goodymatt

Love a surprise signing. It sounds like his best attribute is 1v1 defending and that he is suited to the high energy game we want to play. Perhaps a better James Bree? Certainly has more PL experience and has had runs in their side playing against the best teams in country and conceding less than a goal a game. The key question for me is how does that translate into our team. We should be the dominant side, rather than the ones doing lots of defending. Good 1v1 ability should suit Still’s high line. Does he have that attacking output required when playing a level down? We will soon find out! 26 years old, so best years to come?

I wonder what the value of the bid Boro rejected for Azaz was, £12m apparently gets the job done.

In summary, rejected a bid but can’t rule out selling as we might meet their valuation. Will play this weekend but can’t guarantee he stays beyond that.

International manager would apply to Ramsdale and Fernandes only? THB won’t be anywhere near without Lee Carsley.

Would be nice for this saga to end in our favour for a change, would do well to boost Spors reputation amongst fans. Can he deliver a player we shouldn’t really be able to attract at championship level?

All about Mee? 😂

Guess we are still in the race then. Should we actually sign Spertysan, what would that mean for Finn Azaz?

🇦🇲 Eduard Spertsyan 🇦🇲 is unhappy with his president's behavior, who had promised to let him leave if an acceptable offer was made. Galitsky has, so far, ignored Southampton because, for him, the English club is not a top-tier club. The player wants to leave.

The offer is $16M + 500,000 in bonuses in case of promotion to the Premier League + $1.5M for staying in the Premier League next season. + 5% on the resale of the Armenian player. (@armeniefootball)

🤯🤯 According to Ivan Karpov's reporter, Southampton 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 has made an offer to Krasnodar 🇷🇺 for $18 million for Eduard Spertsyan

In general it’s good to see our transfer window picking up pace, 11 days to go, as expected really.

We’ve been linked with this guy before, not sure he’s kicked on as expected just yet but at this level he would be a decent signing. I recall him being rapid.

Watching some highlights of Azaz, he can put it in top bins with either foot from outside the box and seems decent at creating chances. He does seem like he’s not afraid to pull the trigger outside the box, only 1 in 10 of his shots seem to have hit the net (Fotmob). Did out score his xG though, some of his finishes are very impressive. We lack this sort of player IMO and as Alfie House said, double figures in both goals and assists, in 2 consecutive seasons, is very impressive.

Here’s the article for reference.

We can hope!

Looks like this one is progressing then, good move.

I’ve seen some posts online criticising moving from Spertysan to Rudoni to Azaz. Personally don’t blame the club for trying to get Spertysan and we will soon see where/if he goes. It’s only right to consider alternatives, especially those proven at the level we are at. When it comes to Rudoni (who apparently rejected us) and Azaz (who we’ve looked at before), they are both 24 (room for further development) and play the same position. Goal contributions wise, Azaz has been more effective/consistent (23 and 21) last 2 seasons vs Rudoni (22 and 8 goal contributions). Azaz also looks like he would cost less. Remains to be seen if Boro would sell or if Azaz is interested but this argument that he can’t step up to the PL would be the same question mark for all 3 linked players. What Azaz appears to bring is guaranteed 20 plus goal contributions at this level, we have better players than Boro and Plymouth had, so maybe scope to even improve those numbers. Seems like a very sensible and logical buy if we can make it happen. I’d be very happy with this signing.

We have a clause to extend his contract by a further year, if we wish. So if it’s a successful loan, we could activate that and then seek a transfer fee. Most likely he will continue to disappoint and we just let him walk free at the end of next season.