Wes Tender

You towered the days? Translation please. When Hectors house said that if he was really good he would be snapped up by a top 6 team, he did actually say that we could be that top 6 team. Why would Bertrand want to go to Everton to warm the bench whilst Baines plays?

Quite so. The usual miserable half-wits making their minds up on the basis of not having seen the player kick a ball for us yet, with no idea of what the manager's plans for him are, and no knowledge at all of who else will be brought in to play alongside him. I especially mean Hypo and Saint Richmond whose posts are like a stuck record. Somebody has to be particularly lacking any balance in their rational thinking to be so sure of the outcome of something that hasn't even started yet.

The important thing is that Koeman believes him to be a player who will fit into his style of play. As it stands, we have two quick players who could play as wing backs and if we are after Redmond too, he'll provide the cover and competition for Clyne.If we got Vlaar and Rojo and Forster, we wouldn't look too shabby at the back at all. Bertrand has something to prove with us and we have given him a golden opportunity to shine, just as we have with other players who were thought not to be brilliant signings at the time. I think that Koeman will get the best out of him and I suspect that it will be worth revisiting this thread well into the season to remind the unimpressed what tw*ta they were condemning him before he has even kicked a ball for us. Welcome to Saints Ryan. You sound as if you're happy to be here, which makes a pleasant change where players are concerned at this club at the moment.

This is a good thought-provoking issue that you have raised and it is always refreshing to hear the views of sensible fans from other clubs on matters like this. This thread is all very pertinent to our current predicament, so it can be debated seriously without rancour, especially because you have some sympathy with our plight.

You're exactly right that if they insist that they wished to leave because of some perceived lack of ambition when Pochettino left, that it doesn't ring true when we appointed a more high-profile manager than him. That they wouldn't even wait to see what they thought of Koeman, it was clear that they only left for the money. But that was what one would have expected in any event, regardless of the personalities of Cortese and Pochettino and their supposed Svengali influence on the players. It would be really great if Koeman made his own team and got them firing on all cylinders and higher than Pochettino's team, and that at the same time the players who left find that their careers hit the doldrums and they spend large chunks of the season bench-warming, or even, please God, loaned out. Good that Davis is happy with his lot. As you say, a true professional, the low profile team member who just quietly and efficiently goes about his business of making the team tick.

Whose intelligence? I don't see any evidence that you possess much.

:lol: The Bear bitten.

Bruce Grobelaar for being bent?

Well, Lallana and Lovren have certainly made a good case for having themselves included

I'll be glad when you're back at school and don't have as much time available to post your infantile rubbish.

Simple. Tell Spurs/Liverpool/Arsenal or whoever that the price for him is £30 million, non negotiable, money up front and a decent sell-on clause to cover when he moves on to Real Madrd/Barcelona. Take it or leave it.

Schneiderlin declares war on Saints? They can glean all that from a one line tweet? So how is he going about this? Is he hiring a hit-man to bump off the board? Will he be arming himself like Rambo to go in all guns blazing and shoot up anybody who moves? If one wanted a single example of really how ridiculously rubbish the red top rags are in this country, then this one is right up there. The Mirror, Sun and Star in particular are all comics, read by people with low IQs who will lap up this sort of sensationalist clap-trap.

:lol:

Very sensible suggestion

I don't think anybody seriously believes that Rupert Lowe is anybody worth listening too on this current scenario we find ourselves in. This is the guy who through his mismanagement of the club took us down two divisions and eventually bankrupted us. Any mentions of how he was on the board of the FA, (as was Wiseman come to that), just illustrates what a sh*te organisation that is, if they are considered good enough to serve on it. I suspect that the media thought they would have even more of a laugh at our expense by wheeling out the old toff who employed SCW and Simon Clifford to turn our fortunes around and then followed that up with the two Dutch clowns playing all of the kids before they were ready, whilst still expecting us to pay a similar amount to watch them that we paid when we were in the Premier League. And the academy was a success before he came, having produced the likes of Shearer, Le Tiss, the Wallace Brothers, etc. But it was totally worth it plumbing the depths with him in order to be rid of him and Askham and all those other parasites in order to get to where we are now.

Come on then; let's have your theory for why the players want to leave mostly for CL clubs for double or treble their current wages.

Krueger handled himself well in the face of some difficult questions. The most significant statement made by him is that Schneiderlin and Rodriguez are staying. Whether that is because they have both confirmed that they wish to stay because they have been pursuaded that they can both play a significant part in an exciting season with quality new additions around them, or because the club have told them that any offers for them will be rejected, remains to be seen. If the former, then that is the best news of the past few days, as it will be possible to build a good team around them with a few decent additions. If the press feeding frenzy continues unabated and they take the Lallana / Lovren Judas route, then what could we do? Surely Krueger has been able to give these guarantees because the players have been pursuaded to stay, otherwise his stock will plummet.

Have they had such offers from Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal? Sorry, I didn't see them. But go on believing that they wouldn't leave if the right offers came in if you like.

Again, ridiculous to believe that players are leaving just because Pochettino left and also because they might believe that Koeman would not be capable of doing as good a job as him. No, the players find it a very convenient excuse to take the massive amounts of wonga offered to them by the glory clubs and maybe it assuages their consciences not having to accept that they are the very rats in danger of sinking the ship by doing so.

This is a ridiculous thing to say. If the players wanted to stay and did so, then there wouldn't be any train crash. We would remain pretty well where were were. The train crash is caused purely by the departing players and the more that go, the harder it will be to avoid it. These players are leaving for one reason alone. Pure naked greed.

So if by then five or more first team players have left, then we will only play 5 or 6 in the team? There will be some new players I haven't yet seen, Pelle and Tadic to start with, plus Targett or other promoted academy players, plus others who will have signed by then. Otherwise, a tenner isn't bad to watch whichever Saints players play Bayer Leverkusen, is it?

That's just absurd. So you really do believe that had Lallana or Pochettino still been with us, no one else would have followed?

It's a childish idea. I already have my two STs and can't wait to see the new players. But I get the gist of the protest that you are trying to foment and I am taking two kids with me to the match, but refusing to pay anything for them.

See, there you go again. You really do think that if you use the word "fact" before or after any comment you make, then your opinion is somehow indisputable. It is a bad habit you are developing. In the left back position, we have now produced Bridge, Bale and Shaw via the academy. Why is it deemed to be impossible that we should not produce another LB of equal quality to them? These tremendous players we have lost, let's put an alternative gloss on it, just for the sake of balance, eh? Lovren - got him cheap from a CL club because his career was in the doldrums. He was sidelined there, but we took a gamble on him and pulled it off. Surely he isn't the only player like that available anywhere? Lambert - got him from the third division for £1 million. A rough diamond that we polished, made him leaner and fitter and gave him the self-belief that he could prove all the doubters wrong who said that he couldn't play any level higher than the third division. Replaced with the second highest scorer in the Dutch top division. Or isn't that above the level of our third division? Lallana - A reasonably competent players with skill, but often scuffs his shots or they lack power. One really decent season and enough to convince Liverpool that he is the real deal, but worth nowhere near what they paid for him. We screwed them and have possibly signed a better player in Tadic for half the money. Shaw - A World record for an 18 year old left back. One decent season. Could go on to be the best in England, maybe even the World. But you said that Bale was irreplaceable and wasn't he a left back from our academy too? Maybe difficult to replace the player he might become, but not impossible to replace the player he is now, given the money from him that we could put towards doing it. There, I've just polished it up as some sort of positive. As for the manager, well, I think that we've improved there too, but we'll have to wait and see.

I think Simo hasn't made enough money from his paper round and so he's looking for a valid reason to tell his mates why he isn't going.