saintwbu

What about Kyle Walker-Peters who joined us at 23, having only played about 13 games for Spurs and being written off as not good enough? There are countless examples of players taking a while to make an impact in their career, or having to drop down to come back up to the top level later on. Age is just one factor.

I think we’re missing Romeu more than people realise, as good as Diallo has been. We looked soft as shit against Arsenal the other night. Romeu has been a wall this season.

Bednarek playing them all onside - #StephensOut

Bednarek and Stephens both make the same mistake, we conceded from Stephens’ - abuse incoming.

Some people used to praise the same on here. I remember being told we wouldn’t get an upgrade on a European Championship winner - turns out we could, in the shape of a lad who’d only played about 10 senior games.

Valery won’t get many easier opponents at full back that Cedric, so hopefully he can step up and show he’s good enough to be competition. I’ve liked what i’ve seen from Vokins.

It’s more a complete undervaluation of Haaland, and presumably was a factor in him agreeing to join Dortmund over other clubs. Benteke, Joelinton, Andy Carroll all cost upwards of £30million within the last 10 years and I reckon Ings has almost outscored them all combined just this season alone!

Their ‘miles better form’ has been against teams in absolutely horrendous form - Chelsea, Newcastle twice, Brighton, West Brom and a 0-0 draw against a poor Palace side. They’re still miles off being a top team at the moment.

Just go with Valery and Vokins, not perfect but if we go as strong as possible elsewhere then we can still get something. We didn’t have Ings at their place, he would’ve put that game to bed before the equaliser. At the moment, we are better than them.

The assist for Che Adams against Newcastle was a decent cross..

Everton and Leicester and even West Ham are why we can’t agree to a cheap release clause. Without it, we can turn down offers from those clubs, with it we can’t and they can all afford to give him a huge payrise if they want.

Also did one lovely piece of play where he dropped a shoulder to sell a couple of Arsenal players and turned to pick out Adams with a brilliant through ball down the wing.

Romeu must be the most under appreciated player we’ve ever had! The only player whose reputation consistently goes down when he’s not playing, normally players who are out of the team become known as saviours! He’s been absolutely superb this season and the end of last, and one of the best CM’s in the league topping all sorts of stat charts for interceptions, tackles etc. Diallo looks brilliant, a real good find, and thankfully they both have very different qualities so give us a nice variety of options in the middle. Exciting trio of CM’s we now have.

Agreed

Does that make it 5 clean sheets in our last 6 games? Since Stephens came in too

Unquestionably - and he’s doing a good job for Tottenham, which is great, but it’s completely different to the job he was trying to do here, and asking a lot less of him. At no point since he dropped out the team have I ever thought ‘we could’ve really done with Hojbjerg in this game’ and i’d be baffled if anybody out there had done.

Hojbjerg was shit for probably three quarters of the time he played for us, there was no revisionism there at all, just look at the difference that transfer has done for our team. Ings has been good, most will struggle to dismiss that wherever he goes.

Not by anyone outside of here they weren’t. VVD was the best CB in the world when he was playing for Saints, yet his fee was deemed too expensive and he was overpriced by most of the media and pundits’ standard. Anyone who’d watched him properly could tell you he was going to transform that team, but most people don’t watch us outside MOTD. Mane was way better than just those last 10 games, I said to my brother that Mane would be on the Ballon D’or list one day when he was still with us, so not sure where you were prior to those last 10 games!

I agree on Mane, he was world class here too. I don’t think we as a fan base are the greatest admirers or enigmatic attackers but he was absolutely top drawer and we are lucky to have seen him play for us. VVD, Toby, Mane all suddenly became world class within weeks of joining their new clubs, funny how that works isn’t it.

I don’t see the £0 outcome being possible really, I think it’s more we’ll take the best offer in the summer. If we’re lucky it’ll be more than £20mil. If we sign a £20mil release clause then obviously it won’t be more. So best position for us I think is no deal, he goes in the summer to the highest bidder. However I hadn’t thought of the implications of signing a deal with a release clause during January, albeit I know these things can have time restrictions, maybe we may agree once this window has closed, who knows.

What’s the betting they stop at 19 haha. They’ve got a real chance of staying up though, become much harder to beat and play some really nice stuff, just need to turn draws into wins on occasion.

If they want a sub £30million release clause in the contract, then we may as well just save ourselves the wages and signing on fee and take the contract off the table. With a definitive price of £30mil or less i’d be astounded if there weren’t 7 or 8 clubs in this league (CL or no CL) willing to pay that without question and double his wages. Absolute steal for a 28 year old England international who people know will score goals at this level.

If Ings isn’t ready to start i’d rather N’Lundulu starts up top with Adams and shift Walcott back out wide, his best games for us have come out wide.

What if they don’t qualify..? None are guaranteed at the moment

Is it his agent forcing the clubs hand now? Give us the release clause we want and he’ll sign, don’t and now everyone knows he is open to a move. Ings signs in January, gets put on 150k a week, and if his form continues a club will give 30mil and trigger the release clause and everyone is treated fairly. Or he doesn’t sign, his price drops to 20mil because he’s got one year left and he gets his move but we don’t get enough money to stand a chance of replacing him.