egg

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.

And bring who in? The theme on here for years has been get rid of X ( X = player/chairman/owner/manager etc) and replace with, er anyone, cos anyone would be better apparently.

Cheers mate!

Ta. He's still ****e though and needs a move.

I dunno really! I think MLG agrees he's ****e but he's confusing me and I got sucked into a MLG debate. It's a bit weird.

If the question was about giving stats to a statto, no mate, I have better things to do. Nice swerving of all my questions though.

Feck me, you've got too much time on your hands mate. Reading that, and noting that you're not actually suggesting that he'll improve our team, I have no idea what your point is! Pointless posting mate if you having actually got a point to make.

With what? That Reed did not feature in central midfield for the majority of there games? He didnt. That central midfield is not the heart beat of a football team? That any sensible manager would play his best available central midfielders in central midfield? That we have 6 senior central midfield players ahead of Reed? Go on statto, tell me on what basis you say Reed would improve our midfield and/or starting 11. Also, which of the 6 midfielders I've listed, who should Reed replace, and based on what?

Re read my post. I said he wasn't good enough for a place in the Norwich midfield for the majority of last season. They used him as a right back for many games - presumably they felt they had better midfield options in their mid table championship team. Based on that, and what I've seen of him on the pitch, I'm struggling to see any argument for how he'll improve our midfield and/or starting 11 overall. I'm also struggling to understand which of Romeu, Lemina, Hoj, JWP, Armstrong, Davis it is being suggested that Reed is a better option than. Is it really being said he offers more than any of them?

He wasn't good enough for a place in Norwich midfield for the majority of last season so do you really believe he'll improve our 1st team? Or that he deserves a place on the bench ahead of Romeu, Lemina, Hoj, JWP, Armstrong, Davis?

This. The club don't nurture, coach and pay youngsters for years in the hope of tossing them aside to sit on the bench at Yeovil or Forest Green or wherever. The club hope that they'll save/make them a fortune and help the 1st team. For me Sims ain't shown enough to suggest he'll improve our team. Hopefully he'll go onto to have a decent career though.

You remember a different performance to me. Fact is that saying that one player isn't great, doesn't suggest that another could do better. If you're gonna bring another player into a Sims discussion, make a proper case for Sims being a better option than that player.

Just saying what exactly? That because Redmond has no end product that Sims must suddenly be good enough? That's a ridiculous notion. The lad hasn't shown enough to suggest he'll improve our 1st eleven - Redmond was excellent second half against Burnley. Show me when Sims has demonstrated that he's above that level.

He has been given opportunities and not taken them. His last game in a saints shirt was for the u23 against Zagreb. He was awful and was given the full game. Players that are good enough should shine at that level. It's not as though he didn't try like boufal. To me he was a talented kid who is struggling to transition to senior football, a bit like Lloyd Isgrove before him. Whether a loan will help I don't know but it's a logical move.