S-Clarke

Gao should pay for every return/refund out of his own pocket. He should also ensure, whatever happens, that the 2 years we signed up for are still paid for - out of his own pocket. It's the very least he can do, as this is going to hit us financially during a time we didn't need it.

'Southampton star' - yeah, discount that.

Not on the store I'm looking at! It's all still there.

He had a debut in the 05-06 season, right at the end against Millwall. Then he became the starter left back in 06-07, scored against Derby in the first game, and then against Cov the following game from direct kicks. That Derby game still haunts me, Paul Peschsolido or however you spell it equalising at the end after we dominated really.

Yes it is, they're selling the replica kits with the logos on.

There were stories at the time that it was an 'up to £26m' deal, but it did seem and still seems far fetched for us to have made a profit on a player who looked pretty poor at this level. Dan in The Athletic mentioned that Leicester were interested, but didn't come 'close' to matching what we want for him (we want to try and get our 17/18m back). So, yeah that up to £26m seems incredibly far fetched. I guess if someone did reject that sort of deal, they'd want to keep quiet and brush it under the carpet anyway - as that would have been as big a fail as the signing of Carrillo!

They are all from who scored. You can search whoever you want on there, it's based on info sourced from all the leagues.

Wolves had him on loan initially in the summer of 2018, albeit with a £30m clause in it. There's a small possibility he may have cost less when we signed Gudio. At the end of the day I think we had that level of fee to potentially use.

I think they're looking for a superstar replacement for Kepa though! If that's Forster their fans will be having a fit.

Even seeing Bale as 31 makes me squirm! I watched his bloody debut v Milwall!

Jesus christ, that makes me feel old. Where have all these years gone.

Some more chat about it here - https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/53856921 Will be interesting to see if fan pressure makes any change. Probably not, it's all driven by $$

Broadcast arrangements are back as normal. Sky, BT and Amazon prime. No extra broadcasted games planned as yet, just normal arrangements.

On the signings front, I think 'officially' announced is the key. The club won't use their channels to announce anything like which isn't 100%. The media may get a sniff that it's proposed/it might happen, but the club won't comment until pen is on paper. I think that's fair. If the OS had a gossip column, like other sites, i think it's a bit shit - and pretty disrespectful too. Liverpool had one a few years back (they might still have it)

Maybe we're shifting FF out. Only way this deal makes any sense. We'd have to shift two goalkeepers for it to make any sense really.

To be fair, there is usually a retained list put on the website. I haven't seen one this year, that's where you'd usually see that sort of info. Players we're keeping/renewing contracts (usually U23's) and then player's we're letting go at the end of their contracts or loans. I think this whole COVID thing has thrown little bits out like that.

I wonder if it's something like a two way loan? They get Gunn for a year as a regular, he needs game times to find his form. We take Butland for a year to play as second fiddle/compete with McCarthy. Then at the end of the season, we have a few options: Let Butland leave, no outlay for us. We get Gunn back after a year of regular football and hopefully in form to push McCarthy for a place. We keep Butland if he's surprised everyone, again no outlay as he'd be a free transfer. We then sell Gunn for $$ after a successful loan at Norwich. I'd be interested if it was a two-way loan like that, those have been done before. We don't lose out in any scenario in that setup.

I think it was assumed that everyone knew Danso was returning, what with the links to Salisu and the fact Danso couldn't even get a sniff of a game. He wasn't really worth an article as he did nothing here and most forgot we even had him.

Clever little website, not sure I'd read too much into it though. Based on this alone:

They'll sit on their 'official' matchdays and KO times to start with, then Sky/BT etc. will choose the games they want and you'll start to see the fixture rearrangements.

PEH: Tournament Apps Mins Goals Assists Yel Red SpG PS% AerialsWon MotM Rating Premier League 30(3) 2751 - 1 5 - 1.4 78.1 1.7 1 6.83 Mckennie: Tournament Apps Mins Goals Assists Yel Red SpG PS% AerialsWon MotM Rating Bundesliga 24(4) 2078 3 - 8 - 1.1 80.9 2.3 1 6.78 Mckennie's obvious standout strength is his heading ability, that's showing up in all these stats. Although he does have a slightly higher pass completion than PEH...but that wouldn't be hard! All his goals came from set pieces too, so it's again pointing at that standout strength. He seems to be able to hang in the air which is quite a unique quality. I think he'd add some genuine height and power to our CM area, more than PEH offered. With Mckennie if we get him and Salisu, we've automatically added power and strength down the spine.

They're looking at Feb/March for away fans and an increase in home capacity, apparently. I think everyone is just worried a little about what winter my throw up, so any real changes to 'social distancing' aren't going to happen until we're through that I don't think. Not that much social distancing is going on at the moment! It all seems a bit of a token effort at the mo.

Pierre-Emile Højbjerg Characteristics + Strengths Aerial Duels Strong Concentration Strong Ball interception Strong - Weaknesses Discipline Weak Pierre-Emile Højbjerg's Style of Play Gets fouled often Likes to tackle Commits fouls often

Fair enough Steve - I think this is very much a needle in the haystack kind of problem! It would be surprising for a site such as this to make a server fall over based on load alone, so like you said it's probably something in the database and queries. It's very odd how it can just flick back to working fine though and then stop again! Bloody IT.

Weston McKennie Characteristics + Strengths Defensive contribution Very Strong Aerial Duels Strong Blocking the ball Strong Ball interception Strong - Weaknesses Concentration Very Weak Finishing Weak Tackling Weak Weston McKennie's Style of Play Indirect set-piece threat