Wes Tender

:lol:

When are you back at school, Simo? I believe that it's a few days after the transfer window closes. If your bladder can make it until then, you should be alright once you get back into the school routine. I'm going and if the wettest fans like you and SaintRichmond are boycotting, the atmosphere should be even better.

I've usually found on here that those who try and justify their opinions by saying "fact" after them, are mostly the ones with the least grasp the situation. This is especially true of all those who are prepared to make snap judgements before the start of the season and with another month to go before the transfer window closes. Also, can you explain how somebody can be sat with their head in the sand. I'm pretty sure that it would be a physical impossibility.

Well, it didn't occur to Hodgson that Clyne is better than Johnson, so why would Rodgers be capable of working that out? The bloke seems to be totally devoid of imagination. It seems that to his mind, apart from Suarez and maybe the ageing Gerrard, the entire Saints team of last season is better than Liverpool's team. Otherwise, why would he have such a fixation on our players?

Good riddance. I don't want players at the club I support who aren't totally committed to us and would leave at the drop of a hat for money and glory at one of the big teams. Just remember Lovren, your career at Lyon was going nowhere. You were sidelined and unpopular and we took a chance on you. Thanks for deserting us so soon for purely selfish reasons. Our main consolation is that we will have got well over twice what we paid for you and with that money there are plenty of players as good or better than you are. I'm sure that you will be in your element with fellow judas greedy bastards like Lallana and I look forward to giving you and him the bird when you come back here. But with luck, you'll only be a bench-warmer by then. As for Liverpool, they are signing all these rotten apples, players who would threaten to strike if they don't get their way and I hope that it comes back to bite them in the bum.

By whom? Do please tell us your thinking behind this.

We'll just have to wait and see, won't we? I'll back my judgement as pretty well maintaining our current position and improving the season after. Many of the naysayers were exactly the same ones who said we wouldn't get back into the PL as soon as we did, that Adkins wouldn't be as good as Pardew, Pochettino wouldn't be as good as Adkins, Lambert wouldn't make the step up to the second division, then the first, etc.

Of course, as I've explained many times before, I have never ripped up any ST I've held. There was one season when I didn't renew it, but still attended most matches until things got so bad under the Dutch clowns that I joined a growing boycott in an effort to get rid of Lowe and the Quisling. I immediately renewed when Lowe was history. That doesn't stop the hard of thinking like Dorkish repeating the fallacy in the expectation that it will pass into folklore as a weapon of insult to please his little band of simple-minded acolytes.

I'm sorry, but you're entirely wrong. As I understand it, Markus declined taking his share of his inheritance and built up his own fortune with his own company Mali. This from his obituary in the Telegraph:-

Because I read your post first. As simple as that. In response to the Chambers thing, on the face of it your response was fine until you said "no matter what happens". What if Chambers was bring sold to make way for us signing Phillip Lahm for instance? Of course it probably isn't going to happen, but it illustrates a "what if" that presumably would have you eating your words. In the absence of any evidence of what is intended towards replacing him, any opinion that losing him is disgraceful is currently unfounded.

So what exactly are your qualifications to pour scorn on Katharina's choice of board member? Not knowing of course the circumstances of whether an approach had been made to your own favourite candidate, and whether there were good reasons why he may have declined to accept? You may believe that I look silly for decrying the likes of you to be bedwetters, that is an obvious response in a vain attempt to make yourself feel better. But likewise, I believe that the sensible people are those who will wait and see what transpires before throwing childish tantrums. That way, one can determine who in fact is the realistic one or the deluded one. You're deluded if you think that there are realistic grounds for deciding that at this stage.

Yes, actually. Unless of course they play exactly the same team in both the PL and the CL, then quite a high proportion of the players will be new to their team for one or the other. It's obvious really.

What's ****ed is your brain's power to reason. You wouldn't know a fact if it kicked you up the backside.

I'm really sorry for Katharina that she doesn't have you to advise her, what with the incredible breadth of your expertise as a management consultant at the highest level. Although it's too late to have prevented the club's current situation, I'm sure that now she will have seen how stupid she has been with her recent appointments, if you send in your CV, she has a chance to redeem herself.

Yes. Implicitly.

The comparison with the oligarchs' plaything teams is just to illustrate that whole teams can be changed and yet there is none of this talk that they face the drop because so many changes to the team will mean that they cannot gel together. Liverpool will have made a similar number of changes and whereas yes, they could field more or less the team that they ended the season with, they will be without the player who more than any other was responsible for their high finish. I don't see any of the players signed being capable of what he gave them. A lot of the players have no doubt been signed to give them the depth they will need for the Champions League, but then again, those players will have to be integrated into a unit too. I'm not making the point because I believe that we can't integrate our new players into a team, I'm making it because I think it's codswallop to believe that just because we make many new signings, it is a given that we risk relegation as a result. If the players are rubbish compared to those we have lost, it is a possibility. But some posters on here are making predictions of relegation regardless of whom we sign.

I'm pretty sure that Liverpool would have been quite prepared to overlook Suarez' disciplinary problems if they could have kept him. I'm amused that you think that was the reason he left, instead of the real one, that he wanted to leave them for wads of dosh and to play for a better team, in much the same way that Lallana wanted to leave us. Almost most amusing to draw comparisons between Osvaldo and Suarez. He didn't actually bite one of their players, did he? Liverpool are buying quality internationals from us mostly, although they have signed one or two others who were not our players. We are also intending to buy in some quality internationals too, I'm sure. I think that Liverpool's ambitions will be to stay in the Champion's League rather than being relegated to the Championship. Why does it seem less likely that we will invest in quality players as each day passes? Please explain your reasoning? We could make several signings at once and we have until the closure of the window in which to do it. You seem to be one who believes rumours, which often can be started by players' agents wanting to generate interest in their players, or to increase their value or pay. Liverpool like to do their dirty washing in public, whereas we are well known for doing our business behind closed doors as much as possible. You go on believing the rumours you have heard and I'll be quite content to wait and see who we sign before making snap knee-jerk reactions.

You'll be so happy if you win the bet, won't you? I can detect your optimism getting bigger by the day.

So the almighty upheaval at Liverpool, losing the player responsible for placing them so high in the PL and replacing him with wholesale incoming players is not going to threaten them with relegation, but it is going to do that to us? When a Club is taken over by some Russian oligarch, he can spend massive amounts of money on virtually replacing the entire team and they don't seem to get themselves relegated. Now we have ourselves quite considerable sums of money available to replace quite a few players, but it will end in disaster according to you and others. There can't be any mitigating circumstances in your mind, can there? Impossible to replace those we have lost, isn't it? Koeman couldn't possibly be better than Pochettino. The false premise on which this is being debated is all yours, as you make no allowances for any upside, which admittedly can sensibly be mitigated by some caveats. As you have used a maritime analogy to illustrate our situation, I'll use one too. We are tacking to find a more favourable wind to speed us to our destination.

Strange that the squad unity last season was so good under an Argentinian Manager and an Italian Chairman. Hooiveld is Dutch and is reputedly one of the best liked players among his mates. The two players brought in by Koeman so far from Holland are Italian and Serbian. Actual Dutch players mentioned are from teams like Celtic and Aston Villa, so presumably they are capable of integrating well enough into British teams. Surely a team containing several players of the same nationality is more likely to be able to have harmony than one containing several diverse cultural differences and languages.

And the prize for the most blinkered, narrow-minded, short-sighted, negative, pessimistic poster on the forum goes to you.

You really don't need to make such a sensible post, Nick, as those who have us down for relegation can't be pursuaded by common sense arguments. Anybody who predicts relegation before they even know the team that will play for us this coming season, isn't somebody capable of looking at the big picture, if they can't even see beyond the current situation. They have already made up their minds that the money from these player sales won't be re-invested in replacements, that even if it was, it is impossible that those replacements could actually be better than those who have left.

A good article, Connor, sensibly argued points. As you rightly say, the big boys have bought our best players, but we have royally screwed them considering what they cost us and there is no reason that they cannot be replaced with their equivalents with the money we got for them. But another pertinent point, and one that I've made before, is that the top teams can only have squads containing a certain number of players and once those places are filled, then there is a respite until the next transfer window at least. Also, these top clubs make bids for several players for each position and when they sign somebody, those other targets of theirs are up for grabs. I suspect that where the likes of Scousehampton balked at paying the price we wanted for Lallana and Lovren, there was a list of players suggested who were deemed to be as good as them, but costing much less money. It seems to me that those players having been jilted by Liverpool as their suitor, could then be courted by us. So for all the paranoia from a section of our fanbase that these players cannot be replaced adequately and we are going to hell in a handcart, there are other players coming through the academy to replace Shaw and Chambers, who were only themselves introduced very recently and unexpectedly to cries of disbelief that we were blooding these relatively unknown kids before they were ready. There is quite possibly another Lambert somewhere in the third division. There is also another Lovren unfancied and a pariah in his European CL team who will have another chance with us and distinguish himself and then **** off to a glory team. Then there is another Pahars out there, another Killer, another Beattie. We have an excellent academy, a very good global scouting netweork and barrow loads of cash. It shouldn't be beyond us to rebuild a team as good or better than the one that ended last season.

Welcome to the forum frankthesaint and Paul.Studio. As you both say, Koeman's appointment is indicative of some ambition by the board, as he is arguably the highest profile manager we have ever appointed and it does seem unlikely that he will have had no say at all in these players leaving. Paul, your opinion that we will finish at least eighth (depending on the calibre of replacements for the leavers) is at least as valid as those held by the bed-wetters who are prepared to stick their necks out and predict a flirtation with relegation, without waiting to see who we bring in before the start of the new season. But if you've both been following this forum for some time, I'm sure that you know who these posters are who go off at half-cock and then try and belittle anybody's opinion that doesn't echo theirs.

Well, let's see you refute them with some sort of evidence yourself. I read about Markus' history somewhere, but I really can't be arsed to find it. The Mali Group from which he derived his fortune was all his own doing.