Saint Pete

So we come out of transfer window and Stephens back as first choice and captain. LOL! Oh well, it's not fair to forget that he did do a reasonable job for much of last season so let's hope for the best. Otherwise, a strong lineup, Manning rested so JWP fully on set piece duties!

The crazy fucked-up world of the top end of the Premier League now. Spend £25-30m on a senior player and then say you had enough cover already that you don't even need to pick them in your squad for the biggest competition! A real shame for him, especially with who they are playing as you say.

It could be something like that. It's an odd situation. What's for certain is Saints will have been more than keen to offload at least some of his wages by moving him on. He must still be one of, if not the, highest earners at the club so it's a disaster really from their point of view if he's still here, particularly after they have signed another quality keeper in Peretz for a fee and a significant wage. I can't believe there has been no interest at all in Ramsdale so (total guesswork on my part) I wonder whether there has been some reluctance from Ramsdale himself to explore or take up options to leave on loan this time for reasons unknown (his family situation might play into that)? If that were the case, what's going on now could perhaps be the club gently applying a boot to his backside to encourage him to take up any late offers from Saudi etc by telling him privately and now publicly that if he stays he won't be playing a meaningful role on the pitch for us? As I say, pure guesswork / conjecture on my part!

If he doesn't get a move and then Peretz picks up an injury that keeps him out a while, I can't imagine a scenario where we don't pick Ramsdale. You cannot realistically argue that Long is a better keeper than Ramsdale and it would be damaging to our chances of promotion to pick Long if we have a far better keeper sitting there doing nowt.

Well, folks on here have been arguing our options and depth in strikers is absolutely fine, so if that's true, why would the club choose to spend £5m+ add ons on another striker? Particularly as the view seems to be we needed to bank much of the cash from the outgoings against our debts.

I guess the worry with that is that we may not be there or thereabouts if Mubama doesn't cut it and we have left ourselves without enough suitable options to cover Larin until January, but let's hope for the best! On the positive side, Larin has by and large looked superb so far (with a bit of a dip on Tuesday) so if he avoids injury and we can find ways of keeping him fresh, we should have enough to at least be in contention, especially if we can continue to find goals amongst the rest of the team.

Agree with you, we do need to learn to feed him differently to Larin when he is on the pitch. I think he will do OK if we can do that. From a squad perspective though, it would feel a lot more comfortable if we had a viable stronger forward as backup too in case Larin gets injured and the team we are playing needs that type of player rather than the Mubama type. I'm not sure Prince is that guy based on his Salford record in League Two but let's see.

Well yes, in terms of the striker position, those who insist we are fine in terms of backup might want to consider why Saints were bidding £5m+£2m on deadline day for Charlton striker Mbick? Clearly, the club themselves thought we could do with one more as cover after all of the departures or they wouldn't have done that, no?

Hmmm, doesn't exactly scream "ready to play a role in a Championship promotion chasing team", does it?!

You do make some good points there, some of which make me feel a little better! I'm still nervous though with potential reliance on Dobbin to cover injuries or loss of form in Larin/Mubama as it feels like he is being badged as "all things to all men" at the moment. First, he was competition/cover for Azaz in the No.10 role, then when Edozie was mooted as leaving, it was OK as Dobbin can provide the cover in wide areas instead of him, and now he's our No.3 target man as well! He's trying to settle in at a new club which may take time and whilst versatility can be a valuable quality, I wonder if it would be better for him if Tonda decides what his best position is and then we stick with it and give him a proper chance to settle into the side in that role only rather than switching him round all over the place? I haven't seen enough of him yet though to know which position that should be. Other point is I still would feel more comfortable if we can find another striker with more physical presence to backup Larin, so it would be great if the academy lad can provide some of that in time.

Yes, like I said Saints protected their interests by waiting until the very last possible moment before offering him an extension (for the reasons that you state plus possibly that they weren't keen on triggering the extension in the event we were promoted?) And when we waited too long, he then looked after his own interests by seeking a longer deal, which Swansea (possibly stupidly) provided him. Not sure what the problem is there or why you are taking it so personally. "Loyalty" works both ways and in any case, I would have thought you would have worked out by now there isn't much of it about in football, particularly in the modern game! And by the way, I don't think he will be laughing about sitting in the treatment room again, I would imagine he will be gutted that more time is being lost in his career, no matter how much he is being paid.

... Yes, but the paragraphs are not usually mid-sentence! 😉

Yes, more than happy with Larin, he is up there with Zipotnik, Piroe, Jimenez, Lankshear, etc amongst the very best in this league. My point is about depth as Larin can't play every game and his good performances last season were arguably aided by having a good striker that could be rotated with him. Can't say I was "happy" with Archer, think the stats say he had 4 league goals, but worth pointing out he only had 11 starts (admittedly with a lot of sub appearances). That's not amazing but also not worthless for a 3rd option and compares fairly favourably with Mubama (2nd option this season) with 5 goals in 20 starts for Stoke. Of course, Mubama is young so let's hope we can bring him on this season from that, we certainly need to. I'm happy-ish with those 2, but I can't understand why we wouldn't want the extra insurance of a 3rd senior specialist option, which all of the other main contenders have. Some are touting Dobbin for that role so let's hope he can do that if needed, although it's interesting that the number of positions he is supposed to be covering has been expanding over the last week or so!

This one has been debated enough times. But pretty sure we also always had the option to trigger the extension at any earlier point, but we didn't do that for our own reasons. So each side did what they did to protect their own interests, fair enough, end of. In his case, he got a longer contract out of it, surely it's easy to see why he would want that security if someone would offer it given his injury record? The sympathy I have is on a human level, I would have same sympathy for any talented player who can't reach their full potential due to consistent injuries.

Yes, what we have is fine if we want to be an average Championship team somewhere in mid-table, potentially getting in the play-off positions. I thought our stated aim was to be challenging the top group that you list there though? Last season (back end) we had 2 strong "starter" specialist forwards in Larin and Stewart, with a viable (but not perfect) 3rd alternative offering something different in Archer. Could we not have achieved at least that to start this season?