with signing a player. Our wage bill has increased from £47m to £72m in the last three seasons, which has just about been covered by a combination of incoming fees and an increase in the TV deal. Next season, when the new TV deal kicks in, with an increase of around 70%, is when we will have a LOT more freedom with wages - the obvious issue is that everyone else will have the same freedom.

Away draw preferable, against the following: 1. Pompey 2. Eastleigh 3. Bradford, Newport, Grimsby/Shrewsbury, Bury, Whitehawk (think they'll beat Dagenham in the replay), Oxford - in no particular order of preference.