Saint86

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 😂

Correct me if i'm wrong, but the others are final year of their contract, so only manning will be free? Could potentially do a mini Liverpool on them this summer

They'll really learn to us, we basically relegated them from the prem, signed their manager on the cheap whilst they paid his wages needlessly for a month, now we're going to pillage some of their best players 😄

I presume rice to arsenal is agreed and done and dusted, the delay is to allow west ham to get some replacements sorted before the rice deal goes through and the prices go up even higher? The rumoured £25M interest in JWP part of a broader strategy to show west ham don't have that much money to spend on cm's whilst trying to hurry up other enquiries to show they have interest? I can't see that a £25M bid for jwp is remotely serious, and similarly it's so insulting they'll likely antagonise the club and possibly player as well.

Prowsey will be on more than 60k per week. When he signed that deal he was the top earner on 100k with a rumoured clause to maintain highest wage and likely a percentage wage rise increase each season - if you assume he's had 2 years of percentage wages rises plus the rumoured 40% pay cut this summer, he must still be on at least about £70k per week. So clubs will have to offer him a fair wage to get him.

That's good because we will sell them 😅😂. JWP is staying though 😎💪

Its academic Hypo, he isn't leaving this window😏. He might go in January or next summer depending on how the season goes - But for now i remain firmly as convinced as Fareham that he's going o be playing for saints come October. Only way that changes if someone gets desperate and offers silly money/wages.

In all seriousness, anyone who is good enough for pep to put them into that Man City side is more than good enough for saints in the 2nd tier.

What are they going to do if their players on short contracts want to follow Martin and put their foot down on the move? We can basically wait until the end of the window and still offer less than other teams in that sort of scenario... And we'll get them unless Swansea want to lose them for free next summer etc. They really don't have much of a leg to stand on. I'm still chuckling that they've paid Martin's wages whilst he was on holiday and working for us, and they still got the reduced compensation for him joining a championship team (shock horror) 😂🤣. They had a reputation as a difficult club to deal with, and so far they've lived up to it. Quite nice for once to see saints play hard ball contractually and shaft them.

Ah yes, basically 😅. I just mean that accusations currently relate to payments to receive stuff / keep quiet. But i wouldn't be surprised if it ends up being more than that once it all comes out 🤷‍♂️... And similairy ruling it out seems premature. Especially as there is certainly an incriminating photo doing the rounds - although whether genuine or not who knows.

No, the unknown presenter is accused of paying a 17-20 year old to send photos? Nothing has been said about them sending them?

There are certainly some incriminating images doing the rounds on this front.

Pretty much have it there clear as day - he was a £7M signing to improve the squad (which he did), and to have potential for the future (which he does)… I do not know why you've decided to stand on the particular hill of "Edozie is a failure" 🤷‍♂️ - its not like we're short of bad signings last year!