S-Clarke

Mourinho effect I think. He has that impact on players, he'll come into a club and pick on a certain individual and then cut them out of the team. Sometimes they recover, yet other times they have to move on. He did similar to Shaw and it took him a few years to get back to where he was after some tlc from Ole.

I think I read that the players were being given 4 or so days off, and Ralph was going back to Austria to see his family for a couple of days. That's kinda what the purpose of the break 'was' in the first place. Then we'll be back in training next week for the FA Cup game. Meanwhile, Newcastle who couldn't play against us a few weeks ago as they had no players/weren't fit enough, jet off to Dubai for some dick swinging friendly matches which surprisingly they have enough players to play in.

Apparently Zagreb didn't want to sell in the end. Sounds like Burnley weren't offering what they wanted to me! They're going to be busy on Monday at this rate! Weghorst would be a top replacement for Wood though if they can get that over the line.

This is why patience in football with an aligned strategy is so important, but weirdly it's so rare. I rate Martin Semmens and our board for sticking with Ralph when all around them were out with the knives. I'm absolutely positive that the patience we have shown with Ralph will reap so many rewards.

Money will talk for sure. I'm sure if the player was unsure the club would even buy him a mansion or something, they have all the money in the world to do whatever they want with. As has been said, 70-100m is probably our sweet spot in terms of what we'd accept. My hunch is that they won't be clever enough to look at him and they'll chase all the sexy European named signings from elsewhere. (no offence to James). In terms of England, Rice and Philips are probably of more interest to the top teams at the moment anyway.

As a fan that's what you dream of to be honest, but sadly that's never going to be the reality. We'll spend some $$ on established players to fit around the likes of Salisu, Tino etc - and then continue to try and snare some Chelsea and City prospects. You'd hope that we'd use the academy to baulk out the squad once there's more quality coming through, which it does seem to have now. I like Ballard, think he'll turn into an AMC rather than a striker.

There was the trial in 19/20, when it was exactly that - half one week, half the next etc. For whatever reason the powers that be have decided to have a full 15 day break for everyone. Probably pressure from the big six and Newcastle, so they can get all their signings in and integrated with the squad. You'd think this would be the perfect gap to play all of the re-arranged fixtures, daft really. Weirdly I notice an exception has been made for Burnley v Watford which is played next weekend, one of the re-arranged fixtures. That Newcastle postponement stinks even more.

It's the 'Winter Break', i.e Newcastle's chance to fly of to Dubai and dine with their new family.

Not sure how this impacts things, but Liverpool signing Luis Diaz may cool their Carvalho interest? Or at least block any pathway for him? I think that one will happen in the summer, hope we're still in the equation.

Yeah I agree, a lot is down to geography and players desire to be in the right location. But a lot of the time money will talk to be honest, and they have a lot of it. I don't see a strategy either to be honest, but when you have the unlimited funds they have it's inevitable they will bump into a strategy at some point. It's certainly going to be interesting to watch the next 2 or 3 years.

One we were linked with - Spurs fans having a meltdown as they think this is the alternative to Luis Diaz. Quite funny watching.

I think my theory is that if we do it right then we won't be a lower PL club, players may want to hang around as we're doing a good thing. I'm not naiave to think we'll always keep the best players, it's inevitable we will always be a form of a selling club....but if we do it right then we can get back to being a club that sells to Liverpool, Utd etc rather than Everton or Villa. I thought we were very close to a Dortmund type strategy years ago, but sadly consecutive horrendous transfer windows meant that we wasted all of that fortune that should have allowed us to 'go again'.

I don't think you can compare Everton and Newcastle, totally different animals. Newcastle are the equivalent of Man City, they will be going after the best players in the world in the next couple of years. They won't be signing the likes of Iwobi or Daccoure from Premier League clubs. How this is going to play out with FFP I don't know, but given that whole thing is flawed it'll probably be worked to their benefit.

Be good to see how he does in the Championship, must have been tricky to do in this window for whatever reason.

It's true and that is the downside....but if you do it right, and I look at examples of RB Lipzig and Dortmund then you can keep going again with the next generation. I think we'll have a slightly different situation now in the sense that we can move for replacements before we sell, that was the problem for us before. I'm sure we said we'd have liked to have got Armstrong in the year before we sold Ings to integrate him, but we couldn't buy him before selling first at the end of the day. There's also a lot to be said of having players buying into a team and a project, if we make an environment here and they're suitably well paid...then they might not be running to get out of the door at the first opportunity.

I think the expectation in L1 was that we'd get promoted from that level, but the Championship promotion was exciting because we didn't just spend money to get that promotion. We had Leicster throwing the cash around at that point with £5m on Maynard etc, so we certainly didn't throw the money around as such in our Championship season. Do most of the large clubs scout correctly with patience over the development, or do they knee-jerk on a lot of signings? Chelsea have splurged over £150m on two forwards who don't look at odds with this league, whilst at the same time casting Broja out on loan twice. Man City went and spent £100m on Grealish when they had players like MacAtee in and around the squad who could have done his job this season, as he's not been great. Newcastle gave up on Armstrong and let him go to L1, I'd say most of his development came at Coventry and then Blackburn. I like the way we do it now, getting the best young players and building a young team that will grow together. It's kind the avenue we were going under Poch with the likes of Morgan, Jay, Lallana, Wanyama, Clyne, Shaw etc.

It's impossible not to look at Newcastle with a tiny bit of jealousy, it must be exciting for their fans, but it's a short-term fix geared to getting instant success. It's not particularly being earnt. Whilst I'd love a tycoon owner....I get much more satisfaction by watching a club diligently scout and develop players and a team over a period of time. We might get picked off from time to time, but as long as we're setup right we can go and start the development process again. Getting success doing it the way we do will feel much more rewarding in my opinion. As supporters we need patience (which in the world of football is rare) but my opinion is that we could be heading towards good times with this current model we're pursuing.

That was the injury that ruined him, he was never the same after that. Shame really, he was probably in the peak of his powers then as he'd come off the back of a 20 goal season before that. Bloody knee injuries.

I'm just waiting for the Alex Crook seal of approval before I get excited.

''Southampton hero'' - gutter press.

Combination of a lot of things I guess. Generally it's a quiet window up to now, media need to drum up stories especially as we're coming to the end. (Newcastle being linked with every player who has played football being an example of that!) Agents and clubs know we have new ownership, there have been snippets shared in the sense that we're now in a position to act quicker, we've had an injection of cash etc...so you'll see our names dropped in the hat I guess. Whereas before everyone just automatically assumed we were skint beyond our wildest dreams, so they didn't even use our name.

Ah ok, fair enough. Transfermkt still says 2022 so obviously not been updated yet! Certainly a very highly rated target though, I remember in the summer when we got Livramento, Chelsea were saying on one of their forums ''I hope they don't come after the other Tino, he's one of our best'

Out of contract in the summer too, so he's probably available for a very small fee - couple of mill tops.

Two Tinos at one club, what are the chances. He's another of their really highly rated young players for what it's worth. First team ready, not a Simeu type. Attacking/number 10 type I believe.

I guess for me, someone like Dean Henderson is a level above. It may be fanciful, not sure...but could be gettable. Couple of keepers we've looked at in Italy are highly regarded. I don't think Johnstone is a bad keeper and is probably a little bit better than what we have...but still on the average side for me. We'll see what happens.