Saint86

47 minutes ago, Football Special said:

Combined with a very inexperienced manager who will need time  I just don't see us in the top 2 , in fact we'll be quite a few points off them 

Still isn't inexperienced, and his track record at every club he's been at is one of success and improvement.

44 minutes ago, Convict Colony said:

Jack Stephens is not the problem this forum thinks he is.

 

Just seen Stephens' howler for the goal. FFS - surely he has to be more of a 4th-5th choice CB rather than a captain and starter?!?!

Sanda is an absolute monster of a unit, and JQ looks good from what i've seen - lots of passion and effort for the friendlies as well.

2 hours ago, coalman said:

It strikes me that conceding 60 goals is a statement of fact. We went on a record unbeaten run and got promoted in spite of this. Our unbeaten run didn't have more wins because of this so we missed automatic promotion. 

This isn't the great argument you think it is.

We conceded 17goals in that 22game unbeaten run, with 9 clean sheets... Only two games in that period entailed more than 1goal against, which we won 5-3 vs Huddersfield (home) and drew 2-2 with Preston away.

A very significant portion of our goals against in the championship came at the start of the season when we were transitioning to Martin's style whilst simultaneously managing huge player turnover - We conceded 13 goals in just 3 of our first 6 league matches - 20% of our tally for the season, and 16 total over those first 6 matches (25%).

A better argument would be to say that we lost automatic promotion either side of our unbeaten run - with the initial change and unsettled squad coinciding with the home defeats to Ipswich and Leicester early on, and the draw with Norwich. Its a warning if anything - we have Sheffield united, Ipswich and Boro all within the first 8 games so a fairly similar start - Hopefully something similar doesn't happen this time around (i.e., lost points to a fundamental change of style and lots of late window squad changes).


 

25 minutes ago, revolution saint said:

Yeah, could have been.  Armenian fella I think.

If we've genuinely had a chance to sign eduard spertsyan and missed out on it then its a real bugger. He's one of the best players we've been seriously linked with since the days of picking up the younger/lesser known VVD and Mane imo.

4 hours ago, Disco Stu said:

Blue controllers weren't yet invented in the 90's.

Not to go down this rabbit hole... but Blue Playstation controllers were made. Yellow ones weren't...

https://console-test-universe.jimdoweb.com/sony/sony-playstation/sony-playstation-controller-variations/

Really is schoolboy stuff from the marketing team 😅

46 minutes ago, Matthew Le God said:

Which 5 or 6 of our best XI would that be? No signs so far of anything imminent. No bids for them = don't need to replace.

Good point MLG, its far more than 5-6 of our best 11 that could be on the way out... Ramsdale, THB, Bednarek, Fernandes, Edozie, Aribo, Dibling, Armstrong have all been linked with exits.

25 minutes ago, The Kraken said:

Fairly sure the controller on the left is for a PlayStation and the controller on the right is for a Nintendo.

Those are both PlayStation ones? Shit job cropping the wires as well. All this time to announce a kit leak ages ago and this is the slop we get from the marketing team. Heads should roll IMHO...

Absolute bloody shambles from the club I'm afraid... They've had all this time to release the kit, they get a yellow controller for Fernandes (good move)... And then they don't also go and get a blue controller for the 2nd one. Schoolboy stuff, amateur hour 🤦🤣.

Nice kit otherwise 😍

22 minutes ago, lambtiss said:

My main concern is that the players you mentioned get sold at the closure of the window, leaving us insufficient time to replace them with properly recruited replacements (like every other window).

Whilst its a valid point ofc, the club will obviously be aware of it and you have to assume they've got strategies and options in place for those eventualities. It doesn't feel like we "have" to sell from a PSR perspective this year, so hopefully that puts us in a strong position re late sales. 

39 minutes ago, Saint Fan CaM said:

No transfer news then? 😏😉

No news is good news at this point - the reality is that it will most likely be centred around some of Ramsdale, THB, Dibling, and Fernandes leaving.

If that doesn't happen then the starting 11 stays at it is and Dibling signs a new contract = cheat code activated.

17 hours ago, CSA96 said:

Rob Dorsett of Sky saying it’s now expected to be a 9pt deduction for Leicester  

Which should make little difference to a playoff charge with their current squad and new manager, and which therefore means they remain a serious threat to us next season.

What i think we also need is for this year's PSR constraints to really impact they're player trading / squad quality.

39 minutes ago, SaintLondon said:

I have been reliably informed that it's going to be an extremely busy few weeks with comings and going. I was told, it'll be fun for the fans but not for the team doing it behind the scenes. 

When you look at our squad and likely "goings" - the only way i can see that being particularly busy is if we're losing the players we'd actually prefer to keep, which is a shame.

Wonder if the strategy this year is to built a "best of" the (German) 2nd tier.

1 hour ago, Doctoroncall said:

Plus the maximum length of contract allowed for players under 18 is three years. 

Got to give the big clubs every chance possible to hoover them up on the cheap...

1 hour ago, Farmer Saint said:

Goztepe/Valenciennes

Can't see him leaving the Portuguese top flight to play in the French non league.

11 minutes ago, revolution saint said:

Fuck!  Was really hoping we'd be in for him.

Just another example of SR pissing about with Strikers and refusing to just stump up the required amount to get the deal done!!! And now look, gazumped by the dippers!! 😡

41 minutes ago, Challenger said:

Perennial turds that just refuse to flush.

Whilst i understand the analogy, i would say offering Stephens that contract extension would be more akin to flushing a fishing lure and then reeling it back in...

1 hour ago, goodymatt said:

Do we really need another CB?

For me, it implies THB is off if we sign another CB.

19 minutes ago, Gloucester Saint said:

Aribo when he goes will add further to the funds for that part of the pitch.

What’s surprised me is Bednarek still being at the club with an alleged relegation release clause of only £6m. Roma supposedly bid a couple million more than that only in January. 

Current CBs:

Bednarek

ABK

THB

Edwards

Quarshie

Woods

Sanda

We clearly have too many cbs at the moment. My working assumption has always been that ABK and Bednarek will both be off, leaving us with 5. If bednarek doesn't leave then I think we have to assume that THB is off.

2 minutes ago, SuperSAINT said:

Presumably when the Leicester sales start, I would assume Ronnie Edwards would be up there on their shopping list since his QPR coach just rocked up there.

Keiran Maguire recently described QPR as the best run club in the championship - because they've been ticking a long with "f'all" spend.

It seems pretty obvious Leicester have money issues given the delayed sacking of rvn, and the fact that the new manager has to pay his own release clause at QPR. He would be the perfect fit for a club who have no money to spend... Proven track record of delivering on a shoestring at this level.

None of that paints a picture of Leicester being able to afford our players if we want to hold on to them.

15 minutes ago, Saint_lambden said:

We've been persuing Eduard Spertsyan (Armenian attacking midfielder at Krasnodar) but he wants to play European football so that's a bit of a dead end sadly. We didn't make a bid as wanted to establish if it was go-er first. A shame because he's a superb player but probably a bit too ambitious. 

Haven't kept up with him as the russian league has totally and utterly dropped off my radar. But about 2-3 years ago he was a fantastic player in the russian league a very good prospect for bigger things - he was certainly one of those I was expecting to have made the move to a champions league / top Europa league club. Encouraging if that is at least the standard of player we're looking at, even if it's a shame we won't be getting him.

18 minutes ago, AlexLaw76 said:

Armstrong is a good lad. Deserves a new deal I think 

The hate for him certainly feels misplaced. Was incredible for us in the last promotion season.

Thoughts on Stephens.

At this stage of his career, i cannot see him improving to ever be good enough to become a starting premier league CB. I hope this is considered within the wage he has been offered (i.e., wage promotion clause is smaller than for others for example). If not, i really don't understand the contract extension.

Stephens is a good enough player for the championship in fairness to him.

From a dressing room perspective, he is a character, and he does love the club - those are positives.

Since 2023/24 season, we've played under Jones, Selles, Martin, Juric, and Rusk. That is either managers that can't set up a team to defend if their lives depended on it, or (and - lets be honest) terrible sides - of which Stephens has played his part. But we've been unsettled at the back throughout that whole period and i'm willing to accept that may have coloured my overall view of him as a player.

Will Still though, is another proposition. His defensive setup is resilient - most clean sheets in the league last season with Lens (13), and that was despite losing a host of key players throughout the team. He also likes aggression, shithousery, and they had the most red cards (8😬😅)... Stephens will probably fit like a well worn glove. 

This may also be good for Bazunu in some ways - in that we won't be playing suicide football right in front of his goal, and we'll likely be limiting chances for sudden turnovers etc which is where so many of our goals against have come in previous years.

On 05/07/2025 at 23:31, Maggie May said:

Brum will walk the league, IMO. They’re on the same ascendancy as we were in 2011 and Ipswich more recently. Leicester will be up there, too.

How often does a league 1 club "walk" the championship. We scraped 2nd, Ipswich scraped 2nd.

34 minutes ago, S-Clarke said:

And the cynic in me tells me that's exactly what the 'powers that be' wanted.

What do you mean the cycnic in you? Its fucking obvious that this is how all these rules have been designed. Started with Uefa getting concerned at the power of the premier league, then you've got a bunch of foreign owners in this country that want to protect their assets and try to stay at the top table. Whether by design or opportunity, all the big clubs / owners across europe have in parallel devised a system that entrenches existing financial disparities between clubs and gives increased competitive weight to commercial incomes for established brands - they then set about introducing more and more competitions aimed at shuffling funds away to only the select few clubs that qualify for them (world club cup, rejigged champions league, conference league etc), and if an upstart club dares to challenge the elites by qualifying for these, PSR and the increased fixture congestion essentially ensures that they cannot build a team to compete on multiple fronts for that season - and so they then drop off in the league and then have to gut their squad to meet the arbitrary 3year spending limits. Its a fucking brutal fixed game - and there is no point even crying about it in the premier league - if British clubs don't comply with UEFA rules they can't play in europe.

If you wanted to design a system that protected the established rich clubs and limited competition - it would look pretty similar to this. One day though, it will all come crashing down, because it is unsustainable, and they're killing the goose that was competitive exciting football.