S-Clarke

West Brom are closing in on Southampton striker Jay Rodriguez, according to the Express and Star. The 27-year-old striker has been blighted by injury problems in recent years, but could move for up to £12m. --------- Would then explain why we are pushing ahead with the deal for the Sassauo lad.

West Ham have a 'way'?

Are they going for the 'many' approach to replace the 'single' Lukaku? When we had our mass sales 3 years ago, we kind of replaced like for like pretty well. Pelle for Lambert, Tadic for Lallana, Bertrand for Shaw, Toby for Lovren etc. And it worked pretty well for us. When clubs go down the route of stock piling lots of players to bulk up the squad on the back of a huge windfall (similar to Tottenham with Bale/Liverpool with Suarez) it very rarely works.....

Bit odd how West Ham didn't tie that one up. Another striker who got away? He'll be a decent player I reckon, seen a bit of him, but I think we're well stocked in that area.

You have to give young english managers a chance you know, otherwise we may never know they are good enough. I'm sure, if Tisdale was any good, he'd have been picked up long before now. But he's still at Exeter, because he's not very good.

Not sure why that would be an issue, he's been an EU citizen for a good while. Valenca, Alaves, Barca as a player, Liverpool as a player and coach etc.

http://www.dailyecho.co.uk/sport/saints/news/15373994.Todd__mystified__that_Exeter_City_boss_was_not_considered_for_Saints_job/?ref=rss

I don't think he officially starts his role until the end of this week (I'm sure i read that somewhere). Probably putting everything in place and then we'll get the big fan-fare when all the players return next week.

South American market is a tricky market, especially for clubs like ourselves. You've got the added complications of work permits, players being on the other side of the world to their families etc. It often takes a good couple of seasons for a young South American player (who was bought directly from there) to actually kick on in the PL (if they ever do...). Given that they would still likely cost a fair $$$, I don't think we're in a position to splurge big money on someone who probably won't make an impact for a couple of seasons. Chelsea have tried to exploit that market with the likes of Kennedy and Nathan, but both are still not in their first team. I think Liverpool have a Brazilian in their ranks as well who cost upwards of £6m, Allan possibly? but he's still in their reserve team. Notable exception being Jesus, but he did cost City £30m and is more of the finished article than many others over there.

I must admit, it was a very odd interview from De Boer. I thought exactly the same. The main headline that came out of it was that at least he'll have lots of money to spend. Not exactly the ideal thing to say....doesn't strengthen your hand, but it does probably appease the modern day football fan for a few days.

0.1/10

Lol. They'll keep being linked with everyone.

Yeah, he was linked to the Osvaldo deal. Milan took him on loan, we took Tadier the other way.

Pretty sure there was very little due-diligence done on this one. Just a case of us needed to get Osvaldo off the backs at whatever cost.

Just to kill this dead in the water, De Boer wants Sammy Lee to stay with him at Palace and Sammy Lee agreed to stay on.

He doesn't look like a footballer.

Very good value there, it's not £8m straight up either. More along the lines of £4.5m up front. Can see why we didn't go for him though, we have enough of his type of player! Good player all the same though.

The struggle with Jay and long last season was amplified because they never, ever got a prolonged run in the side. The rotation is what killed them. At the start of the season I wasn't against the rotation and saw it as a way of assuring we had a competitive team throughout the season and towards the end, but it didn't show at all. We were even worse at the end. The Stoke game was just a disjointed mess of players who weren't sure what they were meant to be doing, and that came from poor communication from the coaches and poor cohesion as they haven't played together every week

The more you read the more excited you feel. certainly feels a lot warmer than it did last year... My main gripe of Claude is that he had his way and that was his way, he didn't come into this club and adapt his way to suit what he had. He forced a way on players who weren't suited to it. Sounds like this guy does it the right way and is very flexible. I feel incredibly positive about this.

City want Mendy as well, I think he's their top target. I don't buy the story that they want 4 full backs. It'll be one or the other for each position in my opinion. They still have Kolarov and Fernadinho can play there if required.

So, he's pretty much achieved what he aimed to do (going by the comments on this thread, as I haven't read it either)

They were probably planning on a buy 1 get one free deal with us, but we've thrown their plans in the water a bit. And i'm bloody pleased we stood up to it. I think we'd look incredibly weak to sell to Liverpool now, in whatever circumstances. Can't see any deals happening between the clubs for a while, it needs to cool down a bit.

We got our striking options sorted in January, now if anything we're probably slightly bloated in that area. I can see one going - most likley to be Jay. Then we'll introduce Sam to the fold and he'll give us something different. Gallagher, Austin, Long, Gabbiadini - there are goals in that 4. Plus Redmond, Tadic. As other's have mentioned, the issue is getting an AMC type to link it all together. That's where I'd spend the budget if we kept everyone and just had to make improvements.

They signed that new LB/WB from Schalke, pretty sure they're covered. Spurs are also covered with Rose and Davies. Only clubs with genuine needs for a LB are Liverpool and City, so if he goes it'll be to one of those I'd have thought. So unless something happens with Rose at Spurs, I cannot see him getting a place at a 'Top' london club.

Two of their best players were loans from A.Madrid and Barca i think. The guy from Atletico Madrid (Theo Hernandez poss) has already completed a move to Real. Although who knows, he may be available for a loan from them now... the guy they had from Real is a DM I think. A good shout could be this guy - Víctor Camarasa. They had him on loan from Levante, i'm sure I've seen us linked with him before....he's an attacking central midfielder, 23 years old.