Hodgey

Buy back is annoying - we could lose a £50m player for £30m (or whatever it is). On the positive side if he does become worth £50m then it’s a hell of a signing for £3m and gets us back to what we were - a great place to learn and turbocharge your career to play for one of the big boys, plus hopefully we get a few years watching a top talent.

Strange competition, as most quality players are in the 100 a lot of these games are down to which youngsters step up and how consistent they can be. What’s frustrating for me is it’s a great opportunity for the likes of Alsop / Fuller / Whetherly / Holland who are experienced enough to shine here. Meanwhile Brave got away with one today - some really odd decisions there - Garton batting 5, the ineffective DeGrandhomme opening the bowling (and batting 7), think they are a bit lucky to have won 2.

Back to the £79m loan - nobody knows exactly where the club are financially as any company can skew accounts with accruals etc. What we do know is we took out a £79m loan at 9 pc - so interest alone in 5 yrs is £42.5m. Clearly no sane person who didn’t need that cash for something wouldn’t take it out. We also know the club made a £76m loss last year and £34m the year before, they made a £29m profit the year before that due to VVD transfer. So yes COVID had a big effect but according to accounts we have made consistent losses the last few years save for the VVD year. Now it could be that some of that loan is earmarked for player investment and not servicing outgoings / debt but the facts above dispute that. I guess we will see post this window but it suggests we need to have made savings / new income streams of £35m a year + £7.5m a year debt interest to break even. It all looks precarious and short term to me - ie keep the club afloat and in the Prem league until someone buys us who can at least clear that £79m loan. That’s not a dig at the club btw - many similar clubs are in the same boat, but it is reality. If we go down then bankruptcy is a very real prospect so stakes are high. Successfull player trading over the next few years is crucial

Our CB pairing isn’t right and Ralph has tried them all. They all have too many big mistakes in them at this level and aside from Stephens (who is the worst CB skill wise of the lot) are too quiet. It’s a position we can probably upgrade cheaper / easier than the others. Of course it shouldn’t be our priority - but if you don’t have the resource to upgrade other areas you have to do what you can. Also think Vest will be sold to generate funds.

We really need an explosive or creative AM - for me we have 4 substandard players in Redmond, Theo, Djenepo and Elynoussi. We can’t afford to let Ings go - we’re not going to find his goals or all round play with what is at our disposal this window. Equally we need to buy another striker to bed in before he inevitably leaves next year. So a good window: Sell at least one of those AM and Long (free) Buy Armstrong and a AM (sell Vest to fund if needs be) Get two solid 1st team loans in at CB from one of the big clubs (Arse / Chelsea etc) and DM as I think Diallo and Salisu need another year before cementing a place. Also need another loan to cover the full backs. if we did that it would be a good window.

Just goes to show that building a dream team on paper doesn’t always work out like that. Big hitters all failed - couldn’t even get Root away. And our revered fast bowling was totally shown up by De Lange. Tactically they seemed to want to wallop it out of the park from the off rather that display any patience and lost too many wickets. Not sure De Grandhomme is cut out for this format and I’m not sure favouring pace over spin guile works in this format either. Hopefully they have learnt - they have two decent spinners in reserve and De Koch to come in as well. Not sure Jofra will add anything.

Amazing stuff from Hampshire - what a turnaround and Weatherly has proved me wrong about his short form abilities !. Good to see them fight back irrelevant of what happens tonight.

I think that is the big issue - we are basically where we were, remember where we were was worst points in league in 21. It’s also looking likely that we will lose 2 first team players, one who basically wins half our points and things look very bad. Plus we’ve got no money ! Despite our horrific defensive record I think even without Vest our gk / def / defmid is just about good enough to stay up. Without Ings our attack looks distinctly championship standard. Lots of work to do still - for me playing the loans system well is absolutely key.

Well done Hampshire - gubbins looks a good signing and we do seem competitive in 4 day cricket. Youngsters a bit hit and miss but good to see Crane in the wickets - we are very reliant on Abbot but great achievement for that squad to get 2nd.

Odd decision really - he doesn’t have the raw materials to ever be a Prem player, especially with how the game requires ever more guile and control. He could certainly become a decent league 1 player - can see this ending up as a loan to permanent for minimal fee. I guess it’s right that the goal for Saints is to get their youth players into pro footballers and this looks like the right path.

So building on that MLG - would you expect Armstrong to score over 10 league goals to us, if he replaces Ings this season ? Do you think he could have the same impact for us as Watkins and Bamford have straight from the Championship ?

Most of those players were with the same team / style. Much harder to adjust to a new league / style / team. Plus Bamford and Watkins had Rafina and Grealish to feed them - we have Redmond.

Finally a good batting performance, but it wasn’t really the batters who did it ! Like the looks of Organ - surprised he was batting so far down. Getting Amla out twice is going to be very tricky but they’re in a great position. What’s going on with Vince - confidence looks shot.

Terrible situation to be in. You need to score goals to avoid trouble esp when you can’t defend. He wins games - simple as, we’ve got to hope the attacking midfielders step up and actually contribute - and that Che learns to use his left foot (unforgivable for a pro footballer). I think we will sell and will face a huge relegation battle - lots of championship quality players in our squad - Walcott, Long (actually l1), Bednerak, Adams, Redmond, Djenepo, McCarthy, Forster I could go on. Personally I think the gamble of keeping him for another year and risking injury / low effort is a gamble worth taking. In a year one of the youngsters could step up / Adams might improve / we might have a new owner. Or he might resign in Jan !!!

It’s all a bit odd - doesn’t seem that they have any real strategy or direction - what are they trying to be ? Clearly they didn’t take t20 seriously - so are they aiming to be genuine championship contenders?. One minute the likes of Soames, Stevenson and Northeast are the future the next they are gone. Are they going to stick with young players like Currie, Weatherly and Prest ?. They can’t keep relying on ageing players like Edwards and Barker and The Kolpak angle we relied on so much is not available.

Just watched the Somerset game. We are really poor, without the 2 overseas players we would have been absolutely hammered. Weatherly isn’t a t20 player - just nurdles it around and doesn’t have many shots, Prest looked way out of his depth and McManus isn’t a batsman. Again felt bowling was ok - Currie decent, not trophy winning but at least competitive. Compare our youngsters with theirs - Banton and Smeed looked a class above.

This T20 team looks a long way short - once Vince and Short are removed you have a load of non-explosive players getting 10s (Fuller exception). The bowling line up seems OK but the batters are giving them impossible numbers to defend.

17-19 the problem - 2 disasterous transfer years - effectively wasted all the £60m VVD money and saddled ourselves with another c £50m of wasted wages. The rest overall to be fair the expected hits and misses. Also add on a fair few million in manager compensation and agents / signing on. Also puts paid to the myth that we don’t net spend - as clearly we have although nowhere near as much as some. Biggest worry now is looking at current squad you don’t see many profitable assets and the few we have are basically irreplaceable and if sold would see us go down.

We’ve got a strange obsession with English keepers which is one of England’s weak spots. So we pay an unnecessary premium - even recently we’ve been linked to English keepers in the main (Buckland etc). Not sure why this is but it isn’t helping - especially when we seem incapable of improving them.

Elynoussi isn’t the answer. He’s worse than Walcott, Armstrong, Redmond and Tella. He was woeful under Hughes and then immediately shipped out by Ralph (twice). He’s been in and out of an out of sorts Celtic team in a poor league. Best thing we can do here is get a few million cash and get him off the wage bill - although I doubt you’ll get many takers.

Hard to tell if it’s the coaches or players. There is a number 2 - Richard someone who finally replaced his old number 2 who went to Germany. You could argue the coaching team have improved some players - JWP / Romeu / KWP / Adams / Tella / Salisu / Vestigaard and we seem above average at set pieces (even though that offside trap terrifies me) and have a decent plan A. Evidence suggests clear issues in defensive work, final 3rd decisions, youth/reserves, in game tactic changes. I don’t think we have the right coaching set up personally for those reasons so getting some proven talent here (even if that means compensation) would seem a good use of money.

Has to be JWP - 4 more goals and one more assist than Armstrong despite playing deeper, always available with an unreal work rate. I’m truly astounded there are still many who seemingly don’t rate him. Stu, Ings and KWP hard to set apart for the other places - each provide something unique and important to this team.

If Kane leaves - him going to Spurs for £15m sounds about right. Personally I don’t think we should sell unless we get £30m - how much is a year in the Prem worth ? That’s what we are talking here so keeping him then letting him go on a free and getting another £80m or whatever you get for being in the Prem seems like good business to me. Only risk is he gets injured or plays half arsed - but the second is unlikely if he wants a decent final club. Also that will mean I can watch much less of Walcott or Long doing a bad impression of a striker

Good to see Redders making an effort as my general scapegoat he deserves credit. Never understood the Stephens hate but he deserves credit too. Also McCarthy for some great saves and Salisu for looking genuine class. Adams put a massive shift in as did KWP. In fact only Minimino really looked out of sorts - not that he wasn’t trying he just doesn’t look like he suits this team (or maybe league). Finally Ralph - got his tactics right today for me.

Credit where it’s due. Ralph made the right sub / setup and we’ve dug in. Let’s see if they can keep discipline in 2nd half