sadoldgit

Perhaps they did and perhaps the lure of a big club now was too much for him?

Of all of the players that left last year Chambers' mover was the one that shocked me the most. Didn't see it coming at all. At the time I was gutted as we were losing one of our young rising stars. From what I have seen of him since I think it was a very shrewd move by the club and I wouldn't want him back again. £16m was a steal. I think he has made a very poor career move that may have looked good short term, but long term could well have screwed his career.

Unfortunately it is a double edged sword - the better we do the more likely our players will be poached by bigger clubs. Wages is clearly an issue too. I doubt if we pay more than £60k to our top players and that is nowhere near what quality players can earn elsewhere. Once upon a time a player might accept a smaller salary if he bought into the club's vision for success. I really don't think that happens now. It is a nice problem to have though. I am sure we all remember how dreadful it was when we were struggling in the Championship. I'd rather have the problem of trying to keep players beyond their contract than have a squad of players who no on else wants.

You are right Billy. Football sold it soul a while back now and as the amounts of money grow, so does the greed element. Like F1 is has just become a circus now. Trouble is once the genie is out of the bottle you cant put it back again. I cant see things ever getting any better.

He looked poor at RB for Arsenal last season. He seemed to spend most of his time pulling players shirts and getting booked. Arsenal looked much better at the back when Wenger finally dropped him.

That is an Alpine sized assumption you have leapt to there. If players refuse to sign a new contract of course they will be sold at some point. If they want to be sold to decent clubs it is their interest to play and to play well, as Morgan did last season. Vic and Sadio will be off at some point in the future. In the meantime there is no reason to suppose that they will not do their best for the club who pays their wages.

Awesome.

Very sad news......apparently it is only for one year!

quality

archers

Lots of waling and gnashing of teeth over the loss of Cork but Puncheon was a loss too. I appreciate that he probably was a pain in the @rse to manage but has settled in well at Palace.

So long as he doesn't sign up for this forum we should be ok.

I am not going to say that the start of the season hasn't been a tad disappointing, but to pretend that we were brilliant all of last season is very far from the truth. We had some poor games then too. Lets wait until Bertrand, Clasie and our new CH join the team and see what happens then.

Do they have similar transfer windows?

fifth

We have previous with Celtic in this type of protracted transfer so wouldn't be at all surprised if Virgil signs on Wednesday - especially as we are still looking for a CB and there has been little mention of anyone else.

Interesting story Whitey. I worked with someone for 22 years. We both worked our way up to management positions and he eventually made me redundant. We are our families had been friends but I haven't seen him since this happened 15 years ago. I still have work related dreams in which he features though. Strange the way the subconscious works.

I'd like to know where this stuff about Ronald is coming from. There is an assumption that he is frustrated. You would need to be made of steel not to be hacked off about starting a season with a couple of key players and waiting weeks to get the CB you want, but does anyone know for certain that the man is frustrated with the club? Yes he was up tight after the European game but I thought that was down to their blatant time wasting. I am sure he also get hacked off with the press running stories about players leaving when he has clearly said that no one else is going. That is different to being frustrated with the club though.

"Unvesting" is this the new word for the Southampton FC business model?

Bennett

Have I missed something or do we sell our best players every year? It happened last year and to a lesser extent this year but I don't believe there is a plan in place to ship people out wholesale ever year. If the current squad are as rubbish as some posters would have us believe no one will want our players next summer anyway! On a more serious note, if a top 4 club comes in for a player with one year left on his contract, what is the club supposed to do?

Please explain how they have taken their eye off the ball? Please explain what you mean by cashing in some chips? Do you think that Koeman is lying when he says no one else is leaving this summer? We have "nailed down" one CB and are working on another. Please explain why we "cant nail down a CB?" I assume that you are referring to the Toby situation re "the last b*ll*ck drop?" Please explain who we dropped a b*ll*ck? Finally, given that you make the same complaints about the club year in, year out, please explain why you continue to support such a badly run club as SFC? Perhaps you and Batman should both get a transfer to Everton?

Noticed that there were a number of long shots (poor). Following Watford I wonder if the teams are being instructed to shot from distance more?

flash

Hesketh missed a great chance to win the game. Boro the better passing side.