Smirking_Saint

Completely agree, he probably isn’t ‘worth’ north of £30m in the CM market, given his age and niche skillset but ultimately he is, Id of thought, more valuable to us because despite what anyone says he was a galvanising influence

I dunno I saw enough I think, I also saw enough of the rest of the division to be confident… atleast confident enough that the three relegated sides genuinely do look better than this league, of course it was only taking the first results in isolation and you have to caveat it with the knowledge that the team will look different in a couple of weeks But im largely confident… I have concerns around a striker and potentially I think we play too much of a high line at times, but overall we were impressive imo

Said he was back training.. woukd be great if he is an option this year, but Ill be surprised if nobody comes in for him

I think we all hope that, im optimistic but we’ll of course see

It was a number of posts, and the club is committed to promotion apparently but we need a bit of realism.. has any club ever gone down and not had to lose first team players ? In fairness we’ve stood firm on all except JWP as far as our valuations are concerned, which was always the stated strategy, even Wilcox said as such So far, as I said previously, we’ve only lost players we knew we would (Orsic, Diallo, Salisu… soon to be Lavia/JWP) and we’ve extracted good value there… Tino was of course not one we thought we would lose, but at 40m it was probably sensible In return so far we’ve brought in last years best LB and Charles, who looks good but as far as balance is concerned we need to see how he turns out I am however starting to agree, we need bodies, particularly in CM and CB sooner rather than later

I genuinely don’t get any info on incomings whatsoever, I just hear bits and pieces from the training ground and on occasion stated board aims, like finances are available and we want to prioritise promotion etc… tbh a lot of the latter stuff is probably low value info and stuff they wouldn’t mind being made public Im not sure anyone is genuinely privvy to our transfer targets if Im honest, thats pretty highish level info

Did you come to that conclusion because we’ve signed an ex RM player and a City kid ? Groundbreaking stuff

Jesus christ

Fair points well made

Its not true… thats the point What mental gymnastics do you need to go through to come to a conclusion like that ?

Ive read some fucking stupid shit before, but the board actively avoiding getting promoted this year is well up there

He definitely has a contact at Staplewood

Ankerson double backed into our general running because he didn’t fully trust the old board members after summer AND the mess of Joe Shields Although he didn’t do a particularly great job, it wasn’t necessarily the plan Also the more I read that post the more it absolutely doesn’t tie in to any info Ive had, or anyone else around the club have had… for a start we very much are looking to be promoted this year, and the clubs trying to gear towards that… thats before the Ankerson stuff, most around the club are aware he only stepped in temporarily

I doubt they will this year, because Im not sure they can accommodate him ‘unless’ phillips moves

We’re not selling 10+ of our best players, its utter shite We knew we’d lose Lavia, Salisu, JWP.. probably KWP or Tino or both… potentially Che/Arma and maybe Tella/Sulemana… we’ve known this since the end of last season I don’t think anythings changed from our want to be promoted, as far as Im aware the players aren’t preparing to down tools etc.. a week ago or so was the moid was relaxed and the players liked Martin The players causing issues are gone, there are one or two that may be looking to move… but after that I doubt we’ll lose anybody unless real value is reached So long story short, we’ll see outgoings snd incomings in the next 2 weeks, its an obvious statement, but Im not buying into the bullshit Im hearing from a couple of posters on here this morning because frankly its at odds with what I heard and Id be baffled if theres been a significant mood change within a week

Im not entirely sure it is, for instance we stood strong with Tino and looks like we are with Lavia too, so not sure what changed with JWP.. I genuinely don’t know btw I just hope it was player pressure but I guess we’ll find out this week.. it’ll probably be done today tbh

Im genuinely not sure but it seems like, for some reason, we’ve gone from 40m to 30m which is a significant drop Id be dissapointed again if it’s literally just to enable a loan deal for Downes IF it doesn’t include a form of buy option but we’ll wait to see, thats the rumour anyway and it ties in with what we know about our interest In reference to the post about the loan system, generally I do agree, thats loans aren’t that great due to players not buying in etc but it is a good method to get out of the Championship, plenty have employed it before (forest for example). It does mean you then have to try to rebalance a squad IF you are promoted or even if you aren’t, but in the former case you almost have to anyway so Im not completely against bringing in a few good loans

The thing Im really concerned/confused at is our softening of our resolve around JWP Was it enforced on the players end ? Did we see more value in the sale rather than retaining him ? Are we getting a player in return ? Who knows 🤷‍♀️

With respect… we knew Lavia was going, we knew Salisu was going, we knew Tino or KWP were going and we knew JWP was going I am now genuinely dissapointed that we’ve not sorted our incomings quick enough But this isn’t any information that wasn’t previously around Its not rocket science to ‘guess’ that we’ll lose a number over the next weeks or so.. Id not expect ABK, Onuachu, Perraud and maybe not even kamaldeen to be here either

The CoT said you’d get rattled tbf

If we replaced him with Hamer Id absolutely lose my shit, incredible player at this level Can’t see it happening though

Exactly this… I don’t want him to go, I think it’ll be a mistake on our part.. understand it to a degree on his But don’t be all holy about saying goodbye, its not an enforced sale.. its a choice As per those saying he is only a middling premier league player, I think he is better than that, he is a highly technical 6/8 with an ever presence and world class set piece ability More so, he currently epitomises Saints… its a loss imo

Maybe I was being dramatic tbf 😂

So you didn’t really read what I said at all then ? What team would you have put out ?

I think there is a dramatic meltdown on here after, admittedly, a disastrous result last night aside.. thankfully we shouldn’t see much of that team moving forward As far as our first 11 is concerned I do think that overall us (and the other relegated teams) probably have too much strength.. Leeds and Leicester, and even us to an extent, had plenty of dominance in our games, we all just need to turn that into goals My real concern is depth, behind our first 11 CBs and CMs we’re not only short of quality but bodies in general