Saint86

You mean, key passes? 😄

Love the "Villain to Saint" quote. I'm sure that's annoyed a few of our new friends up north, especially as they were in for him 😆

I agree. The championship games come thick and fast, and we saw last season that a huge part of the way Eckert manages is to have players that can he can swap and change in and out of the squad and then do the same job. Dobbin, azon etc., are being signed to be part and pacel of the first team.

I suspect 2 big sales will be made this summer. Maybe one if we are lucky (Charles). Those will likely come out of Chalres, THB, Scienza, and Jander - the reality is that we look to be signing Dobbin, which means we do (on paper) have cover for Scienza. We look like this currently: All in all, its quite balanced and should be competitive for the season. The issue will come with further sales and who we replace them with. I assume we will see the following leave: Archer Ramsdale Edozie (subtract to contract, he could be retained - he gives us good depth on the wing) BBD (although i think he could do a job as CF for us) Youth players like sesay, Williams, Oyekunle i don't expect to see much off (hope to be surprised) - so have excluded. Edit - i guess we could potentially keep Edozie and use him on the right, with Matsuki being played centrally as cover for Bragg/downes/Jander in the absence of charles?

I wouldn't hold your breath. Spain just qualified for the final with relative ease against what the vast majority consider the best team in international football. They have an extra days rest, they've not played extra time or penalties, they've had no suspensions or injuries etc. They have also already won at this level. They should be considered clear favorites now.

Sell Charles or Scienza and we're basically break even, plus ofc the Fernandes £6M. PSR is done. We're on SCR now, so its just a case of being balanced for this season, and Peretz and Larin were signed last season under PSR with a reduced hit on SCR as a result - we've got a £15M drop in parachute monies to consider, we've shift a significant amount of the wage bill (Macca and Aribo will have seen something like £3M-5M per year alone i reckon), and technically Dragan can top us up by £10M per season if he wants to - plus its been widely stated that we've sorted out our wage bill and will be in a much stronger position in the years to come after the seasons of wasted wages and past transfer installments are cleared. We are not that badly off - any sales we make will be at a significant profit, our recruitment under Spors seems pretty damn solid, and we already have a very good team and manager for this level. There is lots to be optimistic about, and only the Eckert decision to worry about.

I thought it was quite balanced and actually very promising. There is clearly a player in there and they can see the potential. He's going to get chances galore playing in our side, Larin will be able to directly mentor him, and we will be flat track bullies vs most of the league. Ipswich had a fantastic squad last season - probably too many options if anything - but it says a lot that as the season went on and we got into the run in, he was getting more and more game time. Another year in the championship, already with experience of the division and aclimatised to the UK more, and you can only expect him to get better in all seriousness. Possibly slightly expensive for where we are (which adds a bit of risk), but you can see what we're buying here. Some interesting / positive quotes from that Ipswich thread: "The annoying thing is that he will have benefitted massively from last season with us & he knows the league now. He will be a much better player for them than he was with us." "I have never been more sure of a player turning in to a goal machine. All those chances he missed for us will fly in for Spain" "If it clicks for him, he could be a great signing for them. I see a lot going for Azon's game, and he was a gnat's pen1s away from being a great success here last season, rather than 'meh'."

Targett and Manning would be a very potent left side for the season. Lethal set piece delivery at all times.

You must have loved Che Adams then...

Good assist out of very little in fairness.

In the only other case of any direct relevance to this - Bielsa kept his job after a worse offence, and then went on to win a fair play award and promotion 🙃

Couldn't help myself, just checked out the boro forum - they have people thinking the delay in announcing Dobbin is because they've "hijacked it", to which they would "kevin keagan love it"... its going to be great fun beating that lot this season. Some of them get it though, "Southampton have come in, paid the asking price, and he is obviously going to chose them over us... He's chosen a bigger club."

if they gave up on a young striker after half a season in a new country/league, it would be a pretty damning indictment all around.

It would be utterly bonkers if the FA banned a manager for the scouting team violating the rules on only 3 occasions to scout other teams inside an arbitrary time window - an almost inconsequential breach given saints didn't even win any of those matches, and given all league games and other training sessions are available to scout without it being an infraction. The bullying stuff is also complete nonsense, not even the EFL's own report accuses Eckert directly of bullying (but they made sure the media did that, Adam included), and there is no evidence that either shows or states that Eckert bullied staff. Its a very insidious accusation leveled at him with no substantial evidence against him, and a stain that is almost impossible to ever fully remove - But what it did achieve is giving the EFL the narrative they needed to hammer the club and make appealing the sanction very difficult.

I am certain he'd be open to it, whether the stars will align for him or not is another thing entirely. I can't see him hanging around at Sunderland for the long term however.