Saint86

19years old and 6 goals in 26 Ligue 1 games last season - albeit less than 900minutes - (that's as good as Broja's Eredivise record for me as its a higher level and with more game time), plus 5 goals in the Toulon tournament. He's been courted by Newcastle and Leeds all summer. Its not the established first team attacker we'd all hoped for though. I'd say he's got decent enough pedigree and good potential but i feel we do need more. Hopefully another to come as well (out and out striker). Not quite sure where Maru would fit the team as he seems a bit lightweight - Does Feel like a 4-2-3-1 or similar next season - well we have the players for it. Bit of a come down from looking at Karlson's clips yesterday though 😭

Are we actually linked with him? Reckon that's one of the best youtube clips i've seen posted on a saints transfer thread... He's got some serious skill/ability with a football.

Sadly this is a symptom of modern football more than anything else - as we're all seeing... The top clubs hoover up the best youngester, then play them in their academy / u23 sides or loan them out. More and more, these players are at clubs where their competing with your Kanes/Ronaldos/Lukakus/Salah's etc and they can't get game time. So whilst its reasonable to say Delap is unproven, you also can't right him off. Equally, if he was playing in a top 6 first team at 19 - we wouldn't be able to afford him! Also, before MLG gets in there(🤪), Broja played for Vitesse in the Eredivise, not the Jupiler Pro league - funnily enough alongside Openda, who did go back to belgium this summer (after a 2 year loan) before forcing a very reasonable move to RC Lens at a price we should probably have been all over (IMHO) 😙

Why wouldn't anyone want Ings at the right price?

Openda was cheap 😭 😁 Edit - I am fully aware that i've got it coming if Openda does awful at Lens 🙈 (all i'll say is he cost Similar to Aribo and had a better record than Broja did before joining).

At the moment, i think Everton and Bombey should be in everyone's "favourites for the drop". They've had bad windows and can be expected to struggle. Unlikely saints are going to be near it imo. But you never know what will happen with injures etc.

If you actually mean that then I think its some serious revisionism on your part. He was decidedly very good at the "best of times" - hence the hype. But that wasn't that often. He was also very average - and that was most of the time - and he was also completely missing on other occasions. Whether that's because our service was garbage, or because he's just a young player (and oppositions worked him out / he needs to work on his game) remains to be seen. Regardless, the fact remains that saints would absolutely taken him at the right price - But that price isn't the rumoured £30M.

If Everton can afford him he'll go there. Strong connection with Lampard supposedly, and he'll definitely get game time with their back line. Saints need to shift some defenders out if we want to temp another youngster into that position with promises of regular football.

Ben Mee is a solid defender if you're going to play a deep defensive line (as you say), i don't think he's a championship defender though. You sign players that fit your system and where you can play to their strengths, saints won't do that with a player like Mee - He would be in all kinds of trouble with our high line and having to do with long/through balls in behind.

Adams and Armstrong (plus 1 other good option) is a decent enough set of strikers. Granted i'm talking about the promise of Armstrong, not what he delivered last year - but i don't want to write him off just yet!!. Our issue is our #10s don't create enough chances or possession in the final 3rd. Often its just head down running at defence and the loss of possession or running down blind alleyways. Now it maybe that Aribo changes that somewhat. For example, there was some lovely link up play with KWP in one of the friendlies (think vs RBL) on the right that gave us an extra edge as they worked the ball between them and past a few defenders to generate chances - we lacked that last year. But i think we still need a quality #10. We'll score goals if we can just do more with the ball behind the box, and increased ball retention and pressure in those areas will also yield more free kicks for JWP (some might call those penalties 😎). We could do worse than trying to get Ings back for circa £10m. Keep him fit and that's 15-20goals.

Not sure the whole Broja Saints thing is as dead as everyone believes though. Was watching some Ralph's interview clips from pre season last night, and wondering if his wry smile and comments about striker being the "expensive" one were about Broja - in which case nothing he said implied our interest was over - and i'm sure we have had an interest in him this summer. There has also been some recent (ITK?) comments on here saying his family would like him to come back and that Chelsea have been trying to drive up the price. I reckon we're prepared to go to £20M or just over, so its possible (but by no means certain) that another club (say west ham) will go over that - and at which point its up to the player and Chelsea. Broja could very well decide a West Ham are a better proposition than us - right now they basically are... But still, I could see it dragging on until the end of the window and then if no one else goes in for him we'll either loan him (i hope with an option this time!!) or bring him in at a lower fee. I still wouldn't take him for £30M. But if we can get him at nearer £20M he's probably worth the outlay for us.

I remember that game. Broja almost decapitated for Spurs' second - should never have been given. Broja took his goal well in that, and great play from JWP for the two assists.

He's also got a troublesome attitude by all accounts - and would therefore likely upset our squad dynamic. Add that to his wages, and its definitely one we should be nowhere near.

I think we've actually got a reasonable balance. Salisu and BK give us pace and power, Bednarek can play in a 3CB role and is also a good choice if we're going to be more defensive in a game (as opposed to the high press). That said, we do presumably need to sell some players!

I heard there was something in the talk of broja or his family having an issue with our owner's nationality. That and he saw himself as bigger than Saints (which he is entitled to think in all fairness - its his career at the end of the day). I guess we'll never know what the real situation was, but it was clear with his leaving message that he was unlikely to be returning. And frankly - his goal return and effort isn't worth the outlay for a club like saints - we would be paying a considerable sum on the gamble that he'd develop into a player worth overpaying for now. I do think it was always an error to loan him with no option to buy, we shouldn't be doing this unless we are desperate. Maybe you could argue we were desperate last year, but like as not, all we have done is develop him for another club at the expense of developing our own strikers in Adams and Armstrong. I also think we were playing him more than was warranted to try and sell the merits of Saints to him, or to promote our "youth" pitch for this summer.

Agreed! Burnley are a car crash of a club now, and we can all just be grateful that their owners didn't buy saints.

Its a fair summary, but have i missed us signing a striker?! - 😨😁 surely that's No.1 or No.2 on the priority list!!!

Its a terrible bet.

Well the KWP rumour has established exactly how full of rubbish he is as a source 😅

Listening to talk sport earlier and they were saying Northern Ireland will be very concerned about this game. Is St Mary's about to witness another 9-0 loss... albeit with only one saint involved this time at least.

They said on air last year that he'd be back to take that kind of role.

7 for aribo then, and 3 left available. 9 and 10 also both taken.

I thought there was a compensation process for youth players though? Everton wanted £5m for small, we offered £1.5m, and the final amount will be somewhere in between - although I don't know what was finally agreed? So if we have sold beech for crica £250k it's dissapointing surely? This is the best youth batch we've had through the system since we've recovered from the administration and league 1 years, we need to be getting something meaningful for them, although if dibling is as good as rumoured it still won't be ebough. Also a danger of setting an accepted precident/trend if we have our best academy youngsters poached each year for limited compensation. https://www.footballinsider247.com/sources-everton-respond-to-seven-figure-southampton-bid-for-thierry-small/

Just seen we sold Beech to Chelsea for 250k? Surely not! Having our pants pulled down if that's what we're losing our best youngster for!

Is that you fishing for a job with the club? 🧐🤣 Also, i thought that was his right knee but can't remember? I tried to look it up just now but can't find it reported anywhere. He did tweak his right knee the spring playing for the u21's though and got away with it - We weren't too happy with that call up from memory!! His ACL was his left knee i believe? Either way, that's three knee issues in the space of 4-5months.... I hope he's not going to be one of these talented young players who's career ends up blighted by knee problems 😨😰.