saintwbu

We had a lot of unsuccessful signings in a short period, but we also made all of these signings in a pretty terrible time for the club. It’s a bit of a chicken and egg scenario. Were we shit because the signings failed, or did the signings fail because they came into a shit team on a downward trajectory and never really recovered. Probably a bit of both, between all of the different signings.

Not sure why we’d sign him up to a bumper new deal to put a release clause in it that could be activated next summer. Would be better to save the wages if we intend to sell him next year, given he’d still have 3 years left at the point.

Fulham fans rate Tosin quite highly - I personally found him to switch off a bit when I watched him, a bit like we have already. I like some of the descriptions of Worrall, out of the two.

I’ve seen a few Forest fans mentioning being worried about losing one of their defenders, so i’m guessing it’s him.

Safe to say we won’t be getting Tanganga from Spurs, another great performance today keeping Grealish quiet. With the ability to have 9 players on the bench now, I can see the benefit of bringing in Cahill alongside whoever we buy, to be on the bench when needed to bring a calm head to the pitch.

Exactly. Drinkwater at Leicester was brilliant, because the system suited him perfectly as well as playing alongside a world class CM partner. He’s been terrible ever since. But i’m sure someone on here would say how on earth could we turn our noses up at a player like that because he’s played 5 games for Chelsea so he must be better than all our players.

I’m not saying it’s not, but it doesn’t mean if we sign Nat Phillips we’re going to suddenly become Burnley defensively. It means more likely he’ll end up looking like Jan Bednarek, whilst maybe Jan Bednarek in Burnley’s defence would look more like James Tarkowski? Get the players who suit the system, otherwise they’ll just look shit, whether they are or aren’t.

Danny Rose was off the back of an unsuccessful loan to Sunderland, and was about to be let go by Spurs before Poch gave him the chance to stay and prove himself. Poch’s system which relied heavily on the physical attributes to press and movement was able to cover up a lot of the technical deficiencies of players like Rose. His career has nosedived since Pochettino left Spurs, and it wasn’t up to much before him. Systems can make players, Klopp’s Liverpool are another great example - many of the players he has signed, other big clubs would’ve turned their nose up at, but they fit his system perfectly. In the same way that I don’t think Nat Phillips would fit ours, he may suit Burnley, Newcastle, even maybe Brighton.

I think people have forgotten how many players Poch’s system has made look better than they are. Almost all of Eric Dier’s ‘good’ period in his career was under Pochettino. He’s always looked well out of his depth for England. Ryan Mason, Danny Rose, both looked good for Poch when they weren’t.

It’s amazing how many people think because a player has played for a so called ‘big’ club, they must be good. This must be why Liverpool are able to sell all their shite at ridiculous prices whilst we can’t give our flops away.

I agree it’ll be nice to have a defender who can properly defend - but the problem is if you have a defender who can defend but isn’t great on the ball, and you then ask him to focus heavily on using the ball, it tends to end pretty badly. See Bednarek, for example.

To me Phillips is just a head it and kick it defender. No other outstanding attributes. I’d be very disappointed if he’s the one we are trying for, personally.

We had Yan, Jan and Yannick making up 3 of our back 4 not long ago - maybe Ralph is bad with names!

Can’t say I get too upset with the idea of developing other clubs players, it’s the current season that matters more than any other. But yeah we’d be best cutting a couple of attackers before bringing in a new one.

Amad Diallo supposedly available on loan from United. Touted as a bit of a wonderkid, would be able to add something in one of the wing positions but doubt we’d go for him.

Ethan Ampadu is still only 20, there’s definitely a player there and someone i’d definitely be happy with us taking a punt on if the price is right.

And that one too 😆

Arsenal 4-0 and Villa 5-1 were two of the most amazing displays i’ve ever seen from a Saints team, and he was pivotal in both. I was completely underwhelmed when we signed him having sold Lallana etc, and started to think maybe the reports of a fire sale and impending relegation were true. He proved me so wrong, a great signing and servant to this club, and seemingly a great guy too.

I’ve seen a lot of Blackburn fans saying he’ll struggle because he won’t lead the line well on his own for us, which is fine because he’ll never have to as we play two up front…

Romelu Lukaku was the ultimate flat track bully in the Prem. Would rack up 20 goals a season for Everton, normally spread over about 12 games, in comfortable wins. So I agree, it’s very important.

Confirmed by Tony Mowbray that Armstrong is coming to us

Whilst the verdict is still out on a few of them, our recent transfers under Ralph look likely to now be: KWP, Walcott on a free, Perraud, Diallo, Salisu, Adam Armstrong, Adams, Djenepo, Livramento, Broja. No disastrous flops (yet), a few successes and a few reasons for optimism, all seemingly for £15m or less. Still shopping in the bargain bin but seem to have definitely bucked our ideas up a bit.

Delap is the only youngster from a top club i can think of, who may be good enough but will struggle for game time.

Can see why he’d want Tino is his natural position on his debut though, but would be interesting to see if we could get KWP with Tino in front on that right hand side, would kill two birds with one stone if he could play there.

Do we think Tino could play as one of the 10’s?