Millbrook Saint

I know Les gets a lot of stick but ultimately he is an employee and if the owner says sell a player, then that's what he has to do. I thought it was telling that in an interview a while back, the board all agreed that VVD had to be kept, the only person open to selling to the scouse was Kat. At the end of the day I'm sure Les would love it if the owner told him he had unlimited funds but that just doesn't seem to be the case so he has to be shrewd in his dealings which to my mind he has done pretty successfully.

You do realise he changed agents after signing his new contract? I think the new agent probably approached him to swap agents after liverpool contacted them to try and get vvd to them

Like your reasoning, once again great foresight from the club

Understood but didn't Lemina sign for 5 years? I thought that was part of our new way of doing things was so that we don't end up in the position where we have to sell someone like Mane quite as soon. I see the point of giving out a 4 year contract, that getting him to extend it if he proves successful, let's just hope he doesn't look at the VVD situation before deciding.

That article says 4 year deal, could this be the first side affect of our stance with VVD? ie no player will want to sign for 5 years as it hands us too much power.

oops that'll teach me for thinking I read it somewhere without double checkinh

Leicester for one, not sure how they'll do this year but the Chinese are certainly putting money in. Even if we don't start paying massive fees and we keep our business model of buying up and coming players, we may be able to offer higher wages when they start to fulfill their potential, meaning they don't bugger off to the scousers the second they start to perform.

Is that the same Carragher who openly admitted that when he was down here working for Sky, that he was chatting to Clyne, telling him how he should move up there. Nope not sure why any of us would be ****ed off when a scouser opens his big gob

To be honest as a supporter of SFC I couldn't care less about the players, the times where you cheered the players on as one of yours are long gone, they are here for one reason and one reason only, to earn a good wedge and a move to a club higher up in the football chain, if players stay it is normally because they have found their level, not because they love the club or the fans, no matter what they say when they're here. That said I'd be more than happy to have him back in the team as long as he got his head down, I view him as a commodity, the same as I do with all players, if he'll help us then have him in the team, it's not about forgiving him it's about using him when we need him, then once he goes next season that's the end of him as far as I'm concerned. Consideration has to be given to our reputation and standing in the game, at the moment clubs like them oop north think we're their *****es, here to provide them with players when they require it, there comes a time when the bullied won't accept being bullied anymore and and will have to make a stand, our time is now and we should stand firm, if it means ruining his career, so be it, he aint no bigger than SFC and the sooner he realises that the better. I'd say that as a club both the fans and the powers that be are pretty pragmatic and know our place, we don't have any unrealistic expectations, what we do expect though is a degree of respect, it's about time we started being given a bot of respect

He was more than happy signing the new contract with a hefty pay rise to be highest paid in the club, and becoming the captain and knew he would be expected to stay at least another 2 seasons. What then happened is the filth from up north decided they wanted him so they set their plan into motion, first was getting him to swap agents to a 'friendly' agent, then there was the tapping up, along with the media releases stating the deal was already done. What they didn't expect was for us to grow a spine and say no. There is absolutely nothing they can do if we continue to say no, he can train alone which is fine, the club cannot now give in and sell to them, this will only strengthen them, as well as weaken us. I'd be happy to refuse to sell to them even if it meant he trained alone all season, at least this would disrupt their plans.

I would say he's in a corner, we just need to tell him he's staying, he can either spend his time here training alone, away from the other players and missing the world cup, wasting his career. Or, accept it, come to an agreement with the club similar to Schneiderlin, give us a season, put yourself in the shop window, give us no ****e in the background about moves, spurious injury problems, agents briefing the press, then go with our blessing providing we get the fee we want. If he causes trouble during the season then he'll have to give us another season, his career will soon wither away whilst Southampton as a club will just move on. He cannot be allowed to get away with this

I tend to agree with this, the club have put themselves into a position where they'd look foolish to now let him go, not only that they'd lose a lot of goodwill from the fans, VVD probably knows this and has hopefully come to terms with it, the dippers are in the death throes of trying to secure him so are getting increasingly desperate, using all the dirty tricks they can, whilst knowing they have to be careful in anything they do. His agent is probably freaking out at the thought of losing a hefty bonus too. So he'll be sold tomorrow then

My eyes too, oh and probably most of the scousers would laugh at us too

Don't really see why anyone would be in a pickle. Fact of the matter is, he has 5 years left on a contract, it's widely believed he was told when signing and becoming captain to give us 2 years then he can move on, now he wants to renege on that agreement because klopp has come calling. He should be told in no uncertain terms, give us one more good season then go with our blessing, mess us about by sulking, demanding moves, suddenly having injuries that make you miss key games etc, then we won't be letting you go next season either. At some point the club need to make a stand and that time is now, Reed needs to understand how the fans feel about constantly losing players to that filth up north, this could end up costing the club far more than a few million quid on a transfer fee if the fans start feeling disenchanted and begin to drift away

With a world cup coming up next summer I'd like to think that his performances won't be affected

Whilst I feel the club aren't going to make wholesale changes with players mainly coming in with potential like the Polish chap, which should be applauded, it would be nice for the fans to be given a signing or 2 that can get them excited, it is afterall an entertainment industry, most saints fans are pretty pragmatic and understand we won't be going out spunking £100m but they surely have to show some sort of willingness to whet our appetites for next season. Saying that it's only July so a lot could happen yet.

This will be dressed up as 'the manager came in and wanted funds to buy players, he sanctioned the sale of VVD to achieve this'. What Reed didn't want, was the northern filth to push through the buy before we could play out our little charade, so he could be in the clear, hence the reporting of them with no follow up to get them to back off. Would love it if we'd grow some balls for once, but we seem to enjoy being the little cuckold guy to liverpool

You wouldn't mean that lefty hypocrite Gary evil tories blah blah blah, evil austerity cuts blah blah. I'll just avoid paying taxes, that's for the little people. Linker would you

Yep, i bought another £500. last week, tbis morning that total investment of £1000 is looking at £1350, not bad for 2 weeks

Been trying to buy from coinbase today, seems there are issues with purchasing with debit/credit cars

I know, am gutted, I remember seeing them when they were around the £20 mark each and thinking that they wouldn't go up much as bitcoin was the way forward, not sure how much bitcoin was then but it may have just dropped down to around £400, an investment in either back then would be showing good returns right now. 20 20 hindsight. Just out of interest, do you keep your ETH in the Coinbase wallet or you have your own wallet?

I spent £500 on ETH last week, it cost roughly £480 after fees. Looking at my coinbase account today my account is holding £550, so in roughly a week £70 has been made

No, Classic British class and integrity, aren't we always taught to raise above the bait, just because we're not shouting it from the roof tops doesn't mean we're not letting Trump know our feelings about it. Agree with the 'special relationship' bit, nothing makes me cringe more than when I hear politicians of any party spouting that, we're Britain, we brought democracy to the world, we should be a little more proud of our achievements and more confident of our standing in the world instead of kowtowing to any other nation, that includes the EU. Oh and we're not severing ties with Europe, we're restoring governance to our great country, I'm sure we would all love keep a nice close relationship with Europe, it just seems like the blowhards over there feel that the thing to do is punish a whole nation of people for exercising their democratic right

Without trying to be rude, you do understand politics do you? Theresa May will hopefully be the one who has to deal with Trump in the future, getting into a public spat is not what she would want to do, and nor should she, no matter how the press try and goad her into it. I'm sure she will raise any concerns with him in private, which is how it should be. It's nice and easy for people in other parties who know they have no real chance of having to deal with Trump to get on their high horse and have a go but the prime minister has to show a bit more class.

Totally agree, Les is an employee, if Kat tells him the club has to live within its means, what's he supposed to do. I'm sure he'd love it if Kat told him 'funds are limitless, do what it takes to win the league'. At the end of the day the one person who has seen us through the turmoil is Les Reed, like him or hate him he seems to know what he's doing. At the end of the day he can only do what he can with the resources he has and to me he makes a pretty good fist of it. Puel on the other hand I think has to go, firstly if he's lost the senior players there is normally no way back, it's easy for us to say get rid and replace the players but we aint Man U who have top players queuing up to join them. Secondly the games at home have been awfaul, what is it 17 goals at home all season? our strikers look isolated up front every game with no one providing support, we're good till the final third then run out of ideas. We may have got away with that last season but I'm not confident Puel can turn that around, it just seems against his philosophy to get on to the front foot. This season the teams around and below us were pretty ****e, it only takes a few of them to get their acts together and 17 goals at home will see us in trouble.