S-Clarke

Somewhat agree, it was a signing at a time when the general quality of our transfers fell through the floor. But for £5m I still don't think we can complain too much, he was a decent enough servant at times and we paid a pittance for him, so for what he cost, what we got (200 odd apps) and a profit 8 years later - that's a decent scouting result to me. I don't think it was necessarily his fault that we signed Hoedt and Vestergaard as the 'main men', but they didn't turn out good enough which thrust Bednarek into the team when I don't think he was ever signed to be first choice.

It's been mentioned in the transfer thread too, but this seems like a decent place to merge it all into. I don't think he's a top defender, not by a long way, but for £5m initial outlay in 2018 or whenever it was, you've got to say we've got our value back on him - we're still going to make a profit on that, just about. Not sure how much Lech will get. I appreciate his time and the effort he's put in, but it feels like the right time to part ways as there are too many bad memories associated with a Saints defence including Bednarek!

If we're on about privacy VPN's, I've used Mullvad (very good, not many servers - but privacy focused). PIA is another good one. I'm currently using Nord via the NordLynx Wireguard implementation as it's lighting fast, bundled with their SmartDNS you can really hide yourself geographically.

I think that was the clause set in his contract when he signed last summer, so Porto have matched it. He's been a good servant, 8 years or whatever it's been - not the best CB at all and part of some of my most miserable days supporting this club, so it's a case of falling upwards by getting a move to Porto! It makes me wonder why we value ABK at £10m though. Seems a bit skewed.

I think that statement alone illustrates how bad our attacking wide options really are. I don't think either Fraser or BBD should be anywhere near the starting 11 of a decent outfit, I'd like to think the club don't either - but then they did offer Stephens a new deal.

And that is exactly why pre-season results mean deadly squat. We had a better pre-season last year, but we didn't win a game that mattered until November and finished the season on 12 points. I'm sure we've had seasons where we've gone and won 9-0 and such against some trash, but ended up struggling to get over the line at the start of the season. I never really read anything into pre-season results, not at this stage anyway. Even the Brighton game will probably be irrelevant as the squad will still change so much. I don't think you'll see the 'real' outfit for this season until the skates game in Sept. The squad will be up in the air until Sept, so even the start of the season needs to be treated with a little bit of tempered expectation because of that.

The media soundbites are out in force on this one aren't they. The media can't dress it up really, we know how this looks. It's an absolutely horrific decision to offer him a new deal, no iffs, no butts. We weren't losing value on a high valued player for free in the summer. We'd have had no takers this summer so we'd have kept him anyway, then let him go next year. I don't see why we've done it. He's not good enough to be the captain and first team starter for a promoted or promotion chasing team. The evidence was there last season and the season before. He might be a nice lad, good around the place - I'm not disputing that, but there's more needed than that alone (As proven by last season). I hoped we'd get ruthless this summer and stop rewarding failure and mediocrity, but alas here we are.

Why put Fernandes in a midfield 3? He's your 10. We technically don't need to sign anyone to get that 11 as you put it, but I would want a better player (Starting player) on that left side, it's a big problem area for us. Charles and Downes should be the CM's behind Fernandes. Wellington/Manning, Quarshie, Edwards and Suguwara as the back 4. Flat back 4, with extra width provided by the full backs.

And based on how the pre-season has gone, he shouldn't be anywhere near the 11. Robinson should be firmly in front of him. Edozie is another one, who has once again, failed to do anything of note which makes him look like a viable starting option for us. The wide areas really concern me as we have zero quality depth in those areas. It's no surprise we don't create much.

Doubt it. He's probably fairly behind the rest. He'll be on the bench I imagine, but I do see a opening day attack including Archer, BBD and Armstrong. On paper it should have goals at this level, but I just don't really like the makeup of it. (and I can't stand BBD)

Quarshie will automatically look good to us because of those that have gone before. We've not had this sort of athletic/powerful/quick CB for absolutely donkeys years, we've focused on footballing CB's and ignored the physical attributes required. Maybe ABK was supposed to be that sort, and he was at the start (ish), but he turned into a moron so we just have to hope Quarshie is a little more level headed. It's refreshing to see a CB with some power and pace about them, and not someone who is always running after an attacker. He's got a lot to learn, but on physical attributes alone he should be pretty regular next season.

That's sadly it in a nutshell really. There's no instinctiveness in his game, or proactiveness. He's a pure reactionary defender, he's passable in games where you're backs to the walls and you're always reacting, but when we're more 'dominant' and we need to be aware of potential breaks and such, he is an absolutely enormous liability for any team. I just wanted us to be rid of these sorts this summer. They've tarnished every season for last few years, but for some reason we keep trying the same over and over again, it's the definition of insanity really - he cannot defend in a decent team, if he plays next season we will concede stacks and stacks of goals. If we shoehorn him in for someone like Edwards, then force Edwards at right back then I'm absolutely done. Yep he's signed a new contract (ridiculous decision), but it doesn't mean he should automatically be the first name. Anything more than a squad player for us this season then we're doing it wrong and these new guys are as clueless as those before.

Yeah absolutely, that report may be rubbish, but we do have history for doing stuff like this with unwanted players, which ultimately plants ourselves into a corner because we were too greedy or deluded.

The club have a really odd view around valuing players like him. They are never going to have a future here and never play (and haven't played proper football for a year), but we are still demanding valuations in order make almost all our money back from the original transfer. It's daft. We had the same approach with Hoedt and Carillo, we had clubs interested but kept trying to ask for a fee within the margin of what we paid for them previously. No clubs were interested, obviously - and in the end we lost them for free the following year, or in the case of Hoedt (or Carillo) we had to actually pay him off. Just take 4-5mill, call it a day. Or alternatively we can drag our feet demanding an unrealistic fee, and end up with another years wage wasted, a player hanging around for 6 months who doesn't want to be here, and a much lower value player next summer anyway. I know what makes sense to me.

He does seem to be sporting a new head of hair though. Hopefully he's over his illness.

We had a zeroed-in focus on ball retention, using the flawed logic that we don't need to run lots, as we'll always have the ball - thus less fitness required. Nonsense, especially when we step up a level. As we saw, our retention approach didn't work because of the better opposition, but we were so unconditioned that we couldn't even run to keep in the game when we didn't have the ball. To be fair to Juric, he tried to install basic fitness and more aggression to our off the ball/out of possession work, but it was already a lost cause at that point and the players needed a proper pre-season foundation to recover what they've lost. Cheers Martin.

You'd say this'll be a prank, but as it's Forest Green we know it won't be. Their owner is an absolute nut job.

I've been a staunch critic of having Stewart here, and I still don't think he's someone we can truly rely on in the coming season - but from a pure personal point of view, it must be great for him experiencing a full pre-season and full involvement for the first time in years. I can't imagine it's been easy for him not playing, but he's involved all throughput pre-season this year. Be interesting how he copes with the rigours of league football though, for that reason he's not someone I'd pin huge hopes on, but it's just nice to see him involved for once - over a prolonged period.

Hopefully they're stable, or it may be back to that cycle of searching for a new one every month or two!

The 3 year contract does make that difficult though, it would have made more sense for him to leave on a blaze of glory once we'd won promotion and sign up to Plymouth on a freebie next year to return 'home'. But even if we do go up, we'd struggle to shift him on the wages he'd be on - so automatically he bloats a potential PL team as he can't offer anything at that level. That's why I kinda wanted to see us ditch some of the bloat this summer, some of the guys we know can't do it at the PL level (not all of them, Armstrong will be useful for us this year) but there are a fair few more who just add pointless bloat in the PL and will limit our movement to evolve if they're still hanging on next year with big wages.

They still don't seem to exist anywhere to talk to. Their accounts on telegram aren't even there anymore, all deleted. I messaged the admin guy directly in the past, but his account now shows deleted. They don't respond to emails or the like, so I don't think I'd risk sending a payment for a new month or 3..! Defo a good opportunity to look for a new provider, frustrating as it is as it was all pretty settled. What I have found since searching over the last few weeks is that the offerings have improved, there is better out there than SaintsPlayer now for sure. I haven't really looked for years.

You'd have to say that Bazunu even struggles to get into average keepers for this level - in fact he was the worst in the league the last time out. Last time out I'd have had relegated keepers in our team instead of Bazunu (the rotherham guy for a start) Like you say, the expectation should be that we sell Ramsdale (if we do) and we bring in a full first team replacement. If the club play the line of being content with what we have, and looking for a third choice, then they've utterly screwed up all over again. Hopefully Ramsdale stays, not beyond the realms really. Nothing can be advanced if he's coming to Spain!

I think we all know exactly how this will play out, I assume the club will be calm and relaxed about the situation. If this is true, the bad decisions are still being made and even 'new' people are still totally adrift with what footballers/goalkeepers should actually be able to do.

So, the notable missing: CBs: ABK - No shit. Hopefully goes shortly. Bednarek - Again, no surprise. He'll go somewhere for £6m, just negotiating his move I imagine. THB - Still recovering from a long term, although I'd have expected him to be with the group anyway - just for the team work if anything else. CMs: Downes, Matusuki - both injured, but expected them to be with the group. I'd imagine Matsuki will go out on loan for some reason. Not sure why. Another player we brought in to aid others rather than us seemingly. Attack: Dibling - the real surprise, I can't see him staying now. I know he's injured, but it doesn't send out a strong message. Sadly, we've taken pretty much 100% of the dross with us and most of the players missing are the really important ones. It's not the cull I thought it would be, but it also shows that the squad is very, very weak on quality should the 4 above not stay with us.

Ederson