tajjuk

I think the biggest issue we will have shifting a lot of our players is not that their won't be takers, it will be that most of them will be like mid table Spanish, Italian, French, Dutch sides, plus the Championship, and many of these players are going to be on like £45 - 65k a week and those clubs simply won't pay those wages. So we are going to have to shift them whilst probably subsidising a lot of their wages for a years and I think wages for us is going to be a bigger issue than transfer funds, I think the club has transfer funds and can stagger things over the years but the age bill is tighter. The likes of Long, Austin, Cedric, Forster, Boufal, Hoedt, Carrilo, are probably amongst are highest earners, many in the £60-70k a week bracket and there are limited European and Championship clubs who can afford to pay those sort of wages, especially outside their best players which none of these will be.

Gunn, Bednerak, Valery, Hojberg, Lemina, JWP, Redmond, Ings IMO. All young enough to keep improving, especially under Ralph, get them all fit and firing pre-season. Add in quality around them. I'd still have the likes of Romeu in the squad and of course Bertrand if he wants to be here. Plus Vestegaard I think is good enough to be 3rd choice. But then I'd like to see a quality centre back, a more mobile DM, another striker, and another attacker (pacey) depending on shape.

Agree, I also think the Hughes set him back, I don't think the squad fitness levels under him were good enough and this IMO resulted in Ings dropping off sharpness and leading to him to picking up knocks. When he then came back under Ralph he was basically having to start again like he needed a pre-season. When he joined from Liverpool, with a their pre-season, IMO he looked the sharpest and fittest in the squad, and showed that in the first few games but then standards dropped. I'd like to see him after a full Ralph pre-season, with new additions around him to see how he goes. He's a clever player and fits the system well, presses well, and has the ability to drop deep and link play. I just think his stop start season has meant we haven't seen him at his best most of the time.

Jesus Christ people make some stupid posts on this forum. He's a professional footballer who has played for England and played in the Champions League for Celtic, IIRC the guy has a clean sheet at the Nou Camp. He's also had some superb performances for us and earned us points on his own. You are making out like we are playing the kit man in goal or something. The guy at least deserves a chance to see if he is not completely shot of confidence. I am sure if Ralph is considering playing him then he has seen enough to warrant that and I trust his judgement.

Linked with Ritsu Doan from FC Groningen https://www.hitc.com/en-gb/2019/05/02/do-report-southampton-want-to-sign-groningen-talisman-ritsu-doan/ Also some Chelsea youngster on a free, Martell Taylor-Crossdale Still being linked with Augustin and Adams, those links seem to be coming up often.

He's always had that ability to just switch off and lose concentration, we saw it enough times, probably doesn't get put under as much pressure for Liverpool most weeks. Its probably his main weakness as a defender, other more committed defenders, like a John Terry type I think would have got to the ball for that rebound off the bar. Van Dijk is obviously very very good, but his pace often allows him to cover up that weakness in his game, he still more plays like midfielder who finds defending easy so plays at the back rather than a defender who actually enjoys all the dirty work of defending.

No I actually play real football instead. I'll go with the factual stats site that serves Europes top leagues plus what is seen and observed from actual footage, not some half arsed opinion of some random guy on the internet. Hes a centre mid and hes been playing there pretty much all season. He doesn't play anywhere near as far forward as Redmond does and most of goals in open play have come from driving out of the midfield 3 or 2. Obviously 3 have come from direct free kicks.

Whoscored has him as having played 7 starts MC, 6 at AMC, 3 at wing back, 2 MR and 1 at AMR. That is mainly centre mid, he basically hasn't really played as a striker or one of the wide forwards, so basically played as attacking midfielder. He's basically played similar positions to what De Bruyne and Silva do for Man City, which I'd call centre mid, also all his goals have basically come from the CM/AMC sort of position as well.

Lallana got 9 I think in his last season with us. Depends if you count Sadio Mane as midfielder I suppose, otherwise it goes back to Le Tiss. JWP's 7 this season is probably the highest we have had from a central midfielder for a very long time

Even if they do go up, they'll probably come down pretty quick, lots of team yoyo between those two leagues. Very tough for teams to compete in the Championship when its full of ex-PL teams full of parachute money. 3 out of Leeds, Villa, Derby and West Brom will be there next year, as will Middlesbrough, Stoke, Swansea, Hull, QPR, who have all been in the PL in the last 4-5 years, then you will have Cardiff, Fulham and Huddersfield as well.

I think in our current state selling one of our better performing players would be plain stupidity, and would probably annoy our manager as well. JWP is [probably one of our smartest players, he might not be the quickest or biggest or the flashest, but he's got a good football brain, he learns quickly and has clearly taken on board what the manager is trying to do quicker than anyone else. I think Ralph really likes him for that, his tactical awareness and ability to carry out what he wants on the pitch. We need to rebuild, we have a decent core of good young players to do that around and JWP is one of those. He's essentially become a key player under Ralph, selling him now and then having to find a replacement, when we need to find upgrades in many other areas would just set us back. Also £30 million is really not much these days. I mean Leicester paid like £25 million last summer for a Championship player in Maddison, and now after a decent PL season you'd expect him to cost like £40-50 million. And he's scored as many goals as JWP in about twice the games, granted hes got 7 assists but probably helps having a striker like Vardy to feed the ball to.

Simple fact was, aside from a slight spell where he woke up at the end of the season under Hughes, he was pretty ineffective for about two years, and crucially he was missing big chances in games as well. Sometimes players need a change of scenery or just work under a different manager or with different players. Ajax have lots of young players willing to do lots of running around Tadic which probably helps him. But he is also playing week in week out against basically League 1 level players, there are like 3-4 decent clubs in the Eredivisie the rest would struggle to compete with Championship clubs, IIRC Ajax have the largest wage bill in the league and I think its lower than pretty much every PL club. Also £12 million is a big signing for them, they spent like £25 million in the summer which is massive for a club like Ajax, but half the PL probably spent more than double that easily. Fair play to him though, we always knew he was creative but hes clearly banging in the goals as well.

Anyone else noted that Tadic has 24 league goals for Ajax this year and 12 assists? 2nd top scorer in the league. 30 goals and 15 assists in all competitions, from 42 games, staggering. Completely rejuvenated him. I know the league standard is poor but considering people have been talking about Ziyech for years and Lozano is heavily rated, he blows those two out of the water.

I think people forget how young he is, only turns 19 next month. 2 goals and 6 assists from 24 starts for an 18 year old in the PL in a relegated team is actually not bad. Plenty of potential there to work with, has the pace we need, puts in a shift, might be able to sell it to him on the fact he'll get game time, which he probably won't at most of the top 6. Probably too expensive for us though, would reckon Fulham will want upwards of £30 million. As for the rest of the relegated teams, not much there impresses me. Huddersfield are terrible, Fulham have some potentially good players they just never formed a team but most of their better players are mid to late 20s so don't really fit with what Ralph wants. Cardiff generally bad all over, they are just well organised and drilled, plus very negative. People saying Mitrovic, but to me he is too much of a liability, 11 PL goals yes, but played almost every game for them, and I feel there is too much of a red card or incident in him. He should have given away a silly penalty against Cardiff for a silly push in the box at the weekend.

I think he's a project manager, look what he said about 'less stress', I don;t think he'd want to go straight away into another job where he was to start rebuilding/firefighting again. I think he'll be here a good couple of years at least and whether he stays will be on our progress and how much the owners back him.

No way that many will go. Why the hell would we sell Romeu? He's been important to our improved form and we literally have one defensive mid. Nor will Ings go as we are buying him in the summer and again nor should he, he's a good player and been decent this year, just needs to get fit. I doubt Elynoussi will go either, not after 1 year, doubt the club will give up on him and by his recent interview I doubt he wants to quit either. Maybe a loan, but I doubt that. Close to certain outs for me are - Hoedt, hes burnt his bridges, is far too arrogant for his talent, trouble is getting anyone to buy him, we'll have to sub his wages if he ends up at most Italian/Spanish/Dutch clubs, as hes probably on £65k a week. Clasie, already said he never wants to play here again. Doubt whether Feyenoord will buy him though, seems to have fallen out with his manager. Austin, wants more football and I think will get offers as hes a proven goal scorer so teams will take a gamble on him. Definitely can see Championship clubs going for him, especially as I doubt we'll ask for much fee. You could see him scoring the goals that gets someone promoted. Cedric, because hes a decent player, should be takers in Europe and by the sounds of it he basically decided he was better than us and Ralph wasn't impressed by his attitude. The rest are more up in the air. I think Boufal and Carrillo Ralph will look at both, Stephens is not good enough, but I think it'll depend if he decides to go for more football as I reckon he'll be kept for depth due to him being versatile. Forster is going to be hard to shift, he might stay as No. 2 and McCarthy might get sold. Gallagher, Reed, Hesketh, might all get loaned again I reckon. But would need some Championship teams to stump up for them if they were sold and I can't see that, maybe Gallagher someone might pay out for.

Jeez Burnley are horrible to watch, zero ambition, they are completely safe, at home and they serve that up. Deserved nothing from that game, they have some ok defenders but their football is horrible. Thought City though risked it a bit sticking to just one goal, they seemed to just give up on a lot of counter attacks and slow it down.

Either Spurs or Ajax I think would be good, I like Poch and I like Spurs, play good football, don't splash massive cash on transfers or wages, try to develop their own players. But also Ajax winning the Champions league would be like Leicester winning the league IMO, a massive achievement even for all their history in the game, they are basically us of European football, all their players get stolen from them and they just don't have the financial clout to compete with the big European leagues. Just not Liverpool.

I think 3-5 will come in and similar will go out. Everyone thought we wouldn't do anything last year, but still got 5 in. Quality is the key though, we need players who'll come in and upgrade what we have, not just add depth.

Very harsh IMO. You have seen some of the other top half sides yeh? You know we have beaten a lot of them recently or at least competed with them. We've beaten Wolves, drawn with Watford, beaten Leicester, and beaten Everton under Ralph, those are the 4 teams currently going for 7th. Under Ralph none of them have shown they are any better than us, our form has easily been top 10. We are nowhere near a top 6 side, but no one else is, Everton, Wolves, West Ham all spent massively but have been horribly inconsistent, all have big quality gaps in their squad. Bournemouth have been lauded all year and we are 4 points behind them despite the Hughes impact and should have beaten them today having outplayed them for long periods. But I think you are doing a massive disservice to our team. Now they are being properly managed, its very clear a lot of them are good premiership players. What is also good is that we have a core of players who are not that old and I think will definitely improve under the manager. Redmond, Ward-Prowse, Valery, Bednerak, Gunn and Hojberg all 24 or under, with the likes of Ings, Vestergaard, Lemina are only about 25-26 as well. We need to add some key quality no doubt, something we have failed to do the last 2-3 summer (though last years summer window was hardly a disaster, only Elynoussi has been a flop). If we do that then I think we can easily compete in that top 10. JWP, Redmond, Romeu, Bednerak, Gunn, Valery, and Hojberg I think have all shown they are top half PL players over the last 6 months.

To me saying that sort sets out a target of just staying up comfortably and potentially creates a 'Charlton' who just got to 40 points each year and then pretty much downed tools. Hope I am wrong, but I hope the ambitions for the club are higher than just comfortably avoiding relegation as if that is all the target is, then how much investment in the squad will happen. We potentially could be in a good place again next year, a top manager, some good young improving players to build the squad around, but lack of investment will just throw the chance away.

Bednerak is 22, and has 24 PL appearances to his name and barely 80 games in professional football full stop, in a position that generally needs time to learn. He is going to have bad games as he is learning and needs more experience. But he has been excellent IMO since coming into the team, plus he had Stephens next to him today, who is just not as good, partnerships are important. Important player for us next season as I reckon he'll just get better, but people need to temper their expectations, he is not going to be the new Van Dijk overnight.

Showed the issue with him today though, yes he scored but he also missed an absolute sitter, similar against Watford, he scored but then missed other chances that could have won us the game. Even on form he just needs too many chances to get goals. As an option in the squad sure, but if next year we are starting him regularly then its a worry. At least one new striker needed, if not two IMO. Gallagher and Austin I presume are off, Ings has worryingly dropped off form and goals, plus we can't rely on him to be fit.

Anyone feel this comment from Ralph is little underwhelming? "This summer we will rebuild. We can start planning for next year tomorrow and the target is to get 40 points [next season] earlier than this year. A bit less stress would be nice. Yes clear of relegation would be great but surely we have to aim a bit higher, even if we miss it?

People need to calm down, they have had 3 shot FFS in total, we should have been at at least 2 or 3 up, so the chances are there to score more goals in the 2nd half. Re-group at half time, get at them like we did initially and we still have a chance to win.