S-Clarke

I'd say probably in the ball-park of £25m-30m, something like that? We'd have to give Liverpool a % of that as well, so we'd prob only make £20m, maybe less, from that. In the grand scheme of things it's not worth it and is why we won't allow that to happen, in my opinion. However...if a club get desperate and offer us the top end of what we value him as (35-40m+) then we will snap that up, in my opinion.

Lots of reading into the full backs, but there are a couple in there who can play either side, there are a couple who can play CB as well. The choice was between Kalvin and JWP in my opinion.

What you say is true, but should what is happening in other countries be reason enough to keep killing our own economy and peoples livelihoods? I don't think so. We're on top of it through vaccinations and treatment in our hospitals. The death figures today of 0 should send a sigh of relief to everyone and for me should be even more strength to June 21st still happening. Death figures haven't been in double figures for weeks now, they've been dropping and dropping. That shows that vaccinations are working, and so far the perceived panic over this Indian variant isn't translating into the figures that really do matter and what any decisions should be based on. I don't see any reason to panic anymore and come June 21st we should be free to live our lives as we wish and use our own common sense as we see fit. I'm fed up of living in a world full of people who require a rule book before they step across a road.

That escalated quickly. There were only a few random rumours on the weekend and now he's gone. Everton and Howe is all but done, apparently. That makes me think this has been rumbling in the background for some time, hence Howe's withdrawal from the Celtic role.

With tournament squads you often pick specialists who play a specific role at some stage, not to necessarily be a set figure in an 11. JWP gives you dead ball delivery from either side, corners, last min free kicks on the edge of the box - I know who I'd pick to come on for those specific skills and it isn't Kalvin Phillips. I think Southgate has missed a trick, but maybe that's me being biased. I know there is talk of a lack of call ups may prompt them to leave the club etc, but we lost Lallana, Lambert, Shaw on the back of them being selected for the 2014 World Cup. The crux is that players will want to leave us if a bigger club comes calling, whether they get called up for England or not. But from our point of view it's good news as our lot can all get a well needed summer holiday.

That was said from a purely selfish saints point of view! He's played every minute of every single game for 2 entire years, this recharge will do him the world of good. I hope most of our players get the chance to recharge to be honest. From an England point of view, having Kalvin Phillips over JWP is an absolute load of nonsense.

Good news. He needs a break, should give him a nice opportunity to recharge

Elyounoussi is probably the only one I can see us keeping to negate the need for an additional wide player/number 10....but I can't see us keeping Mario or Hoedt around tbh. They'll be high on our list to shift.

The black box is all well and good, but you still need money for it to work effectively. I think it's going to be another window of waiting for the likes of Elyonoussi, Lemina, Hoedt and/or Ings/Vestergaard to leave before we can do anything of note.

That is very true, he does often recycle backwards when in that position. I don't see him cross enough though, I'd like to see him throw more balls into the box and then we'll see what Adams and Ings can do with it. I don't think either are bad in the air. But having a Pelle type is certainly required in our squad in my opinion. I guess N'Lundulu fills that gap at the moment but he doesn't look anywhere near ready.

Good stuff mate, it's really interesting seeing it backed up like this - pretty much sums up how most of us have seen it to be honest, all comes down to 1) squad depth and 2) the quality of the squad depth. Ralph even made similar comments last week ''To win a game, we have to be 100% in every position. We have not been able to win games when we're not quite at 100% and this isn't sustainable'' - He's right, and you fix that by baulking out the squad - not with dross, but with actual quality. It's a shame about Ryan, but seeing it down in black and white like this does demonstrate his huge drop off in the last year. I think he'll be a steady signing for someone, but for us, when we require our full backs to be part of the attacking third so much, he's pretty much dead rubber for us nowadays. The one thing which stood out for me was KWP and his lack of impact in the final third, it feels like in some games he spends most of his time in the opposition half - so that's probably an indication that he needs to up his delivery and pass selection massively, as he's so often in good positions.

For us not to be interested in a midfielder, we are certainly being linked with more midfielders than LBs!

It's not to be fair. Redmond and Sterling exist in entirely different footballing universes. Sterling carried the City goal scoring whilst Aguero was injured over previous season, albeit he has slowed down a bit this year. He's a top level player and Redmond isn't fit to lace his boots.

We'll be end of August then, just coming up into September and low and behold, you can almost guarantee it, the rates will be rising again with another variant as we enter the autumn and winter months. They are surge testing everyone, so there will be more positives, more negatives and most importantly more false positives. I'm hoping, and I'm assuming, the government are waiting to see if there is an uptick in hospital admissions and sadly deaths before they commit to a delay. I've not seen any uptick in Hospital or death stats yet, which is a positive and shows that the vaccines are working. If we're just going to panic over infection rates, when we knew all along that the vaccines don't protect against mild infection, or asymptomatic, then we are doomed.

Yeah, a move for a player released by Burnley - one of our main rivals - would scream major alarm bells for me. I don't think there's anything to this.

That's where it comes down to scouting failing in the main, part of the scouting process is to identify the characters and ensure they'll be a good fit for this league (As well as injury previous etc). There's more to signing a player than just looking at videos and seeing that he can pass the ball, or he can score an overhead kick etc. The approach we took, on paper, was the right one. It's all about how it's executed though. We were trying to follow the Dortmund model where we buy mid 15m's and then sell for 40-50m+ a few years down the line, sadly the people running that show got it all wrong. Although coaching can be attributed to the failings as well, Elynomoussi, Lemina, Hoedt, Boufal etc were all with us under 3 or 4 different managers and coaching setups. Whilst neither setup got anything from them, we didn't exactly provide a great environment for development. But at the end of the day It all comes back to Les Reed, Ross Wilson, Ralf Kruger and how they managed the football side of this club once Koeman left. (Managers, Scouting, coaching, players) Even Crocker has admitted the mess the academy has been left in.

He certainly won't sign during this window, in my opinion. The club know this. I'm sure the offer is still on the table but if a club come and flash £35m in our faces then we will eat that up and run away with it, I'm fairly sure. Ralph has been fairly adamant that he's staying, but at the end of the day money will talk and if a club gets desperate during August and flashes that sort of money at us for a player with 9 months left on a contract....we're going to blink and accept it. Let's hope we have our ducks in a row re: striker targets so we can move quickly at any stage if required.

Good squad signing for Leicester, although I can imagine it would only be a short-term to cover the injury to Justin. They have good full back options though, Pereria, Castange, Justin, Thomas (good young player). If he does go there he'll just be replacing Fuchs place in the squad.

Sadly that seems to be the case recently, even beyond those too - Elyonoussi was considered a top European Talent when he joined us, he's ended up playing in Scotland for 2 years and we can't get rid. Boufal another player considered a huge coup at the time, didn't progress here and we had to give him away for free. It's a combination of scouting and coaching failing. Scouting for signing players who are not great fits for this league in any way, and coaching because we've never seemed to be able to etch any return of the outlay from any of them and their careers just drift into the wilderness once they've signed for us. (and they were big outlays for a club like us)

It's all over the news now, BBC, Sky etc now. Obviously something in it. Apparently Levy has admitted sacking Poch was the biggest mistake in his career. I reckon he'll end back up there, by all accounts he's not too happy at PSG.

Patrick Van-Arnholt Ezgjan Alioski Jetro Willems Brandon Williams There's 4 for you. I think we're looking at younger players abroad as well, there have been some other names linked. Rose hasn't played for a long time, the level he had with Spurs under MP is gone - long gone. He's a worse left back than Ryan Bertrand so it would be a nonsensical and dumb move.

Yeah, I think that's a fair assumption. Plus it's been well documented that we've been in the market for full backs for the last few years, both left and right sided. I think we wanted to evolve that position whatever the case this window, so Bertrand wouldn't have been a regular - so would have needed wages to suit that, which he seemingly didn't want to accept. He's not going to be a regular at Leicester or any of these sides either, so it'll be interesting to see where he ends up. The only sour part for me is how it ended, it would have been nice to see him play out the season with us rather than being consigned to the outside. (I don't buy that he was injured)

If we really wanted him he'd have stuck around, in my opinion. He was making noises about finishing his career here not so long ago. It was probably a mutual decision in the end imo.

I never get the views of fans who say ''stripes, boring. where's the innovation?'' I mean, what do you expect them to do? We are a club who play in stripes, we have a kit with stripes. Newcastle are a club who play in stripes, they have a kit with stripes. I don't quite understand what people are expecting.

If we sign Danny Rose then we might as well have kept Ryan Bertrand. The whole idea of the move on from Bertrand is to enable us to get a younger, potentially better left back. We're not going to sign Rose.