CanadaSaint

The more I see of Morgan Schneiderlin the more I think there isn't enough money to buy him. Not only does he make his unique four-lung physical contribution over some 60-80 yards of midfield responsibility. He's also the organizer - pointing other players to their marking assignments and 'forcing' players into danger spaces by playing passes into them. If he can keep chipping in with the occasional goal he'll become the best midfielder in the PL, if he isn't already.

Parlez vous francais? Nor me. http://cafe-creme.me/chaine5.html Really good stream, though.

Now THAT is a damn good article.

A decent article from a very average journalist who is, as Alpine suggests, one of the big club sycophants. I'm just a little tickled that Alpine is berating someone for writing us off during the Summer shenanigans.

It's been really difficult to get our full backs forward - such a key to our game. Good to see them pushing Dyer inside after Bony's red. It gives Bertrand the chance to push up and get the Bertrand/Tadic thing going again. We can win this but Moss has a really itchy trigger finger and I'll be surprised if we end up with eleven on the pitch.

I know this won't go down well on here but I'd be inclined to cash-in on JRod, just not with any Townsend connection. For me it goes beyond the very valid points you've raised. I don't think he'll have another season like the last one. All the stars were aligned - he had the perfect players around him and probably the perfect manager, and he had some luck on his side (his freakish goals at Stoke and Palace come to mind). As much as I like the guy, I think we may have seen the best of him.

Townsend's horrendous cameo appearance today suggests that some of the best transfers may be ones that fall through.

[ Maybe the thought on Morgan's mind today is that his world looks a lot brighter than it did a month ago.

Duplicate post

Experts like this one (in the Bertrand signs on loan thread)?

Dragging up old posts is one of the few effective ways for the forum to police itself. Needless to say, those who most often post crap are the ones who react most violently when somebody resurrects it. And, Alps, you are the most violent reactor of all, which says something.

I guess I'm in a minority in having some reservations. One of Forster's primary assets, his height, may also turn out to be one of his greatest liabilities. Sure, he can be dominant with the high ball (and so far has been), but a common vulnerability for very tall keepers is difficulty getting down to low shots. I was rather disappointed with his effort on Sterling's goal, and that was an example of the potential problem - he advanced, stalled, and couldn't get down in time. Sure, he made a great save (with a leg) on Saturday but that was possible because Ideye was so close-in. The PL is very unforgiving when player's weakness is spotted, so I really hope this doesn't turn out to be an issue.

A lot will flow from the media reaction to this, and Morgan may have underestimated it. The same journalists who constantly fawn over the big clubs and push players towards them with rumours will now change sides and talk wisely about this being a symptom of a sick game. Gutless, hypocritical scumbags. It's hard to see Morgan getting much sympathy. And let's not forget that he was the first of our core players to talk about moving to "a big club", last summer.

Okay, make that dollars.

Taking these two posts together: I'd punt a fiver on our interest in Ings being very active.

True, but Argentina's World Cup squad was not exactly easy to crack, never mind the staring line up. It's like being good enough to crack England's squad X 5. Not that this is really saying anything.

That's my worry because Pochettino probably need someone like that as much as we do, and I can't stomach the thought of MP beating us to him. But I suspect that the Board feels the same way, so I hope Reed has enough latitude (on fee and personal terms) to get this done, and enough sense not to dicker his way to failure.

I agree with you to a point - I think they should have made more progress on signings before we let the players go, although the World Cup and players' holidays were always going to make that difficult. However, Spurs are probably not a good example of the way to go because, in their haste, they arguably wasted a chunk of the Bale money on misfits. I'd rather pay over the odds for a good fit than under the odds for a misfit.

Jeez, Delldays, I thought Duncan might have started you thinking a little more open-mindedly by using that nautical analogy, but I guess that one "sailored over your head" as well. Cortese did some amazing things for us but I have no doubt that he left some ugly stuff behind. Ditto for Pochettino. Now it's time to stabilize so that we can start making progress again. Not a difficult concept to grasp - unless you've painted yourself into a corner with a bunch of snide negativity. I hope you're working on (yet) another identity so that you can leave this iteration's junk behind. Open the bilge pumps.

The only consistency you've shown is saying that you'll wait until September 1 before judging, when post after post after post of utter drivel shows that you reached your judgment long ago "without knowing the full facts and decision-making process the inner team are involved in." Find me the place where Krueger or anyone else has said that all the money would be spent in this widow or by September 1. I want to see this club succeed in the long term and I'd be livid if we blew all of that fortune this Summer in some kind of half-witted quest to appease short-sighted people who have absolutely no idea about the inner workings of Premier league football clubs.

Thanks for that answer. So a situation in which we spend a chunk of our transfer surplus on salaries rather than transfer fees helps us more than vice versa - for three years, at least? And taking that concept to an extreme, if we overpay on salaries for loan players (no contractual obligation to keep doing so - we'd just decide not to exercise the buy option), we'd enjoy a significant salary cap benefit next year without being unduly constrained on transfer fee spending? If that's the case, there's a lot of potential merit to what some are characterizing as madness.

Redslo, a quick question for you - some clarification based on how I read (or perhaps misread!) your blog. Is it fair to say that if we can hang-in-there this year, without a major spend on transfer fees, we'll be very well set in the following year and enjoying a salary cap benefit for some years to come? In other words, is there a significant "short term pain (loans rather than buys) for long term gain (salary cap enititlement)" equation at work here?

Maybe they just did. Redsio - a new arrival on the forum today - might just be a conduit for this kind of vital information, in a similar way to Guan. We're seeing far more of this informed stuff coming "out of the blue" than we ever saw under Lowe or Cortese, which to me might be more than a coincidence. I certainly don't mean that suggestion as an insult to Redsio - I'm just delighted to see someone who knows what they're talking about when it comes to FFP and football finances; it's far more helpful and interesting than the mindless, repetitive, knee-jerk piffle that infests so many topics. Anyway, Redsio, welcome. Excellent blog BTW.

A few questions for those who are most critical of the Board - and especially those who are annoyed that we're signing players on loan rather than buying them, and those who seem to want us to spend the 70-90 million this summer: If we're unable to sign our first (or second) choice players, for whatever reason, doesn't it make more sense to go with loanees where we reasonably can rather than blow the money on second or third choice players players who may not fit long-term with where we're going or Koeman's tactical style? Wouldn't we be better to go with more of a holding pattern for now and keep a decent chunk of the 70-90 million up our sleeves to spend wisely when we're under less pressure? Wouldn't such a policy reflect a better long term plan for the club than the notion of spending the bulk of the money now, just for the sake of it? (It seems rather ironic that Katharina and the Board may be showing more concern for the long term best interests of the Club than most of those who are denouncing them and accusing them of asset stripping, wanting to sell and so on.) Sure, I'm nervous about the season ahead - but also fairly optimistic; our midfield engine room is reasonably intact and we've added some good players who might well be improvements on some that we've lost. A high quality CB (ideally two) would make the picture much rosier. And Yes, I completely agree that the Board made some serious errors during the early summer, but that's no reason to keep blindly haranguing them when they may actually be doing the right thing now.

I'd agree with St Chalet's list as well (although I'd regard a quality second keeper as a major gain on last year - in quality, depth and probably points terms), and I agree with egg that we could do with some attacking width. I'd be very surprised if we don't have all of them when the window closes, so - after weeks of "wtf is going on?" - I'm actually starting to look forward to the season.