Lighthouse

Of what?

Pretty much any Saints player in history would have gone to Liverpool given chance, MLT being the probable exception. The difference is now we have 4 or 5 players who are actually good enough at the same time, whereas in the past we've just had one Bale, Walcott, Crouch or Bridge every couple of years. If Prutton, Dodd and Oakley were that good 10 years ago, they would all have gone too, it's nothing to do with the board room. Would be disappointed to see Lovren go but as I said with Lambert and Lallana, the key thing is how well we reinvest the money. Don't forget Lovren was a bit of a flop in the past, so getting £15-20m for him, after one decent season would be a decent bit of business.

Who needs breeding programs in Scotland when you can just paint alligators. http://kuwaitiful.com/animals/painting-animals-must-stop/

I'm Richmond and so is my wife!

10 years ago we had a lesson in keeping a player who doesn't want to be here. We got £6m for him in January but had we sold him when he wanted out in summer we would probably have gotten £10m for him. Personally I think this is a decent enough deal for Saints. We all have fond memories of Lambert and we got by far the best 5 years of his career. On top of that we signed him as a 27 year old then sold him as a 32 year old for 4 times the price. Another mistake we made in 2004 was not replacing players as they got older. We went into that season still thinking players like Claus, Dodd and Le Saux could do the business and made feeble efforts to replace them with players like JVD, Kenton and Yahia. I don't think any sane fan can begrudge him this move. Imagine you were a player at West Ham or Stoke and Saints were playing in the Champions League next season. If the Saints manager tried to sign you, would you honestly turn it down to stay at a mid-table team?

Rightly so if you ask me. Why the hell would you want that?

As opposed to the £15m which was plucked out of the air by Crabs? There is no reason to think we wont spend or even exceed the value of any players we sell. Some people are just making up reasons to be negative. Next we will be hearing about how Kruger shot Bambi's mother.

That has been discussed before on one or two of these threads. Some people seem adamant Lambert is worth £8m but ignore the fact that only one player 32 or over has ever gone for more than £7m. That was Cannavaro in 2006, when he was captain of the Italian side who won the World Cup. A few 32 year olds have gone for more than £4m but not many and not by much. Most of them are world famous super stars going to clubs like Real and Lazio (when they were minted)

Strange. It's almost as if the big clubs like to sign good players.

Everyone is a selling club. Man Utd lost their best player to Real. Arsenal were title contenders and still sold Cesc, Nasri, Clichy, Adebayor, RVP and Henry. If people can't accept our best players being sold, they need to find a different sport, not a different club.

No, I think Poch went to Spurs because he sees it as a step up and clearly couldn't care less about Saints. The players rumoured to be leaving are all being chased by Champs League clubs. There is nothing to suggest the board has a lack of ambition at all. So far we have - Lost a manager who obviously doesn't want to be here and just saw us a stepping stone. - Lost a player in the twilight of his career who wants one last chance to play for his boyhood club. - Rejected a bid of £25m for Lallana going by the latest reports. I fail to see what constitutes a lack of ambition in any of that.

Sunderland bought Altidore, that pretty much sums them up. Just because it hasn't been done before (that we know of) doesn't mean it can't be done. 2 years ago we signed J Rod, Gaston, Boruc, Yoshida, Davis and Clyne who all went straight into the starting 11 and we did okay. It took a couple of months to get them playing together properly but we turned into a decent side after that.

Yeah, well I'll believe that when I see it. 3 or 4 of them leaving we can cope with IF we bring in the right replacements. I doubt we will be as good as last season but apparently most people were 'bored with 8th' anyway so this will be good for the fans.

When we got relegated we refused to sell our star striker after he made it clear he didn't want to be here any more. Beattie went on to score 2 goals before being sold at a knock down price in January. Some people seem to think we should be doing the same with Lambert. We need 100% commitment from everyone and Lambert and had he been forced to stay I doubt his heart would have been in it. Our success depends entirely on who we appoint as manager and who we sign to replace the players that do leave. Nobody ever gets relegated because they sold their best players to Champions League clubs. They get relegated because they reinvest the money poorly in the wrong players, or make hasty decisions in appointing the wrong manager. Look at Everton, they were a bottom half club, then they sold Rooney and qualified for the Champions League.

So how do you guys think this worked? It never at any point occurred to Liverpool supporting, Scouse Lambert that he might want to play for Liverpool. Then one day evil Steven Gerrard whispers in his ear at an England training camp and he goes, 'ooh that's a good idea I'd never thought of that'. I doubt this transfer required any tapping up what so ever. Sure he would have talked to Gerrard but I doubt that had any impact on his decision. This is a dream come true for Lambert's whole life. Once Liverpool declared their interest the only issue was agreeing a fee. £4m is a very reasonable fee for a 32 year old, despite those on here who think he is comparable to Cannavaro or Laudrup. As for the OP. No, just... no. It's not the case and it's not a good tactic. Why waste £8m (Supposing Lambert gets a 2 year £40kpw contract) to get Lallana. Why not just come to an agreement on the price with the club and a contract with the player, like every other player transfer ever?

Do you think if the current board were more ambitious UEFA might let us play in next years Champions League? You know, if we ask extra nicely.

England internationals are infinitely more interesting to the press than when we sold Dan Harding and Marek Saganowski. Journalists have probably been sticking their noses in all kinds of smelly places to get the inside scoop on the current Saints rumours. It's hardly anything new either. The Gaston, Osvaldo and Wanyama deals were all talked about weeks before they happened.

Aside from Dellday's dull attempt at humour, the only player aged 32 plus, who has ever gone for more than £7m, is Cannavaro the year he captained Italy to World Cup victory.

That makes no sense at all. Why would Liverpool need Lambert before the World Cup?

Where are people getting the idea that we will only spend £4m on his replacement from? I presume you also think we will be buying another LB for £27m?

That phrase makes my skin crawl. It's as if people want more big name, big ego, overpriced prima donnas like Osvaldo. I want us to sign the right player, I couldn't give two sh*ts if he comes from Exeter on a free.

He's right though. They are all Saints players who have made the squad for what they did for us last season. We should be proud of that, I see no reason to be embarrassed about getting 3 players in the world cup squad.

As the glass coffin salesman said - remains to be seen. Until Kruger comes out and says he will be spending the transfer fee on KFC and amyl nitrate, I see no need to be pessimistic. It all goes into the transfer kitty. However you try and dress it up, we have another £4m to spend on players this summer.

So what you're saying is that these players then went down hill, suffered injury problems and were generally less effective than they had been at the peak of their career. On what basis do you believe Lambert will be different?