S-Clarke

I don't think he's first choice, that's why 3 years is even more weird. In our current CB setup (without selling) it has to be THB and Bednarek, and even if we sold Bednarek or THB, you'd put Edwards in ahead of Stephens.

Potentially a club out of the running for Ramsdale, if they were ever interested that is - id interest from other clubs. Can't see any other gaps in PL clubs for a keeper at the mo. Of the clubs which are looking, Newcastle are pushing to sign Trafford and Manchester United have given Onana the ill-fated backing. Not sure where else he goes if he leaves? (Plus he's keen - if not certain - in his need to stay in the South for personal reasons)

But we've even lurched from owners, board members, DoFs, managers, scouts and we still make these frankly odd decisions. I hope this is the only ''WTF'' moment we have this pre season, as we can't afford any more! Is it too much to ask for to just have some common sense people running my football club? People that actually see what us guys see!

It's very much reminiscent of the Fraser renewal, and then a second renewal the summer after. It did us no good as we were lumbered with a highly paid player who didn't actually play for us in his final years. Cost the club millions. I'm really not sure what the motivating factors are on this. It's perplexed me.

Same, even when he was contracted with us when we last came down, there wasn't ever any genuine/strong interest from PL clubs. I don't know why that is. I think he'd be a lot better at some middling PL clubs than their current options, as a starter too. He seemingly doesn't seem to have many admirers in England though.

It's one of those club decisions I think, didn't want to upset the apple cart and move the captaincy around I imagine. Will won't complain as I'm sure he's a good lad in training, I hope he keeps him far away from the 11 though.

I will sit firmly on the fence on this one, I have no idea how it will pan out. This is the same club who signed Onuachu, Carillo and Mara at the end of the day. Attribute wise he has bits we've missed, 100%, so looking at it from that aspect it's a positive. No idea how that will translate though as he's fairly unproven. Hopefully they've pulled one out of the bag with this one.

I keep seeing this flogged out, ''we need more of his type'' ''we've had so few committed players over the last few years'' Let's not forget who has been front and fricking centre for the last few years? Jack bloody Stephens. Who showed the most ridiculous level of leadership and braindeadness last season when he got sent off and suspended for ages? The bloke has always been a liability for us, that didn't change even if we were in the Champ. To be honest the talk of him being a good lad is pretty pointless if it still contributes us to declining at a rapid rate. You cannot deny that this guy has been a massive part of our decline over many seasons. It's not all on him, it would be harsh to say that, but he has been front and centre of this shit fest and I really hoped we'd use this summer as an opportunity to do away with these sorts. This is a total brain dead decision by those now in charge at the club, and it's really put me on a downer as I'd hoped we had people in charge who now knew what they were doing. Seemingly we still don't.

He's not really though. We were at our best when we played Bednarek and THB. Whenever Jack came into the team, usually shoehorned in some way, we conceded goals and looked all over the shops. He's a lower half Champ CB, at absolute best. He is not someone who should be anywhere near the starting 11 of a promotion chasing team. There's no 'protecting' value involved here, as he's never going to command a big fee - 3 years or 1 year.

He's only 28 ffs?

This makes me question the decision making of those in charge, unfortunately. I had hoped we had a new clean sweep and the new folks had a general idea of what was needed long term. Jack Stephens certainly isn't that. He's a good lad, certainly gives his all for the club, but he's so, so limited and not good enough for where we want to be. He's the sort of player we needed to be shifting if we had long-term plans to be established in the PL. I doubt those plans now. If this is the start of a 'theme', I can see us going with Bazunu as first choice keeper once Ramsdale is sold and Will Smallbone holding the CM.

They've having a good old fashioned meltdown over on their forums.

And he also said (not an exact quote) ''I have a style, a way of playing, but at the end of the day I want to win, and you have to adapt to do so sometimes''

Yeah, exactly that. After 6 months or a season the 'may come good' line still holds some truth, they're worth persevering with, but after 3 years....if it's still the same story, I think the game is up. Bazunu, Larios, Edozie, ABK all fall into that category. I don't think they'll ever 'come good', I think what we see in front of us are the players that they will always be.

Not against keeping BBD, Bednarek, Taylor, Armstrong et all for this level, but we know there's no future beyond this level for them. The likes of Fraser and Smallbone aren't what I'd put in the quality bracket though. When we went down to L1, we bought the best players for the level we were at, players who were ready to come in and start on day one. They supplemented the likes of Morgan and Lallana, so we could aid the kids with experience around them. We got lucky as the team grew with each other and improved with each other, but like you say it's all about signing good players at the end of the day. I'm not against signing or bringing through young players at all, but it's all about balance. I just don't want the focus to be solely on signing talented young players, if we don't have the proven quality around them then they're never going to progress. I'm intrigued to see how we look in September.

I wasn't specifically referencing the City cohort as such, but we did sign a lot from them that summer! More along the lines of adding up the contributions of ABK, Mara, Larios, Bazunu, Edozie - who were bought as young talent in that window. 3 years on and not one of those has kicked on or produced anything of note for us, 2 of them aren't even with us (one on loan). Lavia was the success, absolutely, but the club got excited by unearthing Tino the year before and thought that every young kid was going to be a Tino. We picked a good one in Lavia, but if we're honest Lavia and Tino should be the marker of success - but none of the others can lay a glove on on what either produced for us over a 10 month period (and they've had 3 years). I just want us to go back to signing players because they're good players, not just because they're young and highly rated from another academy. There's a little bit of apprehension in me with the signings of Quarshie and potentially Downs, but as long as we supplement those with genuine experienced quality then we can sleep a bit easier. Letting the likes of Larios/Edoze/ABK leave will allow us to add that experienced quality, as we simply don't have enough of that at the mo.

I think we'll get our money back, maybe even make a small profit given that he now has a bit of pro football experience behind him. I guess they'd have seen something, but it would have been a really small sample as he only played 17 times in the league. half of those as a sub. Get 7-10m for him, move on, and bring in a better player would be my plan. I'm kind of bored waiting for the 2022 kid cohort of Edozie/Larios/ABK/Bazunu and co to come good, they won't.

I wanted to see him kick on last season, I was intrigued to see how he'd get on at Anderlecht in European comp - but he didn't really do anything. 3 or 4 goals a handful of assists, 17 league games (quite a few as sub) and loads of injuries to boot. If he's going to be of any use to us, he needs to be bossing leagues like that. It may well be the right time to cash in.

Edozie simply hasn't really kicked on, even his loan last season was underwhelming to say the least - in a piss poor league I'll add. I even expected much more from him in our last Champ season, but he just underwhelmed. I wouldn't lose sleep if he went, we'd probably get our money back on him. But it would highlight the need to invest some big money into a couple of top wide players. I imagine we'll lose Fraser at some point, I can see the club paying off his contract at this point. No one is going to pay a fee for him. So for our wide men, we'd just have two kids in Dibling and Robinson (and Armstrong if you class him as one). I would expect lots of investment in that area, and as Dibling and Robinson count towards the 'young options', we'd have to get some proven experience there.

It also looks like their new manager is going to be Wilder. Watch this space I guess.

Lots of uncertainty at that place, no idea what their squad will look like come Sept. They will have to sell, and I doubt they'll be able to add anyone. Be interesting to see who the manager will be, but he'll have his own idea of squad setup, style.

Think of the money all the sponsors and big corps are making though, it's a winner for them. But I agree with you, it's just a pointless waste of time tournament. Nothing about it is to do with football which is why I've had no interest in it.

For the first game after relegation last time out, we started with KWP, Bednarek, JWP, Charly, Tella. With Adams, Stu Armstrong, Lavia on the bench. We will not be able to field a similar level team when we kick off against Wrexham, even if we haven't sold anyone at that point. We are definitely a weaker outfit this time round, as we came down last time with a lot more proven PL players and stacks of experience. This time not so much. I don't think you'd find many Saints fans who'd prefer Archer and BBD over Adams or Stu Armstrong.

I'd expect Aribo, Bednarek, ABK to go (just give ABK away at this point) for certain. That would leave us with Quarshie, THB, Wood, Stephens, Edwards as first team CB's - probably one too many there, so either we get a bid for THB, or we shift Wood out on a loan nearer the end of the window. The two areas that raise some alarm bells as of now are Wide Attack and AMC. We cannot go into a season with those as our options, there needs to be more to work with. The strikers in BBD, Armstrong, you'd be daft to actively move on at this point. They're proven at the level we're currently in, so we don't want to cut our noses off.

He can't really say anything else really, you have to keep your cards close to your chest. There are still so many unknowns. I think the ideal is that we trim the squad down, get rid of the bloat (which we're doing), raise some funds, and integrate some missing attributes in areas we don't have them (i.e pace and power up front and at the back and through the middle). If we start losing players like Fernandes, THB, Dibling, Suguwara, Ramsdale, Armstrong etc as the window goes on, then yes, we'll be adding players to replace those. But ideally we won't lose those, we'll add little bits of of pace and power around them, and get rid of the bloat. That is the absolute ideal though, and I think we all know it won't pan out like that. We'll probably be looking for replacements for at least 2 of our 'sought' after players at some point.