S-Clarke

The problem is that we had so many fails in quick succession, and these were big fee's £15m upwards. You can probably add Elyonoussi and Boufal to that list as well. That must be coming onto £70-80m spent on players that just never had an impact and we made losses on all (substantial too), we can't absorb that sort of failure rate in such quick succession, and that is why we are where we are today.

Exactly that. I'm fairly certain that if we'd have had a taker for Forster then we'd have gone all out and bought a new GK. Part of me feels that we're leaving a little bit of the money from this window to one side so we can react early in that market next summer, rather than having to wait for a sale first.

I think that's more of an opinion piece on which club he feels he'd be better at, not that we'll get him. I just don't see this as being a go-er in any way shape of form. Would love to be proven wrong, but I just cannot see how we can attract those types. And we've got our CB anyway.

Time will tell if the club have made the right call or not, but in my opinion I believed the club always saw Vestergaards first choice replacement as already being in the building - Salisu. I don't think the club saw the urgency to buy a superstar CB to come straight into the team, as much as we'd have all loved to see. So they've gone down the road of squad depth. If this allows us to go out and bring in a bit more in CM or full back then it's sensible. I think the club always saw Vestergaard as a 'worry-free' sale in the sense of the trust they have in Salisu. I have seem the infamous ''The club are relaxed about the situation'' comments to, so it does kinda reaffirm what I believe. If this proves the right call or not - no idea, too early to tell. But from the outset we have lost Ings, Bertrand, Vestergaard - spine of the side for around £45ish. And spent about £30m+ replacing them with less experienced players (you have to factor in that we had no money to replace Bertrand, so we've had to suck up some of the transfer funds to repay that I'd have thought). It's a worry, but it's a case of sink or swim really. This is the market we are in and I think we will start to see the disappearance of the 'reinvest what we get' mantra, we will reinvest bits of what we get, yes, but It looks like we're having to keep some back for a rainy day. Martin and co have got a proper juggling act going on, on one hand they are having to add to the squad and on the other hand they have to be aware that we have absolutely no money.

There could be loads and loads of reasons behind that though, it may not be down to ability. Sometimes players just don't fit at a club, as we've seen here. Then they go on and become successful elsewhere, it's not unheard of. I don't know enough about him to be blown away by this signing, or equally devastated by the signing. I'm willing to actually give him an opportunity. This is where we are now, we are in this 10m bracket - 15m at a push when we have enough $$. So we've just got to trust that the club can get us some gems - and players like this, who have the attributes but aren't necessarily settled at their club fit that kind of remit we are shopping in. I remember this forum when we'd sold Shaw and then brought in Ryan, exact reactions. ''Cheap option'' ''Not good enough'' ''Was shit in a shit team last year'' ''Villa didn't want him back'' etc etc. I just don't think you can ever truly judge a player based on what their outgoing clubs fans are saying.

Arsenal have signed Ramsdale for £30m. How in the holy shit have Sheffield United made a profit on him? And what the fuck are Arsenal doing?

Out of interest, what is everyone basing their views on? I'll be honest, I know absolutely nothing about him. I've heard of him, but I don't know much bar looking at his attributes online. I'm just a bit confused as to why it's getting these sorts of reactions when we don't really know much about him.

There are still rumours of that young LB to come into the reserve team, I imagine some funds are being reserved for that. People need to come round to the reality that we do not have a pot to piss in and we won't unless Gao sods off.

There are a lot of quick judgements on here. Let's be honest, hardly any one had heard of him this morning and all of a sudden we're all experts on his inability to add anything to us. He may be great, he may be shit. No one actually knows. But he's a CB, we needed one of those. He's tall, we needed that. He's quick, we needed that too. He can play in CM if required or full back. We needed that too. He's cheap, we needed that too. Not sure what everyone expected really, we were never spending 20m on a CB. Calata-Carr was the biggest non-event, we're not attractive to those levels of players at the moment. This possibly leaves some funds for that highly rated left back to add even more squad depth. And we've also used some of our budget to renew JWP's contract too. We don't have the experience we had last season, but we have a level of youthfulness in the squad that could either sink or swim. Impossible to say yet.

Well, that's put those chats to bed. He's an important player for us and hopefully will be for years to come. This gives him security and us security. We're protecting our asset value wise - another good couple of seasons and he's going to still command those high fee's. Good news all round really.

Yep, without doubt.

I dunno, I think most would be keen to keep us around. Easy 3 points.

How have you worked that out? You don't half get your nickers in a twist sometimes.

We have plenty of holes in the squad, but the priority is CB. That needs to be sorted. I reckon we may get a sneaky loan in come the end of the window to cover full back and CM - I think we have our feelers out for a versatile type. GK, as frustrating as it is, will be addressed next year as the club have said. It's purely financial reasons.

I know Ashley gets stick, and he's a bit of a dick all told, but he has put significant money into Newcastle and their fans would have to be daft to deny that. Who did they sell this summer to fund the £26m move for Willock? Exactly. We are the only club who have to sell before we can do anything.

Christ, I still have nightmares of that Leeds game! Crazy. But I think the 2009/2010 onwards years in L1, Champ etc were my best times supporting this club. Winning games, yep, but it was fun. The crowds were fun, I didn't turn around in my seat at St Mary's to random Spurs fans who'd sneaked in to the home end etc. It was authentic and real football. Great times. I know everyone says this when they're struggling in the Prem, but they were genuinely some of the most fun times I've had as a football fan, home and away.

Must be quite surreal being a Barcelona fan at the moment. They've lost their superstar and are looking to replace him with Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang. What a front two that will be alongside Martin Braithwaite. They even missed out on Tammy Abraham as he choose Roma instead. They're clearly forced to shop in that next tier down nowadays, whilst PSG and Man City catapult themselves to levels they may struggle to ever each. I think football is better with a strong Barcelona team, bit of romance about it. I remember the days of Xavi, Iniesta, Messi, Neymar, Suarez, Pique, Villa, Pedro etc. Unreal sides. The sides with Rivaldo, Puyol, Ronaldinho, Eto weren't bad either. They've got where they are through horrific mismanagement though - £120m on Dembele - flop. £120m on Coutinho - Flop. Even clubs like Barca cannot afford disasters in the market like that. They're paying the price now. I guess they'll always be attractive to players, but a competitive Barca team seems light years away now.

We're not calling people fucking dickheads or muppets. There's a lot of reasoned debate on here, especially in this thread. if you can't see that then I think you should question your own knowledge.

To be fair those European players you list will have their sights set much, much higher than Southampton. It's probably a 'thanks, but no thanks' as soon as we express an interest. These guys have aspirations of continuing to compete in Europe, they'll look at us and see that we're nowhere near. It's not just about what we can offer the clubs, it's about the players apatite as well. I'd expect us to at least put the feelers out on them, we should do given the value they're at, but I wouldn't expect positive responses from the players. I don't think we're that attractive a proposition.

That is what I think. I remember seeing us against Leeds away, we visibility wilted in that second half and we just couldn't get near them. We actually competed quite well in the first half and looked a good match for them. Ralph did make changes, albeit late, but he didn't have a great deal of options. Whilst we have less 'proven PL quality' now, we've got a little more depth. But Ralph for some reason didn't use it right at the weekend. Let's see what happens in the coming weeks. There are still a lot of problems with this team as a whole and I don't believe we are capable of a Top 10 finish over a complete season with the players we have - not yet anyway. In a few years if the likes of Armstrong and Tino develop like we hope.

That's the thing though isn't it, he can do as many stepovers, tricks and skills as he likes, but if it ultimately ends up with him either giving the ball away or falling over then it's all pretty pointless. I can't see is decision making changing, this is his third season here and there are still the same problems/question marks over him. Such a shame we still had Ross when we bought Moussa for about £15m. If we had a more capable scouting setup at that time we may have spent £16m on Saint-Maximin instead.

Another good shout. Quick and mobile, although I felt he did get caught out on occasions last year. Apparently available for just £10m

West Ham were looking at Worrall, now they're not getting that guy from Italy I can imagine them coming back in for him. Highly rated, part of the same England setups (u17's, under 20's world cup etc) as Armstrong. And Crocker would have been part of the England setup when he was breaking through and making an impact in the young sides. This video is 'interesting', WHU fans debate on signing Worrall. JOE WORRALL BATTLE HEATS UP | WEST HAM'S NEW TARGET | WEST HAM TRANSFER NEWS - YouTube To quickly summarise it - he's a two footed centre back, primarily left sided. Plays balls from the back into midfield to help build up the play. He's a man mountain, huge centre back. Reads the game well, plays it well etc. Only 24, but plays older. Leads etc. Ticks a lot of our boxes, sounds a similar profile to Caleta-Carr in attributes. Shouldn't' turn your noses up at Championship players, lots of good players snapped up from that league have gone on to be consistent PL players for years to come.

He's got a bit of stardust about him, in his touch, movement, how he positions himself etc. Can certainly see why he is so highly rated. I'd be tempted to throw him in front of KWP. He'd be more of a threat than Theo/Redmond/Moussa.

I think there was a combination of things really. Firstly, we needed a break. If you remember back to March 2020 we'd just been done 0-1 at home to Newcastle and we looked clueless and tired. The enforced break came at a great time for us as it enabled us to reset and recharge physically and mentally. I think as a club we managed the lock down period better than most, the physical plans we put in place seemed to enable everyone to keep on a really good level. So that enabled us, in my opinion, to come back with an edge over most other sides. We were fitter, more aware, stronger. I don't think we reset our game or changed how we played, it was simply down to fitness and we caught a lot of teams off guard by how sharp we were. We didn't really have a break once that season ended, so we carried straight into the next one - which actually enabled us to carry on the momentum, once Ralph stopped pissing around with the high line. But we got to about December and we were done really. The 1-1 away at Arsenal was where I started to see some chinks in the fitness in that we couldn't see out games, we were struggling in the final stages etc. The season pretty much ended there if we're honest, as from that point on I think we only managed to amass another 16 points. We've had a decent break this pre-season, we've refreshed the squad so in theory we should start seeing an upward curve in momentum again. A lot will depend on 1) who we sign at CB and 2) if Armstrong can really fill the Ings void, as we've lost starting quality in both those positions. If both of those are positive then we should be ok, as in theory with a wider squad and more options we may be able to manage the squad a bit better. (thats if Ralph actually uses the bench!!!)