egg

Yes, we won, but as a fan who goes to the trouble of watching our u23 team, I agree that most of them have no prospect of making it in the premier league, o championship, or indeed in the pro game at all. Valery is decent and could break through.Vokins has potential. Obafemi runs around a lot but is technically poor and a lesser player than Seager, and look where he's ended up. Gallagher had an off night and could make a career in the game but ain't a premier league player. Klarer is big and strong and could make a living from the game. There's nothing I've seen amongst the rest that makes me think they have a future in the game at a half decent level.

The team was a farce. 2 right backs. 1 CB. No left back. No centre forward. I'm not sure how the kids can be expected to develop when they're sent out against a men's team with such a disjointed line up. Very odd management.

Are you serious? Only an idiot would think an interational manager would deliberately pick an inferior player from a superior club. That only leaves number 1, but anyway Wellbeck is the better player. He is tried, tested and has succeeded on the international stage.

If Watson is so bad, why McCarthy has improved significantly under his coaching. Truth is that Gazza was a bag of nerves with us, that's got nothing to do with Watson. Probably inexperience and confidence - not ability or coaching. Seemingly he was shlte during his loan spell as well. Again nothing to do with Watson. There was always a decent keeper in him and I'm not surprised that he's starting to fulfill his potential.

If we play 442 they'll destroy us. Imagine our usual 2 CM's against Kante, Kovacic and Jorginho. Carnage. We need 3 in the midfield to have any chance of keeping the score respectable.

He's shocking, especially for the price we paid. When we signed him I highlighted his lack of pace, that he was slow on the turn and that a partnership of him and Hoedt would be a car crash. I hadn't appreciated that he couldn't jump though and his partnership with Hoedt is at least as bad as it was obvious it would be. That all said I think he'd be better with the right partner as the even worse Hoedt shows up his weaknesses. I'd like to see him alongside Yoshida in a back 4, or the middle of a 3 with Yoshida one side and either Bednarek or Stephens the other. That Hoedt is playing ahead of the infinity betyer Yoshida mystifies me - has to be politics involved there.

It's not worth that much, and didn't cost that much (current value and price paid are 2 different things) but I take your point. People moan about a lack of ambition, which can only mean a perceived lack of spending on players. There has been no lack of spending - we've spent a fortune on Hoedt, Vestergaard, Carillo, Boufal, MOI etc. The problem is that none of them are good enough. The issue seems to be scouting and recruitment - I'm not convinced that's down to Les but ultimately somebody has to take the blame for a shocking waste of money.

Feeling confident about tonight. Reckon we'll come out of the blocks quickly and mix it up a bit. 2 - 0 Saints - Lemina and Redmond to have stormers.

Someone to pay a proportion of their wages? To give them experience? To put them in the shop window in the hope that they can have a career in the game after their contracts run down? Jason McCarthy and Lloyd Isgrove are recent examples where I suspect all 3 of those factors were applicable. They both got moves - not done much since, but they got moves.

Plenty, and enough to tell me that the decision to loan them out is correct. Have you seen them? Where and when have you seen anything from any of our domestic loanees to suggest that they'll improve our team? Read teg article from the Blackburn manager re Reed. He's 23 and can't do as the manager tells him in training ffs. And people think he'll improve our team. Nuts. Do you really think that if these lads are good enough they'd be on loan at league 1 and championship clubs, and struggling to get off the bench?

You're deluded if you think there's a premier league regular in any of of domestic loanees. They're on loan in the lower leagues as they aren't good enough for the premier league. They're on the bench in the lower leagues (at best) for a reason.

Frankly it highlights the quality of our youngsters. People were calling for Reed, Hesketh and Sims to be given 1st team opportunities for us. The fact that they are bench warmers at lower league clubs makes it clear that they won't enhance our first team. That said, I hope they all go on to have good seasons.

We'll agree to differ. You can't compare outfield players to keepers. If push comes to shove a centre back could fill in at full back, a winger up top etc. Nobody could fill in as keeper. I'd want 3 keepers in the squad everytime.

It's pretty obvious - if a squad has 2 and one takes a knock in the warm up or whatever you have no bench cover.

Redmond is the only other player we have who can stretch the opponent's defence in the way Long does. Austin will play though.

We've had 1 season out of the top 8. That was with a poor manager and a sulking captain. This season is 4 games old - get a grip ffs.

Feck me, that is a sensationalist article. The reality is that the league has a top 6 plus the rest. For a few seasons we were amongst the best of the rest or thereabouts. Since then we've not been able to retain players who wanted to move for the reasons highlighted in that article - we buy in talent, shine it up and sell it. I'm unsure if the article seeks to praise or criticise that approach - as I say, it's sensationalist. When we tried to deviate from that model by stubbornly trying to hold onto VVD it went so badly wrong that we almost got relegated - hopefully we've learned from that. We've also spent huge sums (as Heisenberg likes to repeat over and over) which suggests no lack of a) ambition or b) resources. Sadly a number of those transfers haven't all worked out but that's football - it ain't played with 20/20 hindsight. We've made (imo) one wrong managerial recruitment. Puel played dull football but if Mourinho or most current PL managers had that squad it wouldn't have performed any better. Pelelgrino was a disaster and we held on too long, but that's the only we've made manger wise for me. All in all, there's a hell of a lot more point to SFC than that article and some of the people that post on here.

Graham Le Saux - £72m. Benjamin Mendy - £45m. The most pointless table I can remember.

Exactly this. He has a contract. His obligation is to turn up for training and join the match day squad/play when called upon. That's pretty much it. If he does that we have to pay him. Appalling mess to be in but as you say, contracts are a two way street. All this talk of compromise agreement is nonsense. They're normally used when a sacking is dressed up as a redundancy. The compromise element is that the employee is looked after financially in return for no legal action against the employer. There's no compromise element here, just a bloke inexplicably on a long contract but who is surplus to requirements.

We can. He doesn't have to agree to becoming a coach (we have at least 3 keepers who are 1st team coaches anyway); he doesn't have to agree to a loan; he doesn't have to agree a transfer.

I'm not convinced he'll be 3rd choice. Lewis is still here. If he's given hope of playing he may hang around in January. Rose, I'm guessing, will be the u23 keeper but with no squad place for 1st team. Either way, having 8 professional keepers on our books and only 1 (an academy player) on loan is utterly mental.

Nah, different words mate with different meanings, although both are the antithesis of progress. Regress is basically 2 steps forward and 1 step back. Retrogress is basically 2 steps forward and 1, 2 or possibly 3 steps back. Either way we ain't making progress.

I assumed the same re KBS. Personally I like the shape - a balanced 4-4-1-1. Not sure how I feel about Davis behind the striker though. I'd like to see someone there with the ability to pick out Gabbi's runs. JWP may do that, and MOI and Armstrong may have the ability coming in from wide positions.

It's worse than regression, we're retrogressing. That will always happen when progress is not being made. I think the reasons are those you list, plus confidence and like dalek says, with a few wins we'll make progress but on current form a win looks a long way off.

Did Koeman negotiate those deals or work the budget so the signings could happen? I'd hazard a guess Reed did more to oversee our rise than Ronnie did.