Beckenham Saint

Lambert who the last two managers who have been trying to replace and phase out of the team, who we have made profit on at the age of 32 and who we would have likely tried to replace again this summer. Boo hoo. Replaced with Pellé. Lallana who has had one good season, and has been talked up by the press into a £25million player despite only chipping in with 12 goals in two years and roughly the same amount of assists who had the ability to go missing in games and never stepped up when we needed him most to turn games around. Replaced by Tadíc. Shaw is a left back, not irreplaceable. Obviously it's nicer to have a world class player back, but it's not the end of the world if we find a decent replacement. He still has the odd mistake in him, and for an attacking full back, 0 goals or assists isn't great. Gutted he's gone, but it's not like he's gone to Hull or whatever. Man United are much bigger than us and probably very difficult to turn down. Morgan hasn't specifically suggested he wants to leave, that has been completely talked up by the press. One day, I think he will play for Arsenal, but from his comments RE speaking to Koeman and new signings and Koeman's comments in his press conference about Schneiderlin give me hope we will have him for at least one more season. While I would have loved to have kept Lambert and Shaw and I hope that we keep Schneiderlin and Lovren, it's not the end of the world if we don't as long as we replace them well. My point with Chelsea wasn't the quality of player really, it was that they have lost their spine too (in the same positions as us!) but their world will keep turning, and guess what...so will ours.

We have not lost our spine, come on. We have lost 3 starting XI players, so we still have the majority of that team that finished 8th last year in place and have replaced two of those already, we are currently only one player short of what we finished with (not including players released). Chelsea have lost Cole, Lampard, Luiz and Eto'o, more of their core than we have lost, and they will still cope. Palace released quite a few of their first team regulars from last season and so far have only put pen to paper on one new signing. We are not the only team who won't start the season without some of their first teamers from last season. I'm not too concerned about not having Shaw and Lallana, as long as like you suggest, we do add a few more faces, we could come out of this summer pretty well, IMO.

What about Spurs who have signed none? Villa have lost Albighton and gained some extra deadweight. Burnley and Leicester have done some odd business which will hardly encourage their fans. QPR haven't done much business yet either and haven't made much noise. I would love to hear the reasoning behind your dramatic and reactionary statement that we are "unquestionably" having the worst window, as I would say your opinion is pretty bloody questionable!

Why is it your place to warn that? We are all in equal position to see what is going on, and I doubt that anyone was sat around waiting for SaintRobbie to clear the situation up before forming an opinion on the matter. Also, what lack of ambition? We have appointed the most decorated manager our club has ever had and signed two good players as well as being linked to other decent level footballers. Yes we've had players leave, but if that's what they want to do there is really not much we can do. What we can, and have, done is look to appoint and replace well where necessary so far. If we get to August 16th and the squad is the same, then a lack of ambition will have been shown, but until then, we don't know what is going on. Please can you list what those "potentially catastrophic mistakes" are, as I genuinely don't know? Haven't seen anything of the sort. Absolute sensationalist nonsense. What are you talking about? Why must we admit that? We aren't! A firesale is defined thus: We sold two want-away players for way over the odds. Just to clarify, we got more for Shaw and Lallana than AC Milan did for Thiago Silva and Zlatan Ibrahimovic. That's not a very low price. That's better than we could have hoped for. If they wanted to leave anyway, I think by getting so much for them our board has actually made the best of a bad situation. Is that why the other day you said that we should "take the hit on Lovren" as we could survive without him, but the day previously were relentless in suggesting Billy Sharp should play in the Premier League for us this year? Great ambition there. So, so reactionary, SaintRobbie, thanks for the chuckle!

yeah, it's £8.5m to those who are in the Champions League. Not sure what the fee is to those who aren't, though...

Looks like Rogers has another couple of targets in mind he'll be trying to tap up later.

Probably just trying to get as much time on the pitch as possible in pre-season as he won't be getting as much in the league! Also, not sure if this has been posted elsewhere, but apparently JWP is going to be / has been offered a new contract: http://www.sportsmole.co.uk/football/southampton/transfer-talk/news/saints-to-offer-ward-prowse-new-deal_165956.html?utm_source=twitter_links&utm_medium=SMFooty&utm_campaign=twitter

Lallana is still on World Cup holiday, as are all Liverpool's England contingent. Lambert returned to pre-season early to get match-fit. http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/rickie-lambert-make-liverpool-debut-3880484

Again, it's completely relative. While you may think that, I, personally, really liked it and it's one of my personal favourite saints kits from my lifetime.

Based on what?

Would we have to sing the "You dirty skate b@stard, we f*cking hate you!" song to him every time he gets the ball just like we did to every ex-skate that we played against last year?

How the kit looked is absolutely relative. I personally thought last years kit looked great and would have liked to see us with something similar this year.

Yeah, Cork was with us for the start of the Championship season. I think J-Rod and Clyne are the only English we have signed since returning to the Prem... We bring through a lot of young English talent though, so don't need to spend over the odds when we can supplement our home grown players with quality foreign additions.

Thought Clyne signed after him?

Alex Urquhart Cannon @Alex_SFCMedia · 2m REPORT: @Omar_rowe hits a hat-trick as #SaintsFCU21s seal a dramatic pre-season win over @SAFCofficial: http://sfcne.ws/SunU21s #saintsfc

RE Vlaar, I know this is on talksport and not an official link, but he's being talked up as a potential replacement to Vidic for United here: http://talksport.com/football/exclusive-mcgrath-backs-dutch-world-cup-star-solve-man-uniteds-defensive-problems#oCiQq3KcyVk2U8w6.99

"Are you Alpine in disguise?" ♫

Given that we don't actually know what any of our players are earning per week, or what we have offered any prospective new signing, how have you come to that conclusion?

Haha I'm glad someone noticed that, found it hilarious. Clearly couldn't afford to buy two shirts!

Lots of selfies rolling in on Twitter. Lots of people queuing up at the megastore since 6am. Lots of weirdo's in the world. I ordered the kit this morning online, Rodriguez 9 on the back... could be a big waste of £65 if he doesn't retain his number for some reason / leaves!

£11m would be over the odds for a Striker who has only scored 28 goals in 106 first team appearances. Quite a few of the 10 he scored for Sunderland last year were penalties, IIRC, so doesn't suggest he has an amazing all round game. Would be gutted if we splashed £11m on someone like him. Think he would be a decent squad player, but not for double figures...

That explains it! Cheers for clearing it up, and, I can now try and shoehorn that into every day conversations to give the impression that I actually know stuff! haha

Having seen enough of his posts, I doubt he ever actually thinks anything. Just copies and paste's the "we'll be relegated" template and tweaks until appropriate.

I only mentioned it as in the text he quoted Ribeirão Preto was mentioned, but no provincial French towns were...