S-Clarke

Never heard of him, but he does sound like he has a good pedigree behind him. I'd be confident to say that he's been appointed with a long-term view to be our manager some day, similar to Thomas Frank becoming Dean Smith's assistant at Brentford. Although something tells me we've sold the wrong club to him? “It’s exciting for me to work in one of the top teams in the Premier League, to work in the best league in the world in an amazing environment in Southampton, with the crowd in St Mary’s, with a big manager like Ralph, with a lot of good players, and to have in front of you the best teams and the best players in the world, so I’m looking forward to it.

He's listed as a £1.3m transfer on TransfrMrkt. I seem to remember us getting our fee back a year later though, he went off to a Saudi club from memory. Pretty forgettable signing all told. I can't think of any 'bad' performances, i just cannot remember him. It was that forge table.

Come on Saints, long? What are we doing FFS. Move on from these players. They're not going to suddenly re-ivent themselves. They're done, finished. Hopeless squad fillers who take a place, money and cannot actually compete at this level. This an opportunity to have a clean slate, but we're not learning are we.

That summer was a strange one generally. We lost Baird, Bale, Jones, Pele and Claus (who i don't think played again). So we got in Safri, Thomas for like £2.5 combined. Vignal on loan to replace Bale (jeez). John was signed to replace Jones. That Bennett bloke signed at the same time as Davies I think, to be fair to Davies the only decent spot in that season. I think we got Euell that summer as well. Absolute disaster all round and not cheap, given our situation.

This is the team. I'd go Son over Ronaldo every day, Declan Rice over Thaigo. Surely you have to go Ederson in goal and Walker right back? There is an outside shout for Kane over Salah based on the second half of the season. Spurs kind aof went under the radar, but their form second half of the season was Top 2.

It's true, if they have the money they'll spend it. But what annoys people is that Liverpool are painted as plucky underdogs doing it the right way, not with the budget of Man City/PSG etc. Bullshit to that. They have spent fortunes which is why they are successful, not because they're plucky underdogs.

They didn't even win anything ffs. They certainly didn't do it on a 'budget' either. I hate the way the media paint them, the plucky underdogs going about it the right way.

Honestly, how can they justify asking for that much? He cost them £3m, they were relegated and bar a purple patch at the start of the season he has been extremely average ever since. 1 goal since Dec I think. They'll need to half that asking price and then some to get any bites.

He's on about 250k per week. If he moves it'll be to a European club somewhere, we can't afford or attract that level.

That's the one. We got him on loan from Reading for 6 months, we'd just lost Baird and Claus too and that was one hell of a regression. We did blurt £1m on Wayne Thomas that window as well.

I think this is the crux of the complaints. It's not so much that people are writing him off, far from it, it's just that this position isn't really one we can afford to gamble on right now.

Didn't Liverpool actually sign him shortly after that game? They used him as a supersub striker weirdly.

I hope he gets a good loan this season. He needs regular football and to baulk up a bit. He's talented and he has a good touch I think, better as a number 10 type from what I've seen. I wouldn't sell him as I think there is something there, as long as he gets the games.

The club haven't helped themselves with the sheer mystery surrounding McCarthy, it's like they're hoping fans forget he was out of contract so we don't realise they were daft enough to renew him.

Crikey, there have been many. But one which has always stuck in my mind as a recurring nightmare was Alan Bennett at home to Palace in 2007. Hoedt away at Fulham in 2018, absolute shambles. He was an embarrassment. Oliver Barnard in any of the games he played for us, he didn't know where a left back was meant to be.

Yeah, it can go wrong for sure if your scouting is crap. I'd still feel more comfortable signing established players in our current guise though, let's not forget how we finished the season! Most of the 11 looked washed up and done for, we can't replace all those with unproven players.

I guess experience is the wrong word, it's more proven quality I'd say. So they can still be in the 24-26 age bracket but have significant experience behind them of a decent league (like when we signed Mane, Tadic, Pelle, Toby) Honestly i have no problem with buying unproven players with little top level experience, but when the experience and proven quality we have around them is so shit it's hard for them to flourish. I'd say Tino was the exception rather than the rule, we can't expect that every time. And with young players, you will always get dips of form as they're not used to that level of football - that's where you need some established to rotate them with, which we don't really have.

Yep, that's true. If that's the case then sadly this league is way too rich for us and we're better off out of it, as it'll be miserable otherwise. Any team in this league, bar Norwich and Burnley, has the means to spend more than £25m on a single player. And we know what happened to Norwich and Burnley. As crap as it is, money is needed at this level and without it you're hanging by a thread. I just find it staggering how we're in this position though. 10 years of PL money, 10 years of TV revenue, over £150m in player transfer fee's. Two takeovers. Hopefully I'm wrong and we do put some decent money down for a CB or an CM/Number 10!

Some players will sink or swim. It's fair to say Small, given his high ratings when he joined us, has sunk in the short-term and has struggled in the first team environment. That's what can happen - he was really highly rated, lots of excitement over it, but what happened with Small can happen to any young player no matter what their talent is. Like you said, we need better experienced players first and then we can get excited by the young links. We're hanging them out to dry atm, but the club seems to be completely wedded to the development club mantra and the miserable comment from Semmens really doesn't hold out much hope for us. ''For us it's not about where we finish in the league, or how many points we get, it's how well we've developed players'' - that translates to how well they've developed players so they can make $$$$$$.

Maybe slightly too early to say this, but based on our links and rumours thus far it does seem as if we're still fixated on the £10-15m Market. That's why Pope for £20-25m was never a goer. Our seemingly fixed budget won't get you much other than unproven up-coming players, or maybe if you're lucky a star from a lesser league (but that's pretty rare, as even those level of players cost upwards of £15m now). It's a huge risk when the experienced players we have are all pretty shit bar 1 or 2.

I've got no problem with us signing or finding 'Livramentos', it's quite exciting actually.....but, it shouldn't be at the expense of experienced and established players. We need a mix of both. Like you say it feels like the club is blowing smoke up it's arse again thinking it's won the formula with the Tino deal.

I think it's a huge gamble when you don't have any capable number 1's at the club as it is, I don't think our goal keeping situation is in good enough of a place to be able to take gambles on youth if I'm honest. It may be work out, but it's not the 'certain' upgrade/number 1 we have been crying out for. Ultimately it means McCarthy remains number 1 in the short term and that is not good enough really. We're crying out for a bit of experience down the spine of the team, this isn't the start we wanted to see. (Again, nothing against Bazunu as he is very talented but ultimately very young and inexperienced)

It would be very saintsy to sign an injured player.

For £10m he's going to be our only first choice GK signing, we'll sign a third and a 4th (probably that Turkish guy, then loan him out) and then maybe Willy for a year. That doesn't fix our problem position one jot. Maybe it does in a year or so, and maybe we can get a decent profit in 2 years on Bazunu but I don't care about that. I just don't want to see McCarthy in goal for the club I support, as it's a waste of time.

The thing is, they can make signings like him and Wood with a view of them being a stop gap for a season or 2 whilst they 'get higher up', at which point they'll be dumped. They have the luxury of not having to care about what they sell them for in 2 years time, it doesn't matter to them. They can focus in on the here and now.