S-Clarke

''I'm not disputing that he can score at this level'' ''He's just a shit finisher, been stinking our front line out for years'' Hmm, yeah.

In that case I reckon we had Lumley, ABK, Bree, Mara, Aribo, Lyanco, Perraud, Moussa involved from our first team squad. Simeu is injured, so he wouldn't have been picked. Hopefully Ballard nicked a couple of goals.

Eric Black has stolen all our money.

Recent foreign imports haven't been great for us, not the big fee ones anyway. I think we've had more success with the likes of Ings, Romeu, VVD than we did with the likes of Lemina, Hoedt, Vestergaard, Carillo....etc etc, list goes on. Even our promotion years we had a strong core of English lads and guys picked up from the English leagues - Jos, Fonte, Hammond, Cork, Fox, Lambo, Lallana, Butterfield, Chaplow etc. The 'sexy' foreign signings like Tadanari Lee, Steve De Ridder and even Papa to an extent didn't really work out. (I loved Papa, but he was a bit limited!)

Looking at the Brentford 11, they were pretty strong - so that's a decent result for us all considered. I'd be interested to know who played/scored for us. Brentford: Strakosha; Roerslev, Ajer, Zanka, Bech; Onyeka, Yarmoliuk, Damsgaard; Olakigbe, Lewis-Potter; Brierley

By all accounts we are about to sign Johan Hove from Groningen. I also think there is an element of fans being more excited by foreign names. If we were interested in Nathania Woodstinio from Hertha Berlin I'm sure people would be lapping it up. There are a lot of ways to waste money, but signing players who the manager knows, trusts and fit the style we are employing seems a fairly sound tactic to me. If we complement that with some additions from left field then all the better.

Even if they did consider loaning him out, there are at least another 17 PL clubs, at least 17 La Liga clubs he'd go to before we are even in the equation.

Fair enough if that's the case. Still don't think we should be selling him mind.

Fair enough, read that wrong in that case. I reckon there will be a mutual decision to be made though, I can't see any club paying a transfer fee for him.

Apparently Birmingham have a sizeable sell-on as well, not sure if it's on the profit or overall sale. So we're not seeing all of it either.

Man Utd have released him though, so he's a freebie. I doubt he'll ever come back to England.

Saudi seems the obvious bet, given the managers over there with knowledge of English football (and they'd have the money, obviously - not that I think he is in a position to be demanding silly bucks)

He was one of the best young prospects when he was in this league before, a proper standout when we played Swansea in the cup. He is a shoe-in to be a mainstay all season in my eyes, him and Shea together could work brilliantly - with Alcaraz just in front. Good to get some first team quality in the door.

The moment he did what he did, he threw what potential career he had out of the window in my opinion. The case was thrown out, but he was never by any means proven innocent as far as I can tell. Just listening to that recording was enough to show up what an utter cunt he is. Where he ends up next will be a circus and it's the sort of circus we don't need. Forest Green like to do things different all the time, so maybe he'll end up there. In all seriousness I think he needs to go abroad, I don't ever see him being able to recover in England. He'd be subjected to abuse in every single game he played.

I've always liked Che, I don't think it was fair how we hung him out without a main striker though - we kind of set him up to fail, as in the PL he's a very capable support man - but cannot be relied on for goals. At this level I think he'll find he has more time and he'll get more goals, so that's why I'd be keen to keep him. And I hope more than anything that you a re right about the recruitment, but it's a little bit of blind faith at the moment. A hell of a lot needs to happen in just over a week and all we're seeing are links out, which is the worrying aspect.

I think a lot of the pessimism here is our lack of faith in recruitment. It may be that £15m is a good deal, but the faith people have in the clubs ability to replace that player like it's a doddle worries me. We could quite easily lose Che for £15m, pat ourselves on the back, and end up in a deadline day loop like last year where we fail to get any of our targets. I personally think we're hitting the point where first team sales need to stop, as we simply won't have time to adequately replace. If we had faith in our setup to find the 'next' Adams or a better Adams I doubt there'd be as much pessimism, but we're heading into a bit of an unknown with no midfield and no proven strikers which is quite a horrific place to be in 3 weeks into the season.

Fair if you're a PNE or a Bristol City for example, but as others have said we have just made over £100m in player sales. If he walks for free next summer he walks for free, that's just a risk we can now afford to take given the money we've brought in.

I guess it's a no brainer if we look at it in a pure financial sense, but if I'm honest with you....I'm a football fan, I want to watch football and see the best players. I'm bored with the back slapping around how much money we make, look at us etc. Who cares! I just want a team I can support, and players on the pitch is more fun for me than knowing the club has money in the bank. It's really not for us to worry about tbh. I just want the club to build us a team we can all connect to, like the Lambo years. We were a different breed back then, I'm sure Lallana, Morgan and co had offers to leave - but we didn't negotiate with any club and the rest was history. Sometimes you just need to shut the door and focus on football, not the money. (it's not like we're skint)

This was always the mega gamble/risk of trying to play hardball and keeping players until this late, in my opinion there comes a line where it's too late to sell and I think we're just about to hit that line - as like you say, clubs will see us as being flush with cash and they'll stick extra $$$ on the end of everything. Saints being Saints will never overspend, always doing it on our terms etc etc etc, which will mean we'll end up with diddly squat.

That's my view on it. I can totally understand Tino, JWP, Lavia moving on - they're going to clubs who will be in Europe and compete well in the PL, so it's a good opportunity for them. To move to Everton for someone like Che, who is so confidence driven, is totally the wrong call for him. He's spent many years with us circling the drain and losing games of football, he should listen to Martin who said that actually a year in the Championship can be more fun/more rewarding than losing every week in the league above. If he does well he can either negotiate a better contract with us, or have the pick of better clubs in the PL. Jumping to Everton now, which is toxic to say the least, is a very daft move. PL or not, he'll be losing every week and probably end up being berated by the fans for not scoring - doesn't sound like much fun.

Being in the PL makes no difference for Scotland call ups, Lyndon Dykes being an example. From a football point of view he'd be better off staying here, but Southampton have once again seen the $$$ so we'll be opening the door for him.

I doubt it would take much convincing to sit him down and say you'd be better off here than Everton, but at the end of the day this is being driven by finance - the risk of not getting any money, weighed up to 'breaking even'. One day, maybe one day, we'll make a decision for footballing reasons and not pure financial as it's all rather pointless otherwise. If we lose money, we lose money. We've got a £140 war chest in place to suck that loss up on a couple of players.

So I was right yesterday, your posts are fully agenda driven.

He reminds me so much of Danny Fox, and at this level that's not a bad thing. We got something like 14 or so assists from Fox in our promotion season, Manning strikes me as someone who can do similar. I think we'll clearly need to replace should we get to the top level, but we're not there yet and for this level I think he's fine.

You're having an absolute nightmare here to be honest.