Saint86

Broja?!? 🤣😂 Ipswich are wasting money on wages there. Let alone the fact that Archer is our player for half the price.

Chelsea are basically a temp agency at this point. You can bet that every single player they've signed is part of a business plan to turn profit first and foremost. The few that are good enough for the first team all benefit from uplfits in their contracts - the rest generate loan fees and are sold for profit to rival clubs.

I mean, isn't this a bit of a state the obvious comment? Did those teams have a net spend of circa £160M at the start of the 3 year cycle ending this season? Did they get relegated suffering a huge drop in income and allowable spend/loss under PSR? Let's not even start on Brighton and their very impressive player trading in recent seasons. Ditto wolves and Bournemouth have both had high sales this window -so all in, I think it's hardly that surprising that all 3 of them can go out and spend - it doesn't necessarily mean it's the right strategy though. PSR in particular works to screw over prem clubs that get relegated and try/managed to bounce back - we'll have done very very well if we manage to bounce back, stay up, and avoid any PSR sanctions...

They would have said he failed the medical if this was the case, not announced that they basically tried to change the terms of the deal (which is effectively what they've done 😅🤦‍♂️🤷‍♀️) and couldn't reach an agreement. Fully on Saints' side with this one. They announced a routine heart condition publicly to the press (zero need for this) to try and force our hand and reduce the value of the player and further pressure us, and then they've tried to renegotiate the terms. We've seemingly told them to Foxtrot Oscar. 3rd time they've done it this summer as well. Extremely bizarre to then try and turn what is a collapsed player sale (to a club taking the piss) as yet another opportunity to beat saints around the head. Some crazy toxic narratives out already this season - we've just been promoted, and yet anywhere you look you'll find people having a go at the club, the manager, macca etc. Sad state of affairs.

Not at all sold on O'Riley, so will be very happy if we don't spunk £26M (of our very tight budget) up the wall on him.

Yeah, they're a horrible team. Niggly, every decision they are onto the refs about. Always giving back chat to our players. Basically scrapping and giving out from the word go - and its been this way for years. Their fans are no different. Absolute Mongrols the lot of them. Still we did absolutely outplay them - there is no denying that we only lost because of 1 mistake. Given we will improve significantly from this point i feel a lot more positive about the season. Pretty funny how pissed off newcastle got only having 32% of the possession before the red card.

Unreal bed wetting. Talk about a laughable agenda to be trotting this shit out in the first game of the season when we've outplayed a champions league contender for 44min.

Hah, i'm not the only one getting defoe vibes then!

Archer reminds me a little bit of defoe in his highlights clips.

Not sure if this link will work, but interesting if that much is going on in the background - the article gives previous few details. https://www.thetimes.com/sport/football/article/why-this-could-be-the-most-absurd-premier-league-season-yet-xrff5q50p https://archive.ph/KDBJS

This is the best 11 for me. We have to play to our strengths... The keeper is the weak spot so protect him - 3cbs. Nothing else we can do with this as it stands. Our first choice wingbacks are good frankly, especially on the attacking front. Having 3 cb's and cdm frees them up nicely to cause problems. CM - I actually think flynn is a quality CM engine room for most prem teams (outside the big boys). He's a great midfield anchor for us. Only issue is there is only one of him in the squad. But charles has looked good. Other CMs - smallbone, aribo, and alcaraz... This is okay for a bottom half team. Not great. Not bad. I think they work well together within the tactics and alongside Downes and arma etc. We'll be effective against sides. Arma and bbd. Good movement (which suits our style), pace and a bit of a live wire threat from AA. BBD has a bit more guile and control about him. They compliment each other / the side quite well. Will be okay again for a bottom half side. --- 5-1-2-2 is the right starting formation for us. Edozie and SAA allow us to switch to a 4 with wingers. And dibling gives us some attacking CM cover. We have a weakness at GK, and zero cover there. Lose flynn and we're in serious trouble. We've got no real cover for AA or BBD frankly. The likes of Flynn, AA, BBD cannot play every game all season. We need depth badly.

We aren't poor at development. SR just don't know how to use the academy / don't care. We've lost nearly all our top talent (for peanuts) because we didn't want to pay them a bit more per week or give them minutes... and then we've also gone and spunked tens of millions on other players (that don't care about the club and who haven't kicked on), not to mention their far higher wages than academy kids. Fortunately dibling came back (although I am still none the wiser as to what happened there).

People will be shocked when Ryan fraser scores 25goals this season...

Yeah fully agree. A very tidy bit of business that one. Less sure about Wood's ultimately ceiling, but together they're a solid pair of squad centrebacks to have as backups with potential.

Our #1 target was Flynn... and rightly so. Followed up by Sugawara. Both positions were higher priorities than another attacking midfielder. I'd argue BBD was a more important signing as well. We've made 4 good signings (when you include THB) all of which were more important than an attacking midfielder. And whilst were on the subject, i'd rather we sign a GK and probably a striker first as well.

I am curious as to how you think Brighton got their money...

You lot are so very negative at times! FWIW I think we'll do alright this year unless injuries screw us over. The core team are solid enough for this level (bottom end of the prem) and well practiced at keeping the ball. We're going for 5 at the back, hard to beat, knock it around a lot to recycle possession, and lots of low scoring games. We have a style of play that works, that is somewhat unusual for the league, and which works for us. When the full strength teams came on vs lazio and getafe we dominated possession, looked far more assured, and held the sway over chances in both matches. Yes, we will get bad beats in some games - but we've got a very good morale in the team and we will be able to grind out results. We're not competing with the top team at the end of the day... we're competing with the dross to be 17th. There are clubs in this league that have been circling the drain - forest and Everton to name a few, wolves and Bournemouth have both just lost key attacking men. Leicester look set for whopping points deduction, and ipswich shouldn't be expecting to do any better than us - and for both us and them, a good start with early momentum will be important. Do we need to strengthen attack and GK, yes. But there is still time left. I also think 2 things will go on our favour over the season - 1.) we'll likely be seen as "easy points" or a rest game for the bigger sides in their busy periods. 2.) the team have been forged in the fire of the promotion chase and the playoffs. We won't bottle big game matches vs rivals. And that is where points will really matter. But we aren't going to be rock bottom and adrift with this side, we'll be in games more often than not, BBD and arma will get goals, and as others have said - if the worst happens, the squad will be very solid for the championship. Hopefully the fanbase can stay positive and support the team throughout, our new "kop" can make SMS a bit of a fortress (I have my doubts there mind 😅), and with a bit of fight we find ourselves the right side of 18th place come may!

Any recommendations for overseas coverage providers (that may or may not be accessible over a VPN, not in anyway suggesting i would make use of such a thing 😇)

Seems unlikely he'd move to spurs to be a backup, not even guaranteed to get ahead of Spence for that either.

Last year for PSR though right? I.e. the 3 year rolling period won't matter after this year's accounts?

We have a better squad than Ipswich, no question at all. On top of that, a lot of our players have significant Prem experience (and international). As for "so why are Ipswich managing it", they're not sitting too badly on the financial muscle side of things - Ipswich have something like £8-10Bn backers. They posted frankly huge losses for League 1 (which allowed them to build a core squad that could go up the leagues) and they'll no doubt post losses last year as well. They were jammy as hell to beat us, and i've got no doubt we were the better side by the end of the season. Take all the early season upheaval (players coming and going) and our change of tactics out of it, and we'd have been fine for automatics over the season - which is the advantage Ipswich had in building their squad in league 1. But going into the prem, we should happily consider ourselves as having at least as good a chance of survival as they have (in my opinion better).

My take is that Martin is spending a lot of time getting the squad as prepared as he can with his system and style - He knows that Downes, THB, Arma, Bednarek etc. can all do it (and when they've come in any friendly we've instantly had control so far). So outside of that he's just been giving them minutes a lot of the time (25-30min per game). I'm sure the last friendly will be a much stronger starting 11. We've had a shorter break than most sides and we've kept the core squad together. Reckon its been a decent pre season all in all. Or look at it another way - do people really want a repeat of Sunderland (a), Leicester (h), from last season to happen in the prem? I don't, so i'm okay with the likes of Wood, Edwards etc, getting more focus in playing our system where mistakes don't matter!

Lazio had been dirty all night, Alcaraz was just standing up for Shea (good lad), the lazio player then puts him in a choke hold and tries (maybe succeeds) to punch him in the face. Far from Alcaraz being the aggressor, he was just defending Shea and therefore Lazio started it in my book... and a small scrum of players stopped Alcaraz ending it (although fair enough, his head was gone by that point ). I like that fire in him personally, although he is a to easy to wind up. Easy to forget as well though that he is a young lad along way from home that moved over here and hasn't had a settled start by any stretch of the imagination. Joined a rotten dressing room (and shone himself), got relegated, mass unrest in the team and players all wanting to leave (whilst he committed himself), got loaned out to Juve (another country/language) and couldn't get much game time, and back now trying at Saints. He was pretty good last night as well (assist for the goal, some nice carries and often looking for the long/diagonal pass), especially considering that was largely the 2nd string lineup. I hope this doesn't damage his prospects under Martin as there is enough there to suggest we should keep him and get him working in our system - Some of the stuff he does is class and levels above what our other midfielders offer.

Why would an Italian journalist be a reliable source for a transfer between a team in scotland and one in england? If they're regurgitating a more reliable source then i'll take more interest.