Saint86

I don't buy this. Why would he sign for Frankfurt if the other club is willing to offer him better wages - he'd make any future transfer to them more expensive and reduce his potential wages with them? Equally, why would he sign for the other club if he's already joined Frankfurt on better wages? These agreements between clubs are nice in theory, but if the player doesn't sign a contract its academic surely? The only difference to that is loan with buy obligations attached, where its essentially all signed and agreed between the clubs and the players at the start. Look at what happened with Alderweireld - we had an agreement in place with his club, but he snubbed us contractually and joined spurs.

We're getting Gibbo FC away on opening day (ole ole)... In all seriousness, we need to be playing the newly relegated sides as early as possible and catch them before they settle. Would lap up a trip to the West Ham or Wolves (or both) mid way / end of August when they're dealing with transfers in and out and the fans aren't happy. Saints should be raring to go this season... 20 games unbeaten with a run of form over those games that equates to 113points over a 46 game season - get the hardest (on paper) matches out the way before those teams can settle.

You weren't alone... My first post on here having initially been raging at us selling AA for £7M (which i think did impact people's views on larin unfairly)... I would say he's done about as well as anyone could possibly expect for the outlay involved, and he's certainly surpassed the "no expectation other than for him to be shit" bar 😄🤣. I do think he struggles against better defenses / more physical center backs, and he doesn't quite have the footballing intelligence that Stewart offered imho, but then he's an absolute menace in and around the box at championship level - and thats all we need.

His movement was constant throughout the game, always making runs off the ball, moving out wide or dropping deeper to offer a pass, calling for the ball, attacking the post etc. He's a "poacher" in that regard - never stopped moving or reacting. Frustratingly though, the Canada players seemed to be at pains not to pass to him... that and the quality of their wide players leaves much to be desired re crossing ability and picking a pass... they just attach the box with a lot of numbers and its falling for them in what is a very low quality group. All in all, pleased for Larin, but also frustrated with him as he really should have been getting more chances and more goals...

Club will be tied to PSR and SCR change over at the end of the month.

Get ready for Military grade drone defenses in the Championship next season...

Always thought saints could lodge a challenge / claim on the grounds that the other clubs all broke the rules to raise the cost of survival / competing. I wonder if we will.

Imagine we could sue them as well. Lost to a financially "doped" (by the rules anyway) side twice and missed out on automatics as a result - Based on the burnley vs everton ruling, you'd imagine we'd actually have a very strong case for compensation. Football is all the worse for these rules and the amount of money involved, but that is where the game has got to now - the legal risk for cheating is so severe its worth more than any sporting sanction, its why it may actually have done us a favour to have been kicked out and avoided all the legal crap we'd have face from Boro and Hull had we got promoted.

Woops 😂

At the right price and CM squad size, the club would be mental not to take a motivated JWP... But there are a lot of moving parts for that to come to fruition. Regardless, it seems likely that he won't be at WHU in the champ next season given the clear issues between JWP and Nuno.

Never heard this before? Sounds like a rumor that's been created after the fact to suit/generate a narrative on AA more than anything else.

I would imagine Everton would be very receptive to a loan move for Dibling - at this point they're staring at a very expensive mistake and need some way to rehabilitate their asset, particularly given their £35M fine. Doesn't mean saints should take him back however. Didn't want to be here last season, wouldn't commit to the club, and seems to have a attitude / mentality issue.

Ballard being linked to West Ham now . Club need to fix this error. We should re-sign him with the discount sell on fee and give them downs for the season on loan as a sweetener (no one tell them he's shit) - might be good for his development/confidence in the English game.. Also in for Dael fry for a free from Middlesbrough - which is good business for them annoyingly, and certainly a big step up for him.

James Bree's moment?

All hail the German Drogba 😄 Sadly the rumour looks like potential rubbish, has just re-signed for Frankfurt, although its possible they intend to sell him on for a profit.

We'd have to play Middlesbrough away (us with a 3 goal deficit) before being allowed anywhere near the final.

Hah, maybe. My perception of him was that hey did well. He joined when confidence was destroyed with 2 points from 11 games. He ultimately got them up to 20points and almost overhauled burnley - despite selling strand larson and replacing him with AA. I personally took that as a reasonable achievement. Possibly the fans are just understandably very unhappy and are blaming anyone attached to last season's fiasco. But if you compare it to our 12point relegation season, where the team weren't as badly off as wolves were when he joined, and yet were so demoralized they gave up every time a goal went in... There was no danger of us ever reaching 20 points.

If we do end up sacking Tonda, i certainly wouldn't be against Edwards as a future saints manager. Can see Burnley trying to get him on board ASAP.

This one is mental. They had a proven manager at championship level who was preparing his team for next season and who had saved them from the seemingly near certainty of being the worst ever prem side... I know they love Portugal... but the Championship is one of the most competitive leagues in world football.. About as far from the Portuguese top flight as you can get. Absolutely huge gamble.

I've just said similar to an Everton supporting mate (whilst rubbing his face in it - as he did to us over Spygate 😄). He then started moaning about Burnley cheating against them on the pitch in 2 matches... We're getting to the point now where any result can be challenged due to "cheating", and where results will be determined by clubs' legal line ups and settled in the courts. Total mess!

Yes, financially doping your team across multiple seasons is blatantly more impact than scouting a team a inside an arbitrary window.

That's a bugger for us. Goes a long way to wiping out the first year reduction in parachute payments.

I think he did score a corner for West Ham, so technically he has surpassed Beckham's record for set piece goals 😄🙃

Dom Ballard should be an obvious target for us. Young, hungry, bound to improve. Loves saints, hates Pompey. Best striker in the tier below, 25% discount for saints, and gives us something different to Larin.