tajjuk

Lallana also gushing over him - Seems like he's a good influence on the dressing room at least

IF he is the Danny Ings that I remember from his first PL season with Burnley then he could be a great signing, IIRC he was quick, hard working, with good feet and liked to run at people. Big IF though. Two major knee injuries in each knee throughout his career so 4 in total, just have to hope the medical team were thorough. The words from Klopp are encouraging as well. The fee is much of muchness, £20 million is 4-5 years ago's £8 million

Tadic was a waste of space for the last two seasons bar the last 5-6 games. IIRC he was one of PLs biggest missers of expected goals last season.

Does this forum advertise specifically to draw in the whiniest of Saints fans? Cos the amount on here seems disproportionate, or are all football club forums just attracting the negative whiners? 4 signings in, all of which are positive for me and were done early to integrate with the team, no major outs aside Tadic which is no great loss IMO, no forced outs, seemingly no tantrum players around, most of the dead wood gone and hopefully some of our younger players will now be given the opportunity to show what they can do. Not sure how that can be viewed as a bad window? We have a new dominating centre-half, a potential goal scoring centre-mid, a new winger and now have two very good keepers. The squad under performed last year, it is now better as well so if Hughes can get them performing more at their level (which he seemed to do end of the season) then mid table should be easily achievable. 'On paper' signings mean very little so people gushing pathetically at other clubs signings need to realise that you need to meld a team that works well together, look at last year West Ham and Everton made a lot of signings, but it didn't work so well for them so let the teams actually play some games before you completely right them off.

LOL First 3 are not better than JWP, Schneiderlin maybe 3 years ago but he was woeful for Everton last year. Also both him and Cork are in their late 20s and should be at the their peak, whilst at 23 JWP is still years away from the peak age for a midfielder. Winks would cost £50 million at least and sadly (for England) seems very injury prone. Loftus-Cheek is a different player completely and he'll still go for £25 million plus. And he has basically one half a season with Palace. Also if Drinkwater was sold for like £35 million, then there is no way we should sell JWP for £10, I'd take £20 - 25 million if we had something lined up to improve the squad otherwise it's just weakening the squad for no real reason. JWP has plenty to offer, as he has shown.

Isn't he basically our right back at the moment?

He's only a 'current England striker' because beyond Kane, Rashford and Vardy there is very little else, Glen Murray, Rooney and our own Austin outscored Wellbeck last year. I mean Sterling got played ahead of him, out of position and hasn't scored for England for like 30 games and I think only the spare goalkeepers got less gametime at the world cup than Wellbeck.

Richarlison last year 5 goals, 4 assists in 32 starts (6 sub). Just went for £35 million (if not more like £40 million plus) and is 21. JWP last year, 3 goals, 3 assists in 20 starts, (10 sub), is only 23. Different sorts of player maybe but £10 million seems massively too low. I know JWP has plenty of detractors but I still feel he offers plenty, loads of people seemed massively dissapointed Tadic left despite his contribution of 9 goals and 8 assists in 64 starts in the last two seasons, yet seem willing to let JWP go who has managed 7 goals and 7 assists in 42 starts over the last two seasons. In terms of goals and assists per minutes played he is better off than all our other midfielders I believe. For a team that has struggled to score, letting go someone who at the very least offers quality set piece delivery, for such a low value would be silly in my eyes.

As I said before would rather we gambled on an up and coming talent, rather than an injury prone, doesn't score regularly and is soon to be 28 Wellbeck. Moussa Dembele at Celtic, Maxi Gomez at Celta or Santi Mina at Valencia.

What rubbish. He played the full 90 away at Bournemouth last year, played 86 mins the following game home to Arsenal and then played a full 90 3 days later against Leicester. Scored 2 goals in those three games. He is clearly capable of playing consecutive games and full 90 mins, he was badly under used last year by our inept manager. The guy has 420 career games and is only 29, you make out like he's 35-36.

I seem to remember most were impressed by the loans of Sanches and Krywsiack last year, they didn't turn out too well. These ofcasts of bigger clubs are not always the best idea. He should at least know the league well though.

Charlie Austin vid is funny, seems a good lad and well liked in the group.

Austin played for a negative defensive team last year and got the same goals in far less game time. He has simply never been prolific, even in better teams and easier leagues, he is IMO worse than what we already have bar maybe Long. I'd rather give Gallagher a go than waste £20 million on Rondon.

Rondon has scored 24 goals for West Brom in 108 games. He got 32 starts last year and managed 7 goals, the same number of goals that Austin got, but almost 3 times the amount of minutes on the pitch. He's only managed double figures in the league 4 times and the last time was in 2014-15 in the Russian league. Do not get the appeal at all, would rather have Jay Rod back.

He appeared in 24 games, in minutes terms he didn't play anything like that because Pellegrino criminally underused him when we were not scoring goals and missing chances. He could have had another 10 plus starts and he would have got more goals. Both him and Gabbi IIRC played around 10-11 games in minutes terms so their goals to minutes ratio in such a negative team is actually not bad at all. Both were underused when they were fit. Austin basically had the 1 injury that kept him out the middle patch of the season (where he was suspended for 3 anyway), but at the start of the season Pellegrino either didn't play him at all or brought him on for like 5-10 minutes. If he had used him when fit Austin would have hit about 30 league starts. Get him in the team and give him minutes and he will score goals, he has consistently shown that.

£65-70k a week makes the most sense, £100k a week does not at all as I can't see us having paid that to anyone and certainly not to Forster. £65k a week is also still problematic to most championship clubs and foreign clubs. It's the issue of the PL money, all the clubs can easily pay £20 million for players and £65-80k a week with not much issue, but then PL clubs want to get rid of these players then the market for them becomes very limited because only the very top clubs in Europe can pay those wages and transfer fees and they are generally not signing PL cast offs. So you are looking at middling clubs from France, Spain, Italy, Germany or top clubs in Holland or Championship clubs, they are not able to spend £20 million so easily or pay people £50-60k a week so easily. Also hardly like it's just us either, several clubs are struggling to off load their deadwood. He didn't need the 2nd deal, and it has obviously turned out to be a mistake in the long term, sadly these things happen but it's not like we are the only club to have done something like this. All footballers are a financial risk, he could have gone the next season and had an amazing season wanted by top clubs and people would have been praising the club for getting him tied down or he could have ruptured his ACL and not played for the last two years.

I play football manager but I couldn't for one second pretend that I could identify a player IRL better than a whole team of professional scouts and analysts. The way people talk on here they make it sound like our scouting team is deliberately picking bad players.

Which is why a fit Charlie Austin could be so important to us, if he plays 30 games next season he should get 12-15 goals, IIRC he got 5 in 10 starts last year.

Can't see another centre-back coming in, an attacker looks the most likely option IMO, especially with Boufal going and Long rumours about. We still lack pace in the midfield/attack.

Transfers don't work out, that is football, I get the feeling that many people on here are just waiting for any stick that allows them to beat the club with it. Odd attitude for people that are fans. It's not like the club don't know they f*cked up either, loaning Carillo out 6 months after signing him is a clear recognition of that. For every Mane there will be a Boufal, some players are talented but however much you watch them you won't know if they are going to cut it in the league. IMO this season's transfers have looked more like our old style of identifying targets, looking for up and coming talent from lesser leagues. We can also clearly afford some f*ck ups, as seen by spending £50 million 6 months after spending neartly £20 million on one useless player. I do like how we haven't played a league game yet but people are already writing off our signings and the whole squad.

^ Possibly, but some international defences are hardly stellar. It's like Ings though, in principle I have nothing against signing them to challenge say Austin/Gabbiadni, they both should offer more than Long, but we are looking at £15-20 million, maybe even more for either of these players. Both with bad injury records (and we already have Austin) and I feel that if we are going to spend £20 million on a striker/forward I'd prefer taking a risk on someone more likely on the way up, who is younger and might become a lot better than what we have currently. For example someone earlier in the thread mentioned Maxi Gomez who is a 21 year old Uruguayan from Celta who scored 18 goals last year in Liga, is 6' 1", apparently very good in the air, a natural finisher but a bit raw in his all round game. Or someone like Moussa Dembele from Celtic. If we got Ings or Wellbeck for like sub £10 million it would be more worth the risk, but I don't see either as obviously upgrading us or really likely to improve much, plus their injury records are a worry.

'Bigger club' is just playground nonsense IMO, it is meaningless in modern football. It's wages you pay, what league you play in (+ Europe) and whether you might things. Hence why we signed a main starting centre back from BMG, who finished 9th last season, were in the Champs league the year before and play in front of 50k every week. Premier League draw + more money in wages + TV money to pay big fees as if they are nothing. Ajax are one of the most successful clubs of all time, are famous across the world, play Champs League pretty much every season but I am pretty sure we could buy any of their players if we wanted because - 1. £20 million or whatever is huge income for them. 2. We can pay a player like £60 - 70k a week and they can't 3. Players want to play in the PL, largely because of 2 and because they might, if they play well get a move to a Chelsea/Utd/City etc. and earn £150k a week. That is the reality of modern football, especially PL football these days. Big fanbases and famous history means very little, just look at Leeds or Forest. If Lemina was to go to West Ham it is because they would pay him over a £100k a week and we wouldn't.

Yeh the media love in with Liverpool is tiring. I am sure when they fail to mount a decent title challenge with all that money spent they will all get the excuses out for why the mighty reds haven't won the league. Or they'll get excused because of net spend, recouping some £s by ditching their cast offs, which somehow excuses hundreds of millions of pounds of talent from failing because they recouped £15 million on Mingolet. I am not sure it will change until we get to a stage where most people in the industry were not alive in the 70s and 80s when they won everything.

It is that simple 'pal', we almost got relegated last year because we didn't win enough games because we didn't score enough goals. The attackers not scoring puts pressure on the whole team, look at the amount of late goals we conceded when up by 1 goal to throw wins away because we didn't score chances, the whole team is part of defending not just the nominated defenders and keeper, it's about keeping the ball and causing issues to opposition.

Charlie Austin to finish as 2nd highest English goalscorer. Mid table ish season for Saints with a few more goals either end.