david in sweden

.....which (in theory) makes him more saleable and can leave with a better salary level (at an eventual new club).

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....the infinite number of possible problems that can occur with injuries, suspensions and loss of form cannot be ignored. It seems that NA believes in both belt and braces and with a fixed squad to choose from it does no harm to have an extra face. Survival is an absolute priority and challenge for a top six (Euro spot) needs extra resources and so we need all the back-up we can get. NOTE; Last season Redknapp had FIVE top strikers to choose from at Spurs...and they still struggled to make a Euro spot...

deleted-too late.

agree totally, but most importantly, pre-seasons aren't just about "bonding" as a unit, it's giving the 17 year-olds a test against senior/professional players who don't play the game at Youth team level, and won't flinch in a tackle either. Even a fierce, but friendly pre-season warm-up is nowhere near the standard of a full-blooded Premier League game where three points /and /or survival issues are most important.

An interesting thread .in some ways....but it's still not clear to me what the question really is? You can't have a plan B,C, D ........X,Y, Z according to who the player is. There are clearly a list of; potential / possible / likely targets, most of whom are kept tight-lipped between the coaching staff, scouts and manager. After that it's down to the job of whittling down the " list " to best candidates. How long such deals take to mature /or /fail might take months....rather than weeks if it's someone you are trailing. example; T. Lee, Billy Sharp. What is clear is that NA wants a certain type of player (namely skilful / talented "home-based players" between 18-25 with some league experience who are teachable /open to being coached to do better). This depends a lot of mental attitude /and their enthusiasm to play at SMS, and the impression they give with their body language / reponses. I think this may have been the downfall of a few transfer targets in the past. There is little room for "prima-donnas" who want the team to work for their glory, but everyone must consider themselves "a first team squad player " - even if they have to spend half-a-season on the bench. a further category is the older /experienced " father figure/role model " for these younger players who play with and help encourage them on the pitch. KD is one such, as (I believe) Steven Davis will become in time. Although nowhere near the same accomplishments ...SD seems destined for the type of role Alan Ball took on when he joined Saints in 1976 (then aged 31). HOWEVER; all of this falls by the wayside if the player's club, the player himself / his agent / 3rd party gets greedy and wants more than we are willing to commit...and there have certainly been more than a few of these over the years. Most importantly -even if all of these above categories are not fully met, it's down to how they fit in the dressing room. A bad apple doesn't get riper...........

we've reached the halfwaypoint in the Swedish season, (15 games) and as usual the break around Midsummer (this time extended by the Euros) has upset a bit of form. A month ago, Elfsborg were 9 points ahead of the second placed club, and decided to give a run-out to their second string keeper with disasterous results when they went down 1-4 away to Åtvidaberg.. (who have recovered some of their early season form). Elfsborg then proceeded to lose their next game, when despite taking the lead (goal by Anders Svensson- who turned 36 this week ) but they finally lost the game when the opposition's 16 y.o. sub scored in the 90th minute. A bit of a comedown for Elfsborg who were maybe a bit over-confident after their prev. weeks' jaunt when they put 8 past their part-time Cypriot opponents in the Champions League Qualififying round. Malmo and Helsingborg have hit good form, and are close behind Elfsborg in 2nd/3rd spots and pressing hard. The joke about "Swedish equality" has been taken too far as almost every other game seems to end in a draw with former "giants" like Stockholm's Djurgården, and Gothenburg wallowing in mid-table having drawn more than half their matches, and finding goals hard to come by. At the bottom end of the table...even the worst of the rest have drawn clear of the bottom clubs Örebro and GAIS, who together with Gefle, have only managed 5 wins between them, and looked doomed for the drop already. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The top three sides in the Superettan (Npc) are setting a real pace and beginning to distance themselves from the rest of their division. If they continue to hold their form, they'll be the obvious replacements for those in the drop zone.

..it's the " frustration factor "that is the real problem. It's one thing to use a word in (anger/frustration) but another issue if you aim the comment at someone in particular. Spontaneous reactions often cause problems -especially if you don't know who is in earshot. The biggest problem may well be those players with limited vocabulary, and the rest is swear words. It will take a sensible ref. to decide when to book and when to turn the "other ear ". There are enough stoppages in games at present we don't need more excuses to stop the flow of play.

.and so do I.......but KDs stand-in must be an experienced keeper (preferably with international caps).

this is totally fabricated by someone who has no perspective about price. or club knowledge. How can Sharp be worth £4 mill, and Lambert only £3 mill?.......and £4 mill.for Jay Rod (!)..when we just paid £6 mill for him!. I like the layout is OK but the info. totally irrelevant.

one interesting question is.....does anyone know who hasn't travelled with the squad? . Is it really the entire playing staff?

oh no they don't - you'd be surprised at the amount of foreigners who struggle with Tourist English - T. Lee can probably manage some basic daily chat, but every new expression he hears will need translating for a while at least. Football terminology may be simple for you , but how do you think it sounds in Japanese? I recall hearing about some of the Swedish players who had trouble understanding Gordon Strachan in the beginning....the funny thing was that some of the English players had the same problem.

.and you're quite right. A good rule of thumb is.....if a player is in the right league for his talent- 0.3 goals per game is about average..anything approaching 0.5 is really quite good. Very few players achieve better than 0.6 goals/per game.

Agree. Will spend some time on the bench I'm sure, but could be one of NA's " impact players " next season.

after the John Terry case...it looks as though the FA is about to embark on a new witch hunt against the use of foul and abusive language. Not that I am against that in principle. As a teacher of English for many years, I have always pointed out to clients and students the background to some of the words thay have picked up - mainly from TV/movies - and freely use without actually comprehending their real meaning. Obviously some words like bl***y and f**k have a history dating back to the Middle Ages and have grown up with the language, and needless to say many people - not least footballers - may have grown up in a home/school environment where such language is commonplace...and an " accepted " form of communication. It's not easy to suddenly re-educate someone who has an established form of speech which is short of adjectives and dominated by expletives in every sentence. I've met quite a few such people ...over a period of many years, and my wife has the bad fortune to have a colleague (a pleasant enough and cheerful guy) who freely uses swear words that he picked in his military service decades ago. The prospect of eliminating bad language from the tense atmosphere of an important Premier League game, when a lot of off-the-ball incidents can go unnoticed, sounds like an extra challenge for referees who still can't award a goal every time but are now expected to listen for abusive language from a similar distance. ....and will a player who has been illegally brought down for a penalty and expressed his feelings in strong language be suddenly red-carded before he has the chance to take the justifiable penalty that follows? Even if we can say that we don't (normally) swear - what is your reaction if ; you hit your thumb with a hammer...someone knocks your drink over in the pub, or another driver cuts you up on the motorway? Ouch !.or silly fool ?..and what exactly "qualifies " itself as a swear word. I'm sure the Mods on here have to make individual judgements in some cases, but will the FA now issue all match officials with a list of forbidden utterances....in multiple languages....as we have so many foreign players nowadays ? Will managers in future have to analyse the vocabulary of potential signings before paying out several millions in transfer fee for fear of having the player suspended every other week, for what was....years ago...called " violence of the tongue " Many times I have heard " bad language " coming from the crowd, and even on occasions.. from the bench...will there now be new rules for this too? I for one do not condone swearing, though I have to admit, that...in the heat of the moment....I don't always count to 10 before expressing my innermost feelings. I can only hope that referees - especially those fond of cautioning players a lot....can use some common sense when interpreting some utterances in different situations, otherwise a number of teams may find themselves finishing matches with less than 11 players on the pitch - on a regular basis.

I certainly recall David Chadwick, who I actually met on a number of times during his spell with Saints. Considering the number of foreign players we've talked about on various threads, David must be the only player we've had who was born in INDIA (!) where his British father was an officer on wartime service in 1943. He signed for Saints as an amateur aged 16, and became the youngest-ever reserve player at that time. A capable, two-footed player he was equally at home on either wing, David often vied for a first team place with the equally-diminutive Harry Penk on those occasions when John Sydenham was on Army service or Terry Paine was sick/under suspension. He was a skilful winger with a turn of pace and good at centres, but unfortunate to always be understudy for the emerging Paine - who was a few years older, and already beginning to carve out his England career. David was unlucky to break a leg and by the time he was fit, Ted Bates had settled for the wing duo of Paine and Sydenham and he was confined to Reserve duty for the rest of his career with only a handful of games each season to show for his efforts. He made a remarkable 171 apps. for the Reserves but eventually moved on when (at age 23) he failed to " make the cut " after the 1966 promotion - to be replaced by David Thompson - and fell by the wayside (along with Reserve stalwarts like Norman Dean and Terry Spencer)... and left for a new career with Middlesbrough ...with only 20-odd first team games for his almost 7 years service to Saints. I recall he later moved to USA where he took up various coaching jobs. Another case of a player unable to make his real mark against TWO superior team mates.

£3.5 million sounds a bit much, but £1.5 million isn't to be sniffed at either. If it were to go to a Tribunal there's always the chance that Palace might get awarded less.

who knows what managers do .. Lawrie Mac signed Charlie George with a dodgy knee, and 'appy 'arry brought his son Jamie on for 30 mins. every game.....both cost us an arm and a leg at the time but neither of them proved able to get over their injury problems.

.or a German agent representing a Polish player ...have we had that possibility yet ?

that green stuff looks nice. Is it a carpet or really only grass?

This must be down to the naivety that exists in the media. Because we paid out £6 million for one player, they seem to assume we are bidding the same (or more ) for everyone we are linked with. Typical of the way the media/agents work. I very much doubt if we are likely to pay out anywhere near that sum again -so soon... for buying someone else's fringe player / reject / stand-in ...UNLESS we are to see a really " big name " international signing, in which case we'll get him for free / next-to nothing, and pay the guy BIG wages instead.

I'm pretty sure that everyone at SMS isn't working on the same project all at once. Most likely one (group) making decisions on goalies, another deciding on a new CB ...or two There must certainly be some more activity on extra midfielders, but it's hardly good PR to announce two or three signings all at once - even if they all came to a conclusion at the same time. (not very often). It's nice to dwell on a new signing for a day or two... .and then wait for the next one. Recalling some recent info that's come to light in player interviews... T.Lee was (apparantly) over visiting SMS last Autumn and it was only the timing of his OOC and our transfer window that came togerther at the same time . Jay Rod said he made his mind up to sign ..whilst on holiday in Mexico (!) ...and apparantly Buttner has been at SMS a few times and was impressed enough to go out in the media(in Holland) and say he wanted to join Saints. Unfortunately the British media take it on themselves to decide on which player will join which club ...and for what fee....doen't make life easier !

beginning to feel similar to Celtic manager Neil Lennon's comment on Rangers going out of SPL. It will feel strange not having them around, and there won't be the pressure on (us) to win in a derby game, but to have them disappear altogether is a bit sad.

nice analysis Kraken, .......but your list omits Tommy Forecast ....once tipped by the Spurs as a future Engalnd keeper.....WOW !

Mmm. . if that's your input...have you ever thought of becoming a teacher of Englsih, then ?