Saint Fan CaM

Not sure it’s overstating homesickness as such. I do think however that trying to second guess a young persons general mental state is impossible if you don’t know them intimately and somewhat fruitless. If the lad wants to stay with us then he will, providing the contract offered is of sufficient worth - if it’s not then it will be a decision only him and his parents will be able to fathom at the time with all the available options in front of them. As others have stated, there’s a lot of window to go to accumulate those options, one of which might be waiting to see if Saints will retain other decent players such as Fernandes etc.

I should add that the one ex-poster that often made me laugh out loud was The Bear (or was it just Bear?), so for comedic value he/she/they gets my vote.

Meh…

He’s being somewhat premature yes, however the clock is ticking…the next two weeks are extremely important and indicative of whether Still will be supported properly by SR or the worst of last seasons crop of misfits are deemed good enough to mount some kind of challenge. I don’t blame anyone feeling doubtful that there’ll be the necessary squad improvements - SR have previous.

Right, you’re a giver not a taker. Got it. So in the unlikely event that we socialised you’d have no hesitation buying me a beer - I like that. 😉

That may be, but it doesn’t answer the question. Your statement means you have defined what a ‘good poster’ is, at least for yourself. What does that look like? Do you consider yourself a good poster for example? I’m genuinely interested in understanding your perspective.

Highly likely. Nevertheless I'd still enjoy knowing who has Turkish’s favour (other than CoT fanboys). 😉

I’d be interested to know what your definition of a ‘good poster’ is and whether it matched others interpretation’s.

Money is the common denominator to success in an AI driven recruitment approach but with more risk. If you’re a Prem club, you’re trading around the M&S+ standard of player markets and you’ll likely get a decent buy. If you’re in the Championship you’re trading around the Lidl centre aisle of player trading markets and the chances of getting a fucking unreliable piece of garbage increases greatly. Below the Championship you’re in street trader territory, but it matters less because quality is less of an issue.

Depends I guess. If they’re just needed to do a bit of low risk player trading for Goztepe or VAFC then they’ll probably do OK. Try and get a relatively decent striker for Saints and I’m not so sure. No need to panic yet, but there’s not much to rejoice about at the moment. I’m wondering if the extent of joy we’ll experience might be reserved for the end of the window with the retention of Fernandes and Charles.

Can’t quite fully iterate it yet, but I’m starting to get a nasty feeling that SR have not really learnt lessons and this season will be another shitshow because Still will not get the backing he needs. There’s a long way to go yet, but there’s a huge gap in confidence these chancers have to make up.

Maybe, but therein is the problem - it’s not in his natural gift to play that way and will revert to type as soon as he loses concentration/will/heart. A decent player, but not necessarily one Still could trust a the heart and spine of his team.

If we’re anywhere near this I’m hoping it’s Ankerson / SR doing the dealing. If our recruitment team are getting tied up with this kind of bonkers trading then it’s clear lessons have not been learnt and Dragan/Spors don’t deserve our support.

If Wednesday manage to keep hold of Rohl I think he keeps them up. Unless they get a points deduction for not paying players that is…then all bets are off.

Great to see that our best striker Che Adams put in an impressive performance and scored a hat trick for Scotland today - what’s that…we released him when? Oh…

Thinking a Stewart and Armstrong partnership could work ok if there was any chance that we’d play two up front, so not sure about losing AA. Having said that there are probably better suited players out there if the budget allows a decent signing.

Surprised to see Abu leave on a free - thought he looked a good prospect. Perhaps it’s a potent for whats to come in terms of many so-so players from the 1st team? Let’s hope so.

Anyone remember when the released list deadline is…can’t be too long now?

Don’t see anything particularly outstanding about this guy, especially at the price tag mentioned.

Definitely one of my favourites of all time. The caption for me would be… ”…and stay down you f*cker!”.

Fixed it for you…😉

Yes unfortunately I have to agree that overall Aribo is not of the quality we require to improve the 1st team to match Still’s methods. I think he’s good enough to be a bench warmer, however his salary is probably not conducive to a bit part role. While he’s not got the engine to operate forwards or in a box to box role, he does understand the game and sometimes that can be a big positive in a more defensive setting. With other more pressing player exits such as Manning, he would be one of the last out the door.

Standard, but the least of our problems right now mate.

See that’s a problem - cost is not necessarily the same as value. A £20m player can be priced as such because of a number of factors. And there are times when we’ve arguably had our pants pulled down in terms of player cost - e.g. Sulemana @ circa £20m. Then if the main positive attributes of said player do not match the job he’s required to execute then value is diminished and if that is duplicated across various areas, team cohesion is shot. I bet we’ll see Championship clubs with a much lower priced squad, but holistically fitness is at a peak and the players are invested in the manager whose system suits that key attribute of the team. We will lose at least once to a ‘lower priced’ team like this and be left blaming various factors like ‘crisp packet hands’ etc, but VALUE will largely get forgotten. It would be interesting to make a cost versus value comparison for each of our players from this last season - take Dibling, allegedly would cost a suitor £100m, however Saints fans might agree that realistically we might achieve a maximum £50m and yet his value has been more akin to £5m this season in terms of useful return. In short this is why it is imperative for sentimentality to be given a back seat in this window and unsuitable/unstable/unworthy players shown the door pronto (or put out to garden leave). It’s potentially going to be a tougher season than many on here will be expecting IMHO, especially if Still/Spors do not act carefully in the window.

Tell you what, I’ll know if SR have turned things around when… (a) I see an improved team sheet for match one of the new season (i.e. circa 40% plus of last seasons team replaced and improved upon) and (b) after 15 minutes of play I’m confident that Still has coached ‘Russball’ out of existence (i.e. we’re a threat going forwards and we’ve had at least two shots on target). Actions speak louder than platitudes and stats.