Saint86

Saw this in Bristol as well the other day. on a 5year old. Weird.

What?!?! Its an absolute non starter. This is sports washing and an attempt to build interest and tourism in Saudi Arabia - the money is good because no one wants to go there and that will never change whilst the saudi's run around dismembering the free press in various international embassies or funding civil wars in yemen etc. Jude bellingham joined Real (in the face of better pay options), the lanky Robot boy is at Man City, and Mbappe is at PSG... That's your three best players in world football in the making (if not already) - and i reckon that no young player with a serious love of the game grows holds a dream of playing and living in a league with no history/prestige and in a desert country with one of the worst human rights records in the world... They're signing old players or the ones only in it for the money. Its no threat at all to the premier league or europe, and if anything its benefitting those leagues as they're getting paid silly money for old players to improve their squads.

The romeu transfer was linked to the Edozie and larios transfers, not the lavia one.

So how much did we get and what were his wages?

Anyone know what kind of wages he was on? Want to see know if my £3M a year ballpark figure is anywhere near close

Basically stronger than our starting 11 for most of last season lets be honest.

I've been relatively impressed with all the kids that have featured so far in pre season. They're certainly up to the required standard to either be squad players or provide back up depth between them. Some will clearly be more involved than others, and i think A-A is definitely one of those. The kid looks a genuinely good prospect that we've picked up on the cheap.

We probably can't - but we can prepare for the uncertainty. We're transitioning in style and our overall squad and depth is good for the championship. We'll have strategic areas to strengthen but in around that we could end up with any number of potential line ups depending on who stays/gos. Fans will need to be patient as things settle down and we learn the style. Its also important to remember that often the championship sees teams promoted after a bad start.

Am i the only one who thinks Ballard has the potential to really ignite this season? Sure he needs a bit of luck and some faith, but those ahead of him aren't exactly great, and what Ballard is is an extremely confidant and competent goal scorer - and someone who will suit are possession heavy build up with lots of players and movement in and around the box. I'm not saying to hold high expectations on the kid, but i do think he could do really well this year if he gets his chance.

Fantastic news for him - one of my favourite saints players in recent years. Great attitude both on and off the pitch by all accounts, and someone who put family over a big pay day (with the girona move) - so for it to work out like this for him is well deserved and a nice story.

Surely we haven't just spent nearly £15M on charles if we don't consider him ready to play regularly this season?! Alongside JWP will be charles and smallbone i'd imagine. Doyle will also get minutes in the 8 role. Possible we may see one more addition there i guess. The likes of Carlos, Stu, Sulemana, Tella, Edozie, A-A (Sam Amo-Ameyaw) will play further forward.

I don't know, but with phrases like "future bloodline" being whipped out, I can only assume we're worshipping a new vampire novel. And I'm here for it...

We've played 2 games with fully cycled line ups in both, and have played some very nice stuff within that... This is like when people were writing Mane off after his first appearance ffs, you've given him no time at all. We still need to address the central defence and attack, but that will come.

Yes Doyle was disappointing today. So many times in the final 3rd he miss controlled it, didn't know how to beat his man, misplaced his pass etc. But he is young so inconsistency will be inevitable, the lad does have promise.

People being overly negative. Saints are dominating possession and getting a lot of bodies in and around the box. May just be a case of the manager trying to ingrain that style in the players first and foremost. A lot of nearly moments so far - with increased familiarity they'll be chances galore with the amount of possession/numbers/movement and the potential in the final 3rd... It would also help to not have Che Adams waltzing around up front seemingly not giving a fuck. CB's / CDM looks a concern. But first half we've had no CDM playing and we've also had a fairly weak attack starting this match imo (i.e. no alcaraz, sulemana, or Mara starting). Would be hasty to get to concerned so far - its pre season, players will be coming and going, and the main point is the players are learning the total possession style of the manger. Would hope we win this second half - lavia, sulemana, alcaraz, mara etc. The side is going to get stronger.

Don't disagree, but that is the rumoured fee. You'd like to think its more likely to be in the £10-15M bracket.

Che Adams playing absolute wank. Sooner he leaves the better if this is his attitude in pre season. Terrible.

Poor from baz, clever goal from them though.

Yeah thats fair for winter, although any different to being a sinking rock in the prem in january/February?

its almost like these "journalists" read saints web and print it for money...

(I'm conscious this is now going away from the JWP focus of this thread so perhaps mods should move the last couple of posts) I'm not so sure we'll see a drop in attendances. Wasn't the recent rumour that season ticket sales have increased? We'll certainly have more matches regardless and i think last year we averaged about 2000 empty seats per game (we had the highest average number of empty seats in the league under one breakdown i saw). I would imagine a successful side in champ will at least match those numbers and possibly achieve a lot of sell outs in the latter half of the season. Caveated by the fact we average 26k in the champ last time around although that was after years of poor football and strife. Sponsorship deals may see a decline agree, but only for ones renewed this year (or if we have a relegation clause in the T&C's. And who knows, SR might be able to expand the number of commercial deals the club have to mitigate this. Will be interesting to see our books for last season when released - agree i think there needs to be an awareness that SR have put their hands in their own pocket to fund the club as a long term investment, so whilst they'll expect a return/profit ultimately on that money, we don't need to fund that money immediatley - just stick within the FFP limits. Perhaps a bigger concern is what is happens with that loan we took out over covid.

Just checked and we aren't someone like Cardiff or Rotherham. i hope you can get your hopes up and start to enjoy saints again(!!), must be very miserable having such a negative view of our prospects!!

Should be fairly easy to bank the club £100M in sales and wage savings. Ely, theo, orsic. already gone. Assume average 60k per week for most of our more experienced players = circa £3M each or £9M saved total. Orsic sale was £3-4M? so thats £12M. Lavia will be £50M plus wages, lets assume £50k per week so £2.6M. Fine we have to pay city 20% of the sale, but it still passes through the club's books for FFP reasons. £62M so far. KWP £15M sale, and £3M wages. = £80M total Salisu £7M sale (rumoured) and £3M wages = £90M total Che Adams (£15M sale (rumoured) and £3M wages = £108M total Onuachu (£10M sale?) and say £2M wages = £120M And there will be other players leaving - Straight off the bat i reckon you can pick 2 from DCC, Lyanco, Bednarek, Stephens, ABK. Far from certain that we'll keep Macca, Djenpo, Stu. Aribo, Diallo etiher. Easily see us getting up to £150M in sales and player wage savings just from adding some exits from these players... and we'll replace them with a limited number of cheaper and younger players on lower wages / or loan signings - bearing in mind that our squad is incredibly bloated and we have some bright prospects breaking through. So all this talk of us having to sell JWP, having to sell Tella, or Tino, or Alcaraz, or Sulemana etc that you see in the media... i remain utterly non fussed - we only need to do one big sale (looks to be lavia)... Beyond that, we have plenty of players that we activley want to sell and who will want to get out for the sake of better wages. So any of our better players we can charge a premium for - and likely use the money to strategically improve the squad. Also as a strategic mid term plan, buying youth prospects is a good move in the champ. The parachute payments reduce per season, but those players will be on lower wages, improve, and can be sold on for a profit if required. Which is far more sustainable that signing high wage/fee players and missing promotion.

Yeah right, how dare we not roll over and have our bellies tickled for half what our players are worth. I'm pretty comfortable with the club's strat so far. Price our players high, anyone comes in and buys some will relieve the pressure to sell others. We can lower prices at the end of the window if required, but one big sale (lavia) and shifting out most of the deadwood (which we want to do) sets us up nicely for the season - extra sales beyond that will be to facilitate player trading (and we've already signed 4 players, albeit for minimal spend). There is also the simple fact that other sides will get desperate going into August and will overpay - particularly lower prem sides. Still possible we start the season with a midfield and wingers including JWP, Sulemana, Alcaraz, Tella alongside Charles - with the likes of Stu Armstrong (starting if fit), Edozie, Smallbone, Doyle, etc to provide depth. Armstrong, Mara, and ballard up front. Its really not a bad side for the championship as it is, and we may well strengthen the attack. Just need to sort out the central defence primarily - but Tino, Bree, Perruad, Manning, Larios is already a solid set of wing backs. Baz will be fine in goal despite what the naysayers say, so its CB's to sort. And cheerio to the likes of Tall Paul (£10M), Che (£15M), KWP (£15M), Salisu (£10-15M), Lavia (50M), and possibly Macca (will pay) as a minimum. This championship malarkey is going to be a cakewalk 😎

Whilst i agree, we should just be happy that the forum experts who said we could only ask £40M aren't in charge. Let alone the ones that said man city could dictate which clubs we were allowed to sell him to 😂