HarvSFC

Belgian Alex Crook, isn't he? Had little clue about the Lavia move last summer and occasionally links us to a random player playing in Belgium that comes to nothing and gets no mention from the reliable people on Twitter.

I'd have said Ugochukwu would be competing with Aribo and this is Smallbone's competition. All barring Smallbone hopefully able to cover Downes in a time of a need also. Our last transfer from Sporting Lisbon was Cedric and he was a bit crap despite having an incredible agent. Hopefully this turns out better. Our only other dealings with Sporting were for a defender named Marco Almeida, but he was before my time. His Wikipedia page reads: "After impressing in pre-season friendlies he made his first-team debut as a 71st-minute substitute for Claus Lundekvam in a Premier League match against Arsenal at the Dell, on 19 September 1999: within eight minutes, he was alongside fellow substitute Thierry Henry just outside the Southampton area, when the latter received a pass from Tony Adams. He stumbled while trying to clear the ball, allowing Henry to wrap his foot around the ball and send a rocket of a shot into the far corner of the Southampton net, in what was the Frenchman's first goal in English football. Although Almeida made a few appearances for the Saints' reserves, including scoring in a 2–2 draw with Chelsea on 22 September 1999, he was never again called into the main squad and, in December, the loan was cancelled."

I like this, hopefully the club is thinking of building the squad in a similar way, as beyond the starting 11 we are quite light, not in numbers, but in quality. But, there is always one position that gets neglected at the end of every window. For the last few it has been striker and goalkeeper, before that it was full-backs and wingers. I've never heard of this Fernandes before this evening, but he does smell like a SR, Rasmus Ankersen punt signing who we hope we can turn a profit on. And, these signings haven't been too successful in the recent past. Russell Martin's also shown during his time here that he likes and trusts a certain profile of player and has no issues leaving a player out if they don't fit that profile/play the system well even if they have signed for big money like Charles, Onuachu and Sulemana. Does a 20 year old from Portugal fit the profile? We'll see. Either way, lets hope that the club have learned from two years ago and aren't expecting Fernandes to be an instant success in the Premier League. He should be a rotation option at this moment in time in his career and we still need to add the experience. The dream for the end of the window is O'Riley and Ramsdale. Anything else is a bonus and hopefully Fernandes is one of those bonuses. I guess Adam Blackmore did say that we wanted both Carvalho and O'Riley before the former moved to Brentford, so hopefully this is our Carvalho alternative. O'Riley's clearly been a top target for us this summer, Martin knows him already and Brighton and Atalanta have been two of the best recruiters in world football in recent times, so if they were after him...

That was actually encouraging. Expected an onslaught, but we went toe to toe with Newcastle, a team with far greater resources than us, even when they had 11 men. The first half was a lot more encouraging than the second, but that's because Newcastle sat on and defended the 1-0, slowing the game down at all opportunities. Maybe our tactics do look worse when a team sits back against us and we struggle to break them down and play too slow, whereas when a team comes at us, we can play it around them, hence why we beat Leeds three times. Either way, it would have been a lot harder to attract players of any quality had we been embarrassed today as we still have a few more gaps to fill. Add Lesley, a goalkeeper and hopefully Archer comes good after he's had his first training session to today's team and we look a lot more competitive. Onto the performances - Positives, Smallbone stepped up, much to my surprise. Downes ran the midfield, like he did in the Championship, didn't think he'd be as good as he was today in the Premier League. KWP is just a class above everybody else in the team, the way he glides past the opposition and plays through balls, he needs to be kept, as while Sugawara looks like a ready made replacement, Taylor coming in on the other side is quite the downgrade. Onto Sugawara, he looked excellent today. Glided past Hall to get him booked and win a free kick in a good area and played in an excellent cross that BBD really should have scored from. Been a while since we had a full-back who can put in a good cross. Harwood-Bellis, made the step up look easy and Aribo pleasantly surprised me in the middle. Negatives, obviously the predictable McCarthy howler and then non-effort to save the shot. See the one Pope made against Adam Armstrong, not a single goalkeeper at our club makes that save and that's what we need in this league and what we've been calling for, for years now. The set-pieces, Smallbone was good in the middle, but his delivery from set-pieces is severely lacking and they are also a vital weapon to have for teams battling at the bottom. I'd also say BBD was a slight negative today. He's very busy, but he didn't have any composure when it mattered. Hopefully it's just a case of him trying a bit too much in an attempt to get one over the Newcastle fans. He did remind me a bit of Jay Rodriguez when he first came, so hopefully he goes the same way. Either way, that was a lot better than watching the opposition pass around a bunch of traffic cones like we saw every week two years ago, so that was encouraging. Newcastle are one of the league's better teams, we aren't finishing above them and we made them look quite ordinary. A few more quality additions and we can have a competitive eleven. Also, maybe this is the season Everton do drop...

Jacob Murphy still starts for them? Would be a shame if he picked up an injury today.

Think he'll take Aribo's place in the team, which is needed and yeah, could throwback to the days of having Schneiderlin/Wanyama protecting the defence with Downes and Ugochukwu instead. Unfortunately, the previous Les didn't believe in loaning players without an option to buy, but the loan market is definitely one where we can get players who are too good for us and all the noise around this bloke is that he is. If he helps keep us up, he earns us millions.

Looking like it's five million to upgrade Mara, happy days. Archer was part of the England Under-21s team that won it and captained by THB, so a link there. He scored the third goal in the 3-0 semi-final win over Israel. A front three, if we adapt our formations depending on the match of Brereton-Diaz - Archer - Armstrong is so dynamic with lots of movement and pace. I'm quite excited by it on paper. At times last season we were predictable to defend against and that's because we didn't have many runners/movement. Everyone was admiring their pass and stayed static and Adams for his strengths, really struggled with his movement, especially when in the box, wasn't really ever on his toes, or mobile enough. Of course, if it does go tits up this season, then these three have all proven that they can score for fun in the Championship. I'm looking forward to those over the top balls we've been playing a few times in pre-season and last season going to a more pacier front man now. His Sheffield United loan didn't go well, but maybe the style of Heckingbottom and Wilder didn't suit him. Carrick's tactics are much more similar to Martin's and he was a success at Middlesbrough and has shown he knows how to find the back of the net.

Definitely a risk, but I think every striker we could afford was always going to be. Shown he's had talent before and at least scored a few goals already in the Premier League, now up to us to get him to reach that potential. Definitely more mobile than Adams, isn't the holding the ball up type and has the ability to run with the ball, which many of our current lot lack. He was a good finisher at Middlesbrough. Has a good celebration also, as it links to his surname. Wonder if Villa will include a buy back in this deal. Wait days for any reliable rumours and two come in one evening from a great source!

Hmmm. Only two loan spots, goalkeeper and striker the priority, but a Downes alternative is/was also very much necessary this summer. Don't know too much about him, shame there isn't a buy option, but if he's a success here he may not want to go back and sit behind the thousands of other Chelsea midfielders and they'll probably sign five more next summer.

"Ross Stewart is nearly in contention and Adam Lallana is nearly back" Get ready to hear this every week.

Considering Ankersen's brother runs TransferRoom, which claims: We sure do find it hard to find buyers for our players and from our signings, I don't think we're being "exposed to as many relevant options".

Why do other clubs take medicals seriously? Probably Hamer.

Could potentially add Neto to this list depending on what Bournemouth do and he would be the one to get, just as they took advantage of signing Boruc.

No more Garth Crooks team of the weeks. Not that it was actually him picking the team and writing up the articles, just something created to get clicks. It's now being associated with one of the biggest egos in the game - Troy Deeney. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/cn5r72k2z44o

Probably better to do these in the first international break in September. Everything important is just speculation still, at this point. Can get away with answers like it's fine McCarthy making those mistakes in pre-season, but we've all been here before in season. Might get a bit more honesty/openness on the transfer front too, as we don't want to be playing our cards with so many days still left, but afterwards could find out why certain deals didn't materialise and why certain players left. Anyway, here's the Blackmore/Martin left-back moment: https://x.com/SaintsSocialite/status/1823061662825377936 Also, didn't get any of the main individuals from SR for this one. We got employees of SR, like when Gao was in charge, may have been more insightful to hear from them and what their long-term plans are still. The below did pop up on Twitter today with Ankersen speaking to Goztepe fans again. Maybe he could do with some media training so that he doesn't keep alienating the other two clubs owned in the group. https://x.com/JustSaints_/status/1823032330673340476

The Greek player's stats other than last season are pretty poor at both club and international level and we've been stung a few times by these one season wonders reverting to type, especially when they join the Premier League. No chance we should be spending over £20m on him. We were linked to a similar Greek player three years ago in Giorgos Giakoumakis, who had one breakout season in the Eredivisie and in 2024 he's playing in Mexico. If he does sign we really need to hope that our scouting and recruitment has improved from recent years.

https://streamin.me/v/7a2f1d32 Here's the goal, Che will not be used to attacking at pace.

Beach, the goalkeeper who left us for Chelsea is appearing on that graphic of their hundreds of players lately. 20 years old and just joined Crawley on loan. Jimmy Joseph Jack John James Morgan doesn't even make that Chelsea graphic, behind their hundreds of strikers. He's 18 and they've signed 18 year old Marc Guiu from Barcelona for their first team this summer and Samu Omorodion is joining from Atletico Madrid, 20 years old and £35m. So, he's got some tough competition. Whereas, if he was any good, he'd definitely be getting a look in ahead of Mara now. Max Alleyne is getting much, if any of a look in at City, either, now 19. Dibling came back and he's now looking likely to feature in the first game against Newcastle following a strong pre-season. We haven't get much of a pathway here anymore, but there are still more opportunities for first team football here, if the player has the talent to breakthrough.

Now starts the links with the European footballers. I don't believe Sugawara and BBD, although started in England are the only talented and affordable players looking to play in the Premier League from Europe. We just need an actual scouting department for once.

Adam Blackmore Gakpo'd me again. The bastard.

Where's Charles? Good to see KWP back, will be a positive to have him next Saturday.

Two years ago we signed six players before July 26th and then didn't sign anyone else until deadline day. That day brought in Caleta-Car, Edozie, Larios and Maitland-Niles. Last summer was similar, Manning and Charles signed in July and then Downes, Fraser and Holgate late August with Harwood-Bellis and Stewart signing on deadline day. So, a pattern is forming now that we're more active than we were previously. Got to have a better end to the window than we did two years ago, though. Hoping for an Alderweireld and Mane deadline day. Remember that one summer when the window closed before the season started, but again, the big clubs didn't like it.

Remember the summer Joe Shields was in charge of transfers here... Squad building isn't his thing. If a player is available, come on in.

Point still stands, but I'd have put Wilcox down as the one who got Harwood-Bellis. But yeah, a lot of our signings last season had links to either Martin or Wilcox. Manning and Downes, managed by Martin at Swansea. Charles, from the City academy where he worked with Wilcox. Stewart, Martin wanted to sign him for MK Dons. Fraser, former international teammate of Martin's. Brooks, from the City academy with Wilcox. Then you have Holgate, Rothwell and Lumley, who were all pretty poor. This summer, our main target has been O'Riley, who Martin managed at MK Dons, we've signed Wood who Martin managed at Swansea and Lallana was a nostalgia signing, although there are rumours it's to keep his son in our youth system. No obvious links between Taylor, Edwards, Sugawara and Brereton Diaz with the leadership at the club and we've of course signed four players for Goztepe in Matsuki, Juan, Welington and Takaoka. Time will tell if there may have been better alternatives to these across the globe when the season kicks off in 9 days time.

Never actually see footballers go for it, especially not in a friendly. Fair enough. Alcaraz looked really bright tonight too, moved the ball forward a lot quicker than what we saw for a lot of last season, but that hot headedness isn't going to endear himself with the manager, unfortunately. Probably not helped him fit in with the Lazio team either, if they were interested...