Saint86

Neither is better than what we have - which wasn't good enough to stay in the prem (or frankly even compete). Ergo, we're selling better players to buy worse ones, just to in all likelihood need to replace them next summer (if we get promoted).

Thought the same - the only other possibility i can see is that the club have decided that they want this specific sale for PSR reasons / to raise funds - i.e. its pure profit, and it may be key to keeping Fernandes etc., If that is the case then the club is showing what is a weak and very risky hand to a degree (by excluding him), because presumably other clubs know how close the deal is and would see if we're behaving unusually with him. I.e., Everton will know exactly how far away a deal is, and they will see that we're not involving him in the first team and that we're keeping him ready for a sale - which is a very weak negotiating tactic if it is the case. There could also be a case of forcing/encouraging a sale from the club's side - tying in with what Barcelona Saint said above about him loving the club.

Keep them both, smash the league, potentially keep dibling on promotion. Worst case we knock 15m-20m off the asking price for having 1 year left... Which is what we're rumoured to be spending on bang average players like fellows and rudoni.

My heart bleeds. Not 😂🤣

But not as special as that Port Vale kit 😉

This is probably the worst prediction i've seen to date. OptaAnalyst having a mare there. Sheffield Wednesday in 14th 🤣🤣

Agree, its a thing of beauty . Don't you agree @Matthew Le God? 😉

Think Blackmore said he's ill.

Not impressed by parsons at all. The difference between him and spors is night and day.

Really? We'd be selling a prized jewel for circa £40M and spending 25 of it minimum on two players that won't be good enough next season. It would be pretty shit business given he's already better than both of them in my book, and with a far far higher ceiling. The reality is that whoever we get in to replace dibling and Fernandes needs to be good enough for the prem next season, or it's wasted spend that we'll need to repeat. The only player I've seen linked so far that I would be happy with is Édouard Spertsyan (who is absolute class and I wish to god we'd had spors in last summer as he would have made a huge difference last season). If we spend £10-15M on fellows it will be a shocking investment in comparison - a similar amount of money to the rumoured Spertsyan fee for a pretty average champ player.

He came in and improved them (kept them up by all accounts), and they had frankly horrendous injuries to deal with.

2-2

And a few pages on that forum reminded me how revolting some of Everton's fanbase really are... "The irony is there are no ‘true’ Southampton fans. Anyone from that area supports the RS or Man Utd. Southampton are their second team. They’re a league one team at best." I know all fanbases have them, but they really do seem to be disproportionately bad.

Russel Martin Interview doing the rounds on the GrandOldTeam.

I tell you what, if they spend nearly 80M on 2 currently quite average prem level players (TD and KDH), they will be setting themselves up for a few more years of pain and struggle. That's a lot of money for a club like everton that really do have a poor first 11 currently 🤣😅

SAA starting and scoring again for Strasbourg today... Would have been very well placed for us this coming season...

If we see no further signings but keep dibling and Fernandes, I would say we'll have had a pretty great window. Especially if dibling signs an extension. That to me would be us having a team with a spine or players that can step up to the prem. Others seem to think it's great to sell dibling for 35M and seem excited at the prospect of someone like fellows for 20M...

What?!?! 1600 staff, uk head office, and a huge boost to the local economy / businesses. They're arguably the most beneficial single company for the city i would imagine... Weston Super (having a mare) Saint? 😅

I am struggling. Why have Saints used club funds to sign this player only to loan him to Valenciennes reserves? Is something being lost in translation here, because if he isn't even good enough for the Valenciennes first team, why has he been signed in the first place - shows no ambition from the group and seems like we're wasting money on players of limited value/potential?

The ideal scenario / gamble would be to keep them both, get promoted (and improve them both this season as pivotal players in our team), and then actually have a talented core team of players to build around next season (as per the lambert, lallana, morgan, fonte grouping). Everyone saying sell them to get some money and strengthen now, ignores the fact that if we get promoted we need players at least as good as dibling/fermandes currently are to stay up, and they look to be costing somewhere in the region of £80M+ for the pair. And everyone is already saying we need to strengthen our creative midfield options/wings as it is. No point getting promoted if we have no core spine of players to build around next season imo - if we sell these 2 now and replace them with champ level alternatives, the risk is we'll simply be spending money on deadwood for next season and be back to square 1. What we need is Fernandes/dibling type talents that can develop and improve and be ready to be our main men next season. Solak says he wants to keep our best players and get us back to the prem - well at some point he may need to put his foot down, actually foot the bill for an annual loss, and gamble on keeping some of them for a chance of a brighter future. I know we had PSR limits last time out in the champ, but we all saw the result of making a £5M profit in the championship when we couldn't compete in the prem... A loss this season to ambitiously build a promising team for next season may well pay its own dividends.

I'm questioning myself now as i cannot find it 😐🤣. But i am damn sure i read it somewhere this past week!!

Struggling to find it now (just had a quick look). It was something i read in the past week or so that stuck in my mind - and i recall it being someone like Alfie House (my first thought) or Adam blackmore. Regardless though, it was someone fairly reliable about Saints and they had mentioned there was the potential for a former saint to be re-joining the club. So its interesting to now see a rumour about Romeu... It could just as easily be Oxlade, or even something like Fonte joining as a coach etc. Equally, on the Romeu front, would he really upsticks and come back to Southampton when the whole reason for his move was to go home in the first place.

Ties in with the Alfie House rumour that we might be signing a former Saint.

And so the weird and toxic narratives begin.

Martin made it very clear he isn't one to separate football and politics - for that reason alone he's out of her league, poor girl 😐.