saintwbu

I went to the Saints big quiz thing with the ex players vs current players a couple of years back and Cedric was there. He came across as a really nice guy, real good laugh, obviously popular amongst his teammates and was happy to be the brunt of the joke a lot of the time. So I wish him well and hope he’s successful at Arsenal, I just think we needed to upgrade - appreciate some probably rated him but for me he wasn’t good enough at the things we need from a full back. KWP may or may not be either, but i’m optimistic from what i’ve seen, really glad we seem to have got him onboard.

Cedric’s problem with defending wasn’t particularly his height, it was that he was pretty shit. As mentioned, plenty of small fullbacks who do just fine, he’ll get beaten for headers sometimes i’m sure, but the game isn’t played in the air particularly often these days and what he lacks in height he more than makes up for in pace, desire and agility.

KWP is going to cost us less than we sold Targett for, albeit Targett had a bit more experience i’d suggest he isn’t as highly rated as KWP has been at times in his career. If it’s £18mil for Hojbjerg as mentioned above I think it’s fairly decent considering we’ve very much got our hands tied - a player in his final year who’s made it clear as day that he only wants to go to one club!

I am convinced his reputation is significantly enhanced by how ‘passionate’ he appears from all the air punching, and his post match interviews being interesting at times. For me he appears to have graduated from the Alexis Sanchez school of pretending you care more than anyone so people ignore the fact you let runners jog past you and give you an easy ride when you continuously give the ball away. Can see why some find it endearing but for me it’s just really grating. He missed 10 games by suspension in 2018/19 if I remember rightly, which is insane, but people credited it as ‘passion’ when it was just fucking stupid and let his teammates down.

I don’t have a problem with it being one of the talking points of the season, of course it will be. I have a bit of an irritation when it comes to mentioning it every 5 minutes during our games - it’s like when Van Dijk was playing for us it was mentioned every 5 minutes that Liverpool wanted us. I just group these things as evidence that most pundits never watch us and don’t have much else to say - like when Sunday’s commentator said it was a ‘rare start’ for Che Adams when he’s started most games since lockdown, or when Danny Murphy said Cedric was a good crosser of the ball when we played Derby in the FA Cup last year.

Yeah he laid it off to Onomah who then beat about 4 players and scored haha, so not one i’m sure would make Reed’s highlights reel! But he had a great game, just dictated the pace, won the ball back and never gave it away. Was surprised he takes the set pieces but despite some poor ones tonight, the fact he takes almost everything suggests they rate his delivery and passing ability. I’d like us to use him personally. JWP, Romeu, Reed, Smallbone as a selection of CM’s would be decent imo, they aren’t expected to provide huge amounts of creativity so i would rather the PEH money was invested into a Lallana/Tadic like playmaker, who can find the bit of magic to carve open a packed defence late on.

Just the usual ‘ohhh Moussa Djenepo’ formerly of Gabbiadini and Yoshida fame (Seven Nation Army)

Not to mention Djenepo hahahahaha, who’s literally played like 10 games, also gets his name sung whenever he’s on the pitch. We don’t have songs for McCarthy, Stephens, Bednarek, Armstrong, Smallbone, Vokins as far as i’m aware. Grrrr, bloody racists.

One of our best signings ever in the Liebherr era in my opinion. £12million for 6 years of his prime, at his best i’d say England’s best left back (why they always picked Rose was beyond me) and now i’d still put him top 5 or 6 in the league. Will be very sad when he either leaves, or hangs up the boots. Can’t tell you how underwhelmed I was when he was replacing Shaw, I started to wonder if we really were having a fire sale to balance the books and replacing with cheap options. How wrong I was! Probably my favourite Saints player now.

Villa also had that incident where they scored a last second winner at Palace but the ref had already blown his whistle for a Grealish ‘dive’ when he’d been fouled. Absolutely scandalous that was. They’ve been shafted a few times this season, I don’t think they’ll feel guilty for that goal against Sheffield United.

I hope we get this wrapped up asap. If we have a price set from the loan then great, but otherwise if Hoj goes to Everton then imagine Levy will be doing his usual and trying to charge £20mil odd. I think signing him is a must, and at £10mil it’d be a snip imo for a 23 year old English full back who we’ve been able to test out first.

Spurs think Winks is some kind of English Xavi. No one outside of Spurs seems to see it, but there’s no way they’re letting him go nor is he going to come to us.

I think he’s great - i think our resurgence coincided with his return to the side, and I get concerned now if he’s not starting as I think he’s an extremely important cog. He plays like someone caught between being a CM and a winger and i think that fits perfectly for us. Absolute steal at what we paid for him

I mentioned it after the City game but worth repeating - he only played 12 senior games for Spurs (I read a Spurs fan say he was MOTM in four of them!). He’s still very much fresh out of the packet. He may be 23, but he’s got the career history of an 18/19 year old, he’s learning on the job. I agree with your assessment of him on the ball, he seems comfortable in tight spaces and has a really nice change of feet and low centre of gravity on the ball.

I agree - I think he gets a rough ride on here. He was absolutely superb under Puel, and has rarely let us down in his time here. Think his tendency for a yellow card maybe distracts people from his technical ability, he’s a very nice footballer. I love him and to think we only paid £5mil for him, £7mil for Armstrong, £5mil for Bednarek - just shows there are still gems around!

Neville makes me want to cut my ears off

Luiz is pretty popular among Villa fans, seems to be high energy and for a player playing his first season in England and not speaking a single word of English when he arrived, I think he’s done well in some games i’ve seen. Likes a shot from outside the box too, with a couple of good goals this season, we could do a lot worse imo.

It’s not typically our ‘style’ to go raiding the relegated teams from what i can recall - but Lerma, Billing, Douglas Luiz, McGinn (lol absolutely no chance) would all fit the bill as a Hojbjerg replacement imo. Appreciate some of them aren’t doing a spectacular job at the moment but think all would compliment Prowsey well.

This sounds like how he was always credited with Shaw’s announcement on the scene, when he was already our starting LB when Poch arrived. He is a great manager, and was really good for us, but I can’t help think that Koeman’s team has sort of enhanced the memory of Poch’s tenure, as it was a continuation of progress and some of that period kind of blurs into one for some I think.

Man of the match tonight for Fulham by the sounds of it - trending on Twitter because it’s full of Fulham fans pleading for their club to sign him permanently. A number of shouts of ‘Ginger Kante’ and being better than Kalvin Phillips. I was always surprised Ralph didn’t take a closer look, he seems on the face of it to be a perfect fit for our style.

But Man City also rely on intricate passing in tight spaces, and in dangerous areas. I’m really not sure how he’d cope with that.

Hi Pierre, always good to know the players post on here. The ball should’ve never got to Stephens if Hojbjerg had just gone forward like any other CM in the country would have. Then he wasn’t ‘caught out’, Hojbjerg again played an absolutely shite pass which put in Aubameyang, Stephens had to sacrifice himself to try and stop him scoring.

Clyne comparison made above, but has always been on my mind too, has a similar movement style I think, slightly hunched over and looks a bit awkward on the ball sometimes but effective. Really worth remembering he has only made 12 senior appearances for Tottenham too, he’s 23 but he’s still barely played in the Premier League. I like him, i’ve liked him in every game, and yesterday was exactly the performance he needed to leave a mark. That cross for Ings was the sort of intelligence and precision that we have so desperately lacked with Cedric as our RB, everything was just smashed into the air with no direction.

GET IN THERE!! So happy for him

Spurs fans don’t seem excited at all by it, can’t blame them. But I do actually think he’d be good for them, he’s a Mourinho type player, a brute who covers a lot of ground. At Spurs he’ll have the quality around him to allow him to just run around and battle, we don’t have that so his shortcomings are there to see.