Saint86

Watched his introductory video. Seems like a cracking lad to be honest, extremely pleased and enthusiastic about joining saints, ambitious, bit of a cheeky chappy. The kind of youngster any workplace would be wanting to hire and give a chance... the fact that hes rated as one of the best young full backs in the country is an added bonus 😆 Looks like with Semmens and Ralph, the clearing of the dead wood, and a couple of windows of decent transfer activity - we can almost see the "Southampton Way" rematerializing. Just a shame we had Reed (****) and wreck it Ralph in power for so long as they almost totally derailed the club for a few years. Crazy to think the amount of time and cost associated with shifting the Reed era deadwood just to get to a point where the finances allow us to start signing youth players like Tino and Thierry for circa £8m all in. People don't like Ralph, but if we'd continued down the lines of Puel, MoPe, Hughes etc the club would be in a very dark place now. Almost certainly relegated, not developing youth players, more stars leaving, and saddled with the huge wages and debts of overpaid journeymen.

Will be a bit of both in reality - best case scenario.

Playing Livramento as much as we are is going to certainly help sell the club.

I'm actually finding myself slightly enthused by this transfer. We've got a fit Romeu in central midfield - and when he is back to his best he is a rock for us. Salisu is a beast of a defender and is only going to get better. And our wing backs and wing play is actually quite tasty now, we certainly carry a threat. What was evident today vs United, was that we struggled to create much from the CDM positions on the field, and players such as Romeu, Salisu Djenpo etc were giving away the ball when the middle became overwhelmed. lyanco addresses these problems directly. He's very good on the ball, can spread play or do tidy passing, and can bring it upfield. I can see him able to step up to support Romeu/jwp from deep and give us that extra support in the centre. All I can say, is that Ralph/Semmens etc. certainly no how to buy players that fit the roles we need. They've sold players for good money (all things considered this summer), and spent it to put round pegs in round holes with players that excel in the strict attributes they really need for those positions. I wasn't too keen on Lyanco previously, but as i said, i now find myself strangely optimistic about what he'll add to the side 😅

How have we signed this kid? And for £5m as well!!!! I don't understand. I also don't understand how we have fans complaining about the quality of our recent signings when they've all been on the average to very good side of the spectrum.

Yeah, a very good first half in fairness.

Whats happening, we've changed shape when in front? What is this.

Apparently queues outside the ground are hundred of yards long.... Are saints going to be the only club in the country that cant get home fans in in significant numbers for the first game? Absolute car crash of a club atm. At least fans won't see us getting spanked.

Strange that Ralph stated there were no injury concerns in his presser then!

Same crap again for the line up. Dropping KWP is unforgiveable, ditto no stuart armstrong - and how can we seriously be dropping Bednarek (a mainstay last season), for Jack Stephens. Just wtf is going on.

You named 28 players, you think we can go the season with a squad of 17? 😨🙈 I'd say about 7 are surplus barring a major injury crisis.

Its about acclimatising the population to the concept of government control and digital ID cards through a slowly creeping introduction. Always has been. The slow move to 1984 / British china. If they cared about stopping covid they'd mandate testing and implement a system that can't be dodged by simply registering a LFT as negative.

Contender for post of the summer, no doubt.

🙄 JWP such a little turd going on strike eh? 🙄🤔👀

Love it guys, keep it coming! This writing off perraud and the transfer window in general after a bad 45min, brilliant stuff! 👍 But also more reactionary than a bunch of teenage girls 🙄.

Yes. I was replying to Turkish who was saying he thought we'd missed a trick in not getting him.

So we're working hard on making a new singing, name drops the vice chairman, and can't give a firm date. Literally anyone on here could have typed that 🙄 But for sure, Rob is ITK 😆

Depends what we end up with. I hope we can do better than Cahil though.

Sounds like we're in for Thierry Small then? 17 years old and Everton would be due £5m compensation. Promising young left back and I think Everton's youngest ever player in the prem?

Its not on the club, its government policy and has been for a while. Also they won't be checking everyone - just a small percentage. All you need to do is input a LFT test as negative and you're good to go though right? that seems farcical to me? Also seems bizarre as well given how high vaccination rates are in the population / by age. If you consider the now evident failure of vaccines to stop the virus spreading and the number of people at the ground.... I'd say that with these procedures, the reality is that you're going to get a fair number of vaccinated people with covid attending packed venues - who are in turn going to spread it further - simply because they aren't being tested. The obvious safe way to have addressed this would be for the government to mandate testing. Makes me think that these restrictions have got a significant gearing towards getting us used to idea of carrying around a little digital passport / id card, and the concept of tighter government controls on what everyone can do. Why do i think that? Because a 10year old with a crayon and 5min of spare time could propose better procedures than these - so the government definitely could if they really cared. Enjoy the toilets and half time queues all - you'll be sharing them with the infected 🙈

Goes well with your avatar 😆

I don't think i've seen anyone say that foreign signings are a "guarantee of quality". But its undeniable that they can offer good value for money if scouted well. Our best signings in recent years have been VVD, Tadic, Mane, Pelle, Toby etc. Our British signings have been for comparable sums and are/were no where near their level. Conversely, do a crap job of scouting players from abroad and you end up with Carillo's, Hoedt's and Lemina's. So actually, i would say the general rule is that foreign signings offer potentially far better value, but at a much higher risk. Just take west ham as an example. £40+ million spent on Bowen (end of contract and £20m) and Benrahma (17months left at £21m) - both of whom are good, but they picked up Coufal (£5.4m) and Soucek (£14.5m) for half that 🤷‍♂️

Steady on! We aren't managed by Southgate....

Switch that to Salisu over stephens and you've got a team!