stevegrant

Yeah, could be, and would certainly make sense. Saves us around £1.5m or so.

An exit strategy that included violently assaulting one of our most senior players? O...K....

Seem some Leeds-based rumours that we've basically got our money back for him, which would be pretty impressive. I was under the impression we were quite happy to let him go for nothing, just to save on the wages.

Yeah, it was probably worth the relatively cheap gamble given his age and African Cup of Nations performance earlier that year. Not quite worked out so far, perhaps Koeman can get something out of him.

Can't imagine they'd be in any great rush to join anyway, but that's a conversation for elsewhere (perhaps here, which I thought was quite interesting)

£3m

Indeed, but I would suggest the Romanian Lei is more closely linked to the Euro than Sterling, hence Romanian journalists having quoted the price in Euros and not pounds.

Much easier for them to say that when they only stand to receive 25% of any transfer fee anyway. If their cut was 75%, I would guess they wouldn't be so enthusiastic about him sitting on his arse for two years and leaving for nothing at the end of it.

http://www.saintsweb.co.uk/showthread.php?51389-League-Cup

Irene, here's a little tip for you, to save you bombarding me and the moderators with constant automated messages about posts you're reporting that disagree with you: There is a fundamental difference between what is insulting, and what is simply somebody either disagreeing or questioning what you are saying. This is a forum, a place for discussion. People will have different opinions. Many people like to base their opinions on facts - facts are things that are proven to be true and can be backed up by evidence. Forums tend to be quite insular places, where anybody new immediately arouses suspicion, especially when they come on here saying "I guarantee Boruc won't be here when the transfer window closes" without showing any evidence or even expanding on why that might be the case or where he might realistically go. So rather than constantly hitting that "report post" button for someone calling you out on something you've failed to back up, how about you provide us with some actual evidence?

Erm...

The unseeded teams are "pre-drawn" into positions within the draw, which rather detracts from it a little bit, IMO. They should do it like UEFA did for the Champions League and Europa League draws last week: one pot of seeds, one pot of non-seeds, one empty pot; pick one from each pot and place into the empty one, then pick which is at home and away. Much fairer and more interesting, IMO. Anyway, draw numbers: SEEDED: 1. AFC Bournemouth 2. Aston Villa 3. Bolton Wanderers 4. Brighton & Hove Albion 5. Burnley 6. Crystal Palace 7. Derby County 8. Fulham 9. Leeds United 10. Leicester City 11. Manchester United 12. Middlesbrough 13. Newcastle United 14. Norwich City 15. Nottingham Forest 16. Queens Park Rangers 17. Reading 18. Southampton 19. Stoke City 20. Sunderland 21. Swansea City 22. Watford 23. West Bromwich Albion 24. West Ham United 25. Cardiff City (if they beat Coventry tonight) or Sheffield Wednesday (if Cardiff lose to Coventry) UNSEEDED: Birmingham City Bradford City Brentford Burton Albion Charlton Athletic Crawley Town Crewe Alexandra Doncaster Rovers Gillingham Huddersfield Town Leyton Orient Millwall Milton Keynes Dons Northampton Town Oxford United Port Vale Portsmouth Preston North End Rotherham United S****horpe United Shrewsbury Town Swindon Town Walsall Sheffield United or Mansfield Town (playing tonight) Sheffield Wednesday or Coventry City (Coventry play Cardiff tonight, if Cardiff win, Sheffield Wednesday are unseeded).

Wickham is also widely known for being a disruptive influence. While nobody came out of the England U21 squad with much credit last summer in the tournament in Israel, Wickham was singled out as being an especially despicable scrote.

Ryan Bertrand has never played for West Brom

What rumours, the one you just made up?

Who knows until they've actually played some proper games for us? Nobody thought there would be any resale value in Lambert and yet we sold him for at least 4 times what we paid for him when we were in the third division. Resale value is given far too much consideration in the game these days, IMO, as it's pretty much the only thing that football clubs take a long-term view on, and yet it's utterly impossible to predict. We have a need for certain types of forward player, as identified by the manager, and we've gone out and signed players who fit those profiles in order for the team to succeed. Job done, in that regard. For every player that loses value as they get older, there will be many more who gain value over the same period.

We've got value out of the signings we've made so far, spending a few million more than Football Manager players' valuation of ONE player is hardly the end of the ****ing world.

Not if you're going to be paying him £40k a week to lay on the treatment table. That would be £2m per year for the duration of his contract.

You make entirely contradictory points. First you bemoan that we've not made "great" signings, and then say that if we signed Vlaar (who hasn't stood out in a woeful Villa team in the last 2 years), and either Belhanda or Sinclair (who is basically a former footballer) we'd have done a good job.

Yarmolenko isn't a striker.

It's Euros, as far as I can tell, so around £4.8m.

It's clear that Koeman has identified the "type" of forward he wants to sign, someone with a burst of pace, busy, a pain in the arse for defenders. I assume there aren't any strikers of that type available or deemed suitable from the Eredivisie, the market that Koeman knows best, so he's looked domestically instead. The scouting system and analysts have presumably given him a list of players who have the attributes he is looking for, which is why we've been linked with Javier Hernandez for ages, and with it becoming clear that he has no interest in joining us, we've moved onto another option. The price, when taken in isolation, is high, but when you think that Leicester paid £7m+ for Leonardo Ulloa, who looked a bit "meh" even in the Championship, Fulham paid £11m for an unfit Ross McCormack and Forest £5m for Assombolonga who hasn't scored a goal above League One in his career, in order to get PL experience it's going to cost north of £10m. Long only joined Hull in January for £7.5m, so from their perspective he's tied to a long contract and they don't really need to sell, which pushes the price up. I've absolutely no problem with us paying a bit over the odds to get the right player for the system Koeman wants to play. On the subject of Fraizer Campbell, he's very injury-prone. In his entire career (signed a pro contract at Man United in 2007), he has only started 68 Premier League games, scoring 13 goals.

Fair to say we can move on from this one, I reckon

Proof if ever it were needed that a fool and his money are easily parted.