S-Clarke

Whats wrong with Hunter? Is it juts because we lost 1 game that this area is now not good enough? Hunter is an excellent coach who turned down an opportunity to assist England at U21 level. We're lucky to have him.

It's not a simple fact at all, it's made up rubbish by people who are panicking.

Michu cost more than Davis.

Clyne was around £2.5m, Gazzinga was around £1m potentially rising to £2m. Rodriguez broke our record transfer fee. I do agree with the lack of pace, completely, I've said that since day 1 - but I'm not panicking because I know the club are working on it, I know NA wants an attacking pacey player and that we'll have that sorted by the end of August. Obviously in an Ideal world you'd love it to be sorted sooner, but this is football and in the world of transfers it's never simple. The fact is that we got most of our business done nice and early, Rodriguez being one of NA's main targets and he made sure that was sorted well before pre-season which was smart.

But we had a good defensive record last season, just a couple of games towards the end where Fonte made a few errors has all of a sudden made him the fall guy. He's actually a very cultured ball playing centre back who reads the game very well. I'm sure he'll do ok in the PL, but we do need another CB just to add a bit more competition to the group. It's not as dramatic as you make out though, not at all.

You always say things like this, it's like groundhog day. You seem to create this picture of NA, NC and everyone sat around not giving a damn about anything, when In fact I'm 99.99% sure that there are phone calls taking place, scout reports being read, enquiries being made on a daily basis. They won't all be made available to the press and to be honest in terms of transfer news, the press aren't going to try and dig that far to find our info - they may do for Man City, but not for us. So don't read into the fact that there are little rumors in the press that we're actually doing nothing, I'm certain it's the total opposite. This is also nothing like it was back in 2007 either, we actually had no CB's. Not one. We have 4 at the moment of varying quality, but people are already absolutely sure that Fonte and Seaborne will fail, so therefore we are down to 2 CB's. The reality of the situation is that we have 3 rb's, 2 lb's, and 4 cbs - all we want is a little bit of quality to improve the group, so it's no where near as dramatic as made out.

I think we agree that we need a CB and a pacey RW, everyone agrees, but what we all don't agree on is the constant bet wetting over I also think some of you fail to understand what we are doing tactically this summer. We're not playing a flat 4-4-2, 4-3-3 or 4-5-1, we're dynamic with players who can cover numerous positions. I imagine we're looking for a RM who can also play as a ST, in behind or on the left if required. What's wrong with buying British? It's quite refreshing and whilst people are saying we can get better quality for less in Europe, I'm yet to see any names put to this argument. A counter argument in favor of British signings is that they blend in quicker whilst not having to learn another language, culture etc. Why have you also come to that conclusion over Davies when he's not played properly in a saints shirt yet. Fair enough if you come to that opinion by November...but you can't really say it now. Be excited about it, we're back in the PL sooner than any of us imaged. We have such an exciting game a week on Sunday to look forward to, yep, we'll get beaten, but that's what's to be expected unless we spend 100 million pounds on new players. There's no point in dreading it, it'll happen, but just embrace it and look forward to the games at home against the likes of City, Spurs, Man Utd etc - if we can emulate Norwich and Swansea then I'll be delighted. It would be silly to expect more than that in the first season back.

Let's get Andrew Davies back.

4-0 sutton

That's an interesting shout, with a guaranteed transfer fee in it. It would be like a permanent transfer, delayed by a year. I know WBA did that alot when they were relegated (brum did the same last year with Foster), they didn't sell their high earners...the loaned them out for the season and then made more profit the next year (IIRC....?) may be barking up the wrong tree.

Not just this thread, but numerous threads over numerous forums.

He went to Portsmouth on loan, and that was the start of the end.

He's pretty bad though tbf.

Long-term I'd imagine, but he needs games. A season on loan here harms no one.

What's unrealistic about it? He won't be a starter at Chelsea as Cole starts when fit (and he's always fit). Chelsea may feel that he needs a full-season in the PL to really start to kick on, that won't happen if he's sat around on a bench all season waiting for Cole to be injured. Gibbs would be unrealistic as he's already first team at Arsenal.

Gibbs is another shout, although he's got more of a chance of First team football than Bertrand.

Wouldn't be Santon or Warnock, the only one I can think of it being is Bertand. Young, english, better than what we have.

ummm....Bertrand? Maybe Chelsea want him to have regular games all season.

Ah ok, cue the histericks that we have no money for a permanent signing.

Wonder if that's more of a case of a move out, rather than in? I assume he's going to publish a line in the paper tonight.

I see people are still reading too much into friendly's, again. The intensity isn't the same as it would be in a competitive game, so you're not going to see amazing ''stand out'' performances during pre-season. We're on the brink of one of our most exciting seasons in years, and years, yet for some reason the general mood is of ''dread'' and ''everything is all bad''. It actually isn't. As a club we're going places, we've just got promoted to the PL by back to back promotions, as fans we should be as high as a kite, so why aren't we? What more do you want or expect? Expectations seem a bit screwed on here.

Do we need another CM? Chaplow, Hammond, Cork, Morgan, Ward-Prowse, Davis and also Lallana and Guly who can play there. I'd be a bit ****ed if our next big transfer was a CM.

Isn't most of their hate still driven from the fact that Illinsgsworth couldn't get a ST? But you're right, any little negative that they can twist and fire back towards the club is like ammunition to them. Unfortunately it seems some from that site are starting to infiltrate here.

It does happen all over, but we have had a decent turnover since they've been in charge of us. I speak from a bit of experience as I am friends with someone who was let go right at the start of the ownership. Unfortunately that period wasn't handled that well and people were forced to leave and accept payouts, and it all turned very sour. NC wanted his own people and didn't want anyone from the old regime left over in key positions, so he wielded the axe on a hell of alot of people - very ruthless. But you could say that we'd been under performing for years, all areas of the club had failed, so why not start again with a fresh brush? I think it was just the way it was done which caused a bit of a sour ending. There is a decent turnover in the backroom still, but these are in area's which are under performing and not producing the results NC wants - so he changes until he gets the results he wants.

So difficult that we were amongst the biggest movers in terms of activity last year. We're just sensible, if an agent wants too much then we'll probably tell him to sod off, and rightly so. Overpaying for no real reason is the route back to financial melt down. WHU are on the road to that at the moment.