HarvSFC

Last summer it looked like we had missed out on Brandon Williams, if reports were true. He ended up at newly promoted Norwich, got relegated and we ended up with a much better player in Tino Livramento. Hopefully, it's a repeat scenario.

JWP's skillset is irreplaceable for us. World-class free-kick taker, meaning they're always a threat and saw him finish as our top scorer. Ever reliable, never misses a game and never hides away and he won us the game against Tottenham away last season with two quality assists, showing that he's capable and it's perhaps the lower quality forwards which are the issue. Additionally, we've seen in years gone by, Tottenham pissing up the Bale money, us pissing up the VvD money and most recently Aston Villa pissing up the Grealish money and regressing, despite netting £100m and making good signings on paper with reports a year later of them looking to sell Ings and Buendia, while Bailey was also disappointing. So, there'd be a huge risk and we'd need to replace 10 goals, which aren't going to come from anybody else currently in the squad, so the new signings would need to be a success. Of course £75m would be a massive windfall for us, but in the long run we could end up losing £100m+ if we weren't to get the signings right and lost our Premier League status, so that's the gamble.

He lasted 38 matches at Stoke, one Premier League season, won 6 matches, drew 15 and lost 17, spending relatively big money on dross like Afobe, Woods, Batth and Vokes. I'd avoid him at the moment. He's the main man at Luton and it works for him and he's got them punching well above their weight, but he was well out of his depth at Stoke. There's definitely better out there and our manager's one of them.

I remember in my teenage years being on the BBC 606 forum. I think the poster's username was 'RocketSwain' and he would pretend to be itk each transfer window and I was fully sold on believing him and thinking we were signing Matt Holland, Sam Sodje, Wade Elliott, Brian Stock and Sam Vokes every summer. Elliott's now the favourite to take over at Cheltenham, so give it a few years and the cycle can recommence.

If we can hold onto JWP, KWP and Salisu this summer with the help of selling players such as Bednarek, then I'm all for it.

Looks like an easy clicks article to me. West Ham interested in £75m player, every West Ham fan is going to click. The article then says West Ham are unlikely to actually be able to sign him. We'd probably be "definitely interested" in Rice too. West Ham get linked to everyone with a pulse, only way they'd be able to afford JWP on top of the new CB and reportedly Broja is if they sell Rice and if they lose their star player then they're in the same bracket as Aston Villa were last summer when they were unsuccessful in getting JWP. When the top 6 get linked, I'll worry.

First time I've seen that 4-0, and we signed Keller after that? 😮 Even if it was an emergency.

Yep, first transfers of the last nine years: Theo Walcott - (July 1st 2021) Kyle Walker-Peters - (August 11th 2020) Che Adams, Moussa Djenepo, Danny Ings - (July 1st 2019) Stuart Armstrong, Mohamed Elyounoussi - (July 1st 2018) Jan Bednarek - (July 1st 2017) Nathan Redmond - (July 1st 2016) Juanmi, Cedric, Maarten Stekelenburg - (July 1st 2015) Dusan Tadic - (July 8th 2014) Dejan Lovren - (June 14th 2013) So, there were many July 1sts in there, but of course they were just the first transfers. For example, Livramento, Armstrong, Lyanco and Broja all came in August last summer. Livramento played 45 minutes of a pre-season friendly before the season, Armstrong and Broja joined four days before the season's start and Lyanco joined two matches into the season. So, essentially, only Perraud and Walcott got a pre-season of our new signings last year. It's a difficult task asking players to adapt to the Premier League in normal circumstances, but we've been putting them right in at the deep end and looking for them to sink or swim. Livramento and Broja swam, while Armstrong sunk. This summer, it looks as though we're acting like a football club again. We've got football people at the top now, which again is against the norm, as usually football owners are disengaged businessmen these days, so we've gone from one extreme in Gao to the other and I'm liking what I'm seeing so far. New coaching team, a new head of recruitment and from the outside looking in it very much looks like we've got a list of targets this summer and we're going out and getting them in, early, which is the polar opposite of what we've been seeing as fans for the last how many years. Get the young players in, give them a full pre-season to learn their teammates and what systems we want to play and allow them to thrive. This is the start of a new era and hopefully it's a successful one, even though it never is simple when Southampton's involved.

It’s weird signing players who come with very high reviews (Bazunu and this centre-back). I’m too used to Lyanco esque signings, where we get to read all about how nobody rates him. Exciting start to the summer for sure. As I said yesterday, this is the first summer in nine years where we’ve signed players before July.

Was the centre-back he picked up from us last summer any good? If so, bring him back too!

At his best he looked like a complete Premier League striker and was only going to get better with him being only 20, running at defenders at every opportunity, beating them for pace and skill, scoring goals that he created himself. But, at his worst, he was a waste of a shirt, couldn't win a single aerial duel, couldn't hold the ball up the field and wasn't particularly effective at the press, which Ings was underrated for. Ings scored a couple of goals through closing down the goalkeeper, whereas Broja would just stop and give them all the time in the world to pick out a pass. With that inconsistency, I guess it's the risk you get with signing a 20 year old and we simply didn't have anyone else to take him out of the firing line, whereas West Ham can fall back on an Antonio, who may be pushed back into a squad role as he isn't firing as much these days. Thought Broja had scored more than six league goals to be fair, but West Ham and Craig Dawson in particular saw the best of him. I wouldn't be surprised if David Moyes improves his aerial game, either. Certainly a loss to us and one that needs replacing.

He doesn’t drop kick cats.

The previous time we signed a player before July 1st and prior to this summer was Dejan Lovren (14th June 2013). Surely, we can’t make it three? 😮 Forget no holds barred, this is unprecedented to give new signings a full pre-season.

The biggest selling point is that he bottled an FA Cup quarter-final because Poland were playing the week after. No excuses for that. He's going to want to stay fit before the World Cup too and with it coming mid-season who knows what matches he'll be available for.

It’s new to us, signing players with no hope of making our first team, and it is a bit of a shame not getting excited by a new transfer, but Man City, Watford and Brighton have been doing this for a few years now, it’s normal for a group led club.

Isak was the first name that came into my head, he'd be a dream signing, but no chance Sociedad loan him to us with him being their first choice striker. He's one of those currently in between our level and the top six with the potential of moving to the top. On Salisu watch, he's on a training camp as per his Instagram. Usually when players that do this and want to leave their current club, they don't wear the attire of that club. He was wearing the Southampton training kit yesterday. Although, it's just Nike today, so don't read too much into it. 😂 I think Newcastle are firmly focussed on Botman now though, who, I'm always gutted we missed out on when he went to Lille from Ajax. Another one that shows the deals are out there if our scouting is any good and now we can be a bit more flexible with our money.

Could be a good one, 22, played in the Champions League and a full international. Played for a top club, not quite made it, but shown enough previously to be picked up and play for a club of Bayern Munich's stature. Like a Bertrand/Romeu signing, but they don't always come off as you do also get a Lemina, although, he didn't fail here because of a lack of talent. I believe our last signing from Bayern was Hojbjerg and despite in my opinion him being the definition of average, a consistent 6/10, we did make a small £3m profit on him. (Due to contract and him not wanting to go to Everton).

The run of Bournemouth, Newcastle, Nottingham Forest, Fulham and Brighton at the end is favourable. I guess you could even hope Arsenal have one of their off days and Palace prior to include those in the run. You’d just hope whatever we’re playing for doesn’t go down to the last game, and if it does then Liverpool need to be on their metaphorical beach, resting players before a Champions League final.

One thing about Henderson going on loan to Forest, would be that they would then only be able to take Garner back on a permanent from United. A player we’ve been linked with this summer and you would hope we would be moving for were he to become available.

Very good move from Forest. Henderson was a large part of why Sheffield United finished 9th in the league. Replaced by Ramsdale who turned into a £30m goalkeeper after finishing bottom.

Feed Kane and he scores 9 times out of 10. My problem is, is that Southgate has had 6 years working with these players and still, if you were a casual football fan, who only watched international tournaments you would think that Kane was a make a wish winner. Southgate's never got the best from our best, despite a golden boot win which saw Kane score just the one goal in open play, which was a deflection against Panama. Too much focus is on the defence, and fortunately we've had Pickford putting in some heroics, as that defence isn't, but if you put Ramsdale in, you get pummelled, as we did tonight. On another note, Ryan Giggs is the manager of Wales, but hasn't managed a game since November 2020.

Vincent Kompany taking charge at Burnley, so they're likely to have first call on the Man City youngsters, although links have seemingly gone quiet there with us.

I’m guessing we didn’t sign that midfielder from Cheltenham who was on trial with us around the same time as we signed Armitage?

I like reminiscing and the other week I looked at the 2014-15 Premier League table to remind myself that we once finished 7th. I know we finished higher and did better the following season, but that's not relevant to this little tid bit. What is, is that the clubs who finished 8th and 9th in 2014-15 were Swansea and Stoke. Following this, Swansea and Stoke made a string of errors, appointing the wrong managers in Paul Clement, Paul Lambert and Bob Bradley, a number of costly transfers in Berahino, Bojan, Wimmer, Imbula, Borja Baston and Renato Sanches, while not replacing stars sufficiently like the one currently at Everton, Bony, Michu and Arnautovic. Now, both are firmly lodged in the mid-table mediocrity of the Championship. Just goes to show how quickly everything can fall apart up here and while we have made many mistakes over the last few years, we have also done extremely well to maintain our top tier status. I know some say that they prefer when we were in the Championship and League One, but that was when we were winning most weeks. The seasons post the play-offs under George Burley and Jan Poortvliet were far worse than this when we tried to hype the signings of Lee Molyneux and Ryan Smith to name but a couple, and that's the danger that comes with relegation. Watford and Norwich, I'm sure are also sick of being yo-yo teams, despite having one season every other year of celebrations. It's very hard to come back up and establish yourselves these days, given the disparity in finances and while we're up here we still have the potential of signing the next superstar, or even bringing them through and not having to let them go at the first instance like we had to with Walcott, Bale and Oxlade-Chamberlain before (although we still do give it a go). The longer we're up here, the longer our gap against Portsmouth increases too, and that's what I take delight in. We're at the top table, yes we may lose to Arsenal, Leicester, West Ham, etc. But, it's a damn sight better than losing to Stevenage, Accrington and Harrogate.