Lighthouse

Bigger club is a meaningless statement. Do you think he's gone to Spurs because they won the Worthington Cup 15 years ago, or to play in front of 36,000 instead of 32,000? No. Money and Champions League football are all that matter these days. Some of them don't appear to even give a sh*t about their national sides, judging by some of the Diva strops and mysterious injuries which crop up before a friendly. Not surprised in the slightest he went to Spurs. We went through all this last year with Lovren. Still irritating though.

Like I said, good players performing well. I'm not sure what heights you are referring to with some of those players. Cork and Bertrand both came from Chelsea's youth team and ended up being decent, upper midtable players. Nothing special there. We spent £10m on Mane as he was already showing some decent ability at Salzburg. Lambert was a decent Championship player at a League 1 club when we signed him. Yes he improved but only from being a decent Championship striker into a midtable Premier League striker. Clyne has developed but was already being touted as a big star when we signed him from Palace. JRod was in the Championship team of the season so again, he's hardly made a giant leap. Fonte has also improved but was always a very good CB in the Championship with Palace. That pretty much leaves Morgan and Lallana, who were both talented teenagers when they came to the club. Both have gone on to be decent Premier League players but Martina isn't a 17 year old in our academy, so you can't really say that's relevant to him.

Like we did with Osvaldo, Ramirez, Djuricic, Elia, Mayuka, Forren and Gazzanigga? Good players play well here but we can't just sign crap and turn it into gold. I'm underwhelmed by this signing but lets see what happens.

So you pretty much just make stuff up now? He wasn't arrested because there is nothing illegal about carrying a flag.

I really can't see where the OP is coming of with this one. We've made three signings already and it's the start of July. This time last year we hadn't signed anyone so I can't really see an argument for us having cash flow problems. We of got something like the 5th lowest wage bill in the League and had a £30m transfer surplus last year so if we've got cash flow problems then Lord help the rest of the League. I can't see us giving Osvaldo a payout to terminate his contract if it was going to compromise our transfers this summer either.

I don't understand, can you be more pacific?

Norris for me. I just felt empty when that went in, truly gutted. He could try that another 99 times and stick it in the car park every single time but he didn't. Still it didn't matter in the end. Also both goals at Boro a couple of weeks later. We were 1-0 inside 45 seconds. A draw there and beating Coventry the following week would have won the League. Boro had nothing to play for and we f**ked it up.

Being 2-0 up WHL a couple of years ago and losing in injury time. A Typical Eriksen, in off the post, bottom corner from outside the box too. Lovren putting in one of his Liverpool/Lyon performances didn't help. Bale getting them out of jail the year before too. Again against the run of play in a game we'd had the better of.

Him and Toby wasn't it. Just to put things into perspective, last season our first signing was Tadic on 8th July.

From games I've been to; Lambert at Fratton probably just about edges it although it's up against some pretty stiff competition. Waigo's equaliser with the last kick of the game in the JPT against Norwich is up there too. Osvaldo against City last year got a good noise. Skacel against Birmingham in 2006 (3rd goal in 6 minutes, was pretty special until Mane came along). Lambert's 3rd at Millwall, penalty in injury time to win it. The one I wish I'd been at. That much noise from a relatively small, uncovered stand is just crazy. Everyone who was there said it was mental

MLG the Soviets would have built monuments to your discipline, organisation and pedantry. The rest of us just find it tedious.

Who do we actually sell arms to? I hear this argument thrown around a lot without anything to back it up. I know we've sold stuff to some unpopular regimes like the Saudis and even people like Saddam in the past but terrorist organisations?

Where are you getting that figure? Those are Liverpool or Arsenal wages I can't believe we'd be so reckless after 1 year in the Premier League. Every other report I've seen was in the region of £60k. That fits with the £6m and £25m reports but TBH that just sounds like someone doing easy maths as opposed to actual inside knowledge of the deal.

4 penalties in that lot FWIW but still that's blistering form. I'm not so sure personally. Before the ACON he hadn't done anything spectacular in France and wasn't really anything special at Leeds.

The point is there is absolutely no motivation for Saints to just pay him up for 2 years. Even if we sent him of on loan for the next year and still paid 90% of his wages, it's better than what you're suggesting.

Because he can go and sign for another club and earn even more from them. More to the point, what is Saints motivation to give him 2 years wages up front when we could have saved money loaning him out.

I'd rather we didn't bust our wage bill for someone who will spend half the season sat in the treatment room. No thanks.

Well given that it's talksport...

For signing a player?

He's just looking for bites. You don't take a club from administration in League 1 to the top half of the Premier League by being a complete half wit but nobody is going to disagree that Osvaldo was probably his low point. A complete vanity project if ever there was one.

There is no way on Earth we'd have done that. Pay him two years wages up front and send him off to go and earn even more money at another club? In Osvaldo's dreams maybe. Whatever we've given him it is clearly a better deal than hanging on to him and making money from loaning him out and getting someone else to pay half his wages. I'd be surprised if we gave him much more than a couple of months pay, with a view to him joining Boca.

I'd imagine this deal works out better for Saints than loaning him out periodically for the next 2 years. Just get rid of him and draw the line. It wouldn't surprise me if Osvaldo has already agreed a deal with another club and Saints agreed to cancel his contract with practically nothing by way of severance pay. Almost as if we'd sold him to another club, for £0 in effect.

TBF half of this is all the standard new signing interview stuff that comes pre-printed on the press releases. "New manager... next level... Champions League... England... great fans.... great history... talented bunch of players... time for the next challenge... blah blah." Just pencil in the name of the player and the club and send it to the Daily Mail. Our next signing will be trotting out exactly the same sh*te.

How is being sick of people thinking Koeman is a magician having a whiny, 5 year old tantrum? Has Long performed any better under Koeman than he did for Steve Bruce? Or Steve Clarke or Roy Hodgson for that matter. Was Elia any better here than he was at Juve or Werder? Has Djuricic done anything special he hasn't done at Benfica or Mainz? What about Mayuka? Did nothing in England up until this season. Did Koeman get the best out of him?