Summer Transfer Window 2025/26

[EBS1980]

8 minutes ago, Chez said:

If you spend the money now, you have the player, but the money you have just spent is not there the following summer. The end result (players in and bank balance available) is the same.

Sometimes said player isn’t available for transfer only a loan. I don’t see it as an issue, it’s just the two we wanted to keep had very expensive price tags.

[hypochondriac]

Once all these players leave how many of our players would we be confident could do it a job for us in the prem? THB maybe if he stays and possibly Downes and Robinson in a squad. I don't think anyone else can which is a pretty depressing state of affairs. 

[EBS1980]

3 minutes ago, Doctoroncall said:

Also said we don’t need to sell the good players… things change it seems. 
 

I think it will depend on what choices there are to get a decent quality player in compared to a loan player. 

I was listening to The Hard Truth pod which is by the Peterborough owner, he said in hindsight he wished he had sold a few of the players that didn’t want to be there last summer rather than this summer. Said it would have been better for the club not having players who didn’t want to be there involved. Attitudes, impact on others etc..

 

[MarkSFC]

1 hour ago, benali-shorts said:

Aren't we allowed 5 loans? I'd imagine we'll use most if not all of them and (remarkably) we used the loan market quite effectively last Championship season.

If THB, Dibling and Fernandes go for say £80-90m, that would be 9 out & c.£120-130m in (Paul, Sulemana, KWP off wages, Ramsdale loan + wages, Edozie, Bednarek). £10m out so far on 2 players. If we lose those three plus say another couple (11 out), we'd only need 4 or 5 replacements (7 in in total), i.e. mainly loans? Maybe one or two permanents, but can't see many more than that. 

£100m player trading profit, younger profile squad. Spors' CV will never have looked so good. 

 

 

Didn't Dragon say the loans caused us a problem when we went up? Presumably because we already had the players but then needed to use funds to keep them, limiting spend under PSR as a result for completely "new" and additional players? 

For this reason I suspect we will only or at least in the main (maybe one like Downes or THB) see loans for experienced players who we predict will only be here a year to do a job and/or will be really cheap if we choose to make them permanent next summer. 

[EBS1980]

Just now, hypochondriac said:

Once all these players leave how many of our players would we be confident could do it a job for us in the prem? THB maybe if he stays and possibly Downes and Robinson in a squad. I don't think anyone else can which is a pretty depressing state of affairs. 

Something you worry about when you get there tbh. I’d rather a squad able to get out the league then have to rebuild in the summer again. Sunderland are having to do it, our issue last time is we put too much faith in players not good enough. 

[hypochondriac]

1 minute ago, EBS1980 said:

Something you worry about when you get there tbh. I’d rather a squad able to get out the league then have to rebuild in the summer again. Sunderland are having to do it, our issue last time is we put too much faith in players not good enough. 

I'm not sure that's true at all. Arguably we did that last time and it meant the quality of the squad was much too low and we finished bottom by miles. 

[disconnect]

Just now, hypochondriac said:

I'm not sure that's true at all. Arguably we did that last time and it meant the quality of the squad was much too low and we finished bottom by miles. 

Terrible management more attributed to being bottom by miles rather than quality of squad. We would've still gone down, but wouldnt have been as embarrassing! 

[chiknsmack]

15 hours ago, Willo of Whiteley said:

If [Dibling] goes to Everton I see him ending up like a Ross Barkley. Decent but never quite fulfilling what could’ve been.

You might be right, but if he goes to Everton I can also see him moving to Liverpool for £80m next summer. He's already PL quality and he's not turning 20 until next year. He's basically Jack Grealish, and I think like Grealish a year in the Championship then a year in the PL sets him up for a big-money move to a top club.

Going to Everton now means skipping the Championship season; whether skipping that is enough to turn him from Grealish into Barkley, or whether last season's disasterclass in the PL is an adequate replacement for Grealish's Championship season, I don't know.

1 hour ago, hypochondriac said:

I am though starting to think that staying up after gaining promotion is an almost insurmountable task... Selling all of our prem quality players just means they will all need replacing again next year if we get promoted alongside trying to raise the overall quality of the squad.

The solution to the first part is... don't do the second part.

You need ~15 mid-table PL-level players to make a good fist of staying up in the PL (from whence you can press on and establish yourselves as a mid-table PL team, then press on further to Europe).

To have 15 mid-table PL players after being promoted you need to either drop £500m on 25 brand new £20m players and hope for a 60% success rate (AND hope all these players you've bought in gel together to make a cohesive team), or you need to get promoted with some number of mid-table PL (or better) players.

Getting promoted with any players of this quality means hitting the jackpot with some number of cheapies (Edwards, Quarshie, Downs look like live chances), having a couple of academy kids step up (Robinson), spending not far shy of the £20m you need to spend in the PL on players who are considered worth this but for whatever reason are willing to play in the Championship (eg. loan to buys of players the quality of THB and Downes, or £12m+ on players like Charles), and - if you've recently been relegated - hanging onto as many of the mid-table PL-level players you already have as possible.

(Even then you need luck; for example if Dibling had four years left on his contract and Fernandes had two instead of the reverse, it'd be MUCH easier to keep Dibling and would have little/no impact on the fee/interest in Fernandes.)

Ramsdale and Fernandes meet the required standard. Dibling, THB, Edwards, Charles, and Welington are strong candidates to. Downes, Aribo, and Archer don't, but are close enough to scrape by. (Yes, Archer scoring 6 in minutes equivalent to 37 games is poor, but so were the teams he played for. And he's still only 23.) Quarshie, Sugawara, Robinson, Stewart, and Downs are live longshots that might make it. Other than that we have a couple of super longshots (Kayi Sanda, Wood, Matsuki, maybe Sesay) and so many Championship-level (sometimes "too good for the Championship"-level) players that we shouldn't be looking for new players to get promoted, but rather looking for new players to keep us up next year.

The first four names listed were not enough on their own last season, but keeping those four means there are seven fewer £20m players you need to buy next season. It's also easier to go "Fernandes is PL quality; let's keep him" than to project forward the development of outside players or lesser players we already have. (Unfortunately, it's also MUCH easier to say "We should keep this guy who is obviously far too good for the Championship" than to actually keep him.)

1 hour ago, Matthew Le God said:

We haven't been using a wingback system as the main system.

No, we've been playing Ryan Fraser as an AM. With the fact that our "Number 10" barrel is so empty that we've managed to scrape Weeman off the bottom of it, coupled with Still's past use of a 3-4-3 and known flexibility with respect to formations AND our CB depth which has seen CBs played at other positions just to get them on the park, using a wingback system is a distinct possibility.

1 hour ago, benali-shorts said:

Aren't we allowed 5 loans? I'd imagine we'll use most if not all of them and (remarkably) we used the loan market quite effectively last Championship season.

Yes. Another thing people forget when looking for us to buy more Championship-quality players a month before the window closes; we can borrow players money can't buy who will either do better than those we could buy or bugger off and not clog up the wage bill if they don't.

1 hour ago, gio1saints said:

Just for once I’d like to see Saints put out a fresh no scar tissue want to win team :  GB in goal, Downs and Robinson up top, Quarshie and Edwards at CB’s, Matsuki at #8, Shea and Sanda in the middle and top up the remaining positions with what you got left over from the squad.

But the gist is : play these players NOT the ones we already know what they got ( or in many cases NOT got). They get thrashed - SR need to get the chequebook out . No point watching Cameron, Adarma Fraser and BBD being impotent v Brighton over and over again…

Good concept; play players who might be PL quality over those who aren't. If they get smashed, reassess. If they don't, keep giving them chances to develop.

Poor execution; play Sanda (or THB if fit, or Captain Jack for his unrivalled leadership) at CB and Edwards/Charles/Matsuki at 6/8/10.

[Charlie Wayman]

5 hours ago, Saint Fan CaM said:

Now I know you’re on a wind-up. Assuming Fernandes and Dibling go, the squad is significantly weaker than it was under Martin and it was pretty damned bleak before we sold every half decent player on the books! In my view all the wrong players have been sold and we’re left with the dross, meaning that even with a couple of decent new signings the squad for this coming season will likely struggle. Hope not - we’ll see.

Unfortunately, nobody is interested in our dross. 

We will struggle no doubt about that. The idea that some on here have of automatic promotion is laughable.

[Charlie Wayman]

4 hours ago, hypochondriac said:

Unlikely to happen but if we are looking for characters in the squad that's got to be about the best thing we could do. 

Heaven forbid yet another of our Academy old boys makes a high profle return to SMS only to sit on the bench all season nursing a broken ego.

[Chez]

28 minutes ago, EBS1980 said:

Sometimes said player isn’t available for transfer only a loan. I don’t see it as an issue, it’s just the two we wanted to keep had very expensive price tags.

I have not issue with loans and the fact is, if every other championship side has strengthened its starting eleven with loans, you need to do the same. Because we have more money than most, we should be able to get better, or certainly more highly paid loans.

It's hard to buy PL-level quality when you are in the league below. Loans gives you that opportunity When you get promoted, you can attract better players. Also, better to have the money in the bank (saved by loaning this season rather than buying) next summer.

[bangkoksaint]

Just reading what the Wrexham business has been and what they’re expecting to do. Subjective as to whether it’ll be better than us and like all teams have struggled getting players in before the season starts. However if I was a Wrexham supporter I’d be cautiously more optimistic than I am with Saints. Can see us being the next Stoke/Blackburn/Norwich.

[Chez]

18 minutes ago, chiknsmack said:

He's basically Jack Grealish, and I think like Grealish a year in the Championship then a year in the PL sets him up for a big-money move to a top club.

Going to Everton now means skipping the Championship season; whether skipping that is enough to turn him from Grealish into Barkley, or whether last season's disasterclass in the PL is an adequate replacement for Grealish's Championship season, I don't know.

 

Grealish spent three years in the championship with Villa. Should Dibling spend three years at that level? 

[hypochondriac]

34 minutes ago, disconnect said:

Terrible management more attributed to being bottom by miles rather than quality of squad. We would've still gone down, but wouldnt have been as embarrassing! 

Quality of squad had loads to do with it. We played Manning and Smallbone in the prem ffs. 

[Ted Bates Statue]

14 minutes ago, Charlie Wayman said:

Heaven forbid yet another of our Academy old boys makes a high profle return to SMS only to sit on the bench all season nursing a broken ego.

He's had a couple of seasons to do just that, hopefully it'll be out of his system if he can swallow his pride and decides to re-join us.

[SWLondon Saint]

4 hours ago, hypochondriac said:

Unlikely to happen but if we are looking for characters in the squad that's got to be about the best thing we could do. 

Could see the Fernandes situation ending up as a loan to Atletico or somewhere else in Europe. No-one wants to / can pay the 35M+ we want and doubt he fancies a season getting kicked around at the likes of Millwall and Stoke.

[Farmer Saint]

Fucking hell, this forum is wetter than a mermaids minge.

You're all adults FFS, grow a pair.

[Farmer Saint]

2 minutes ago, SWLondon Saint said:

Could see the Fernandes situation ending up as a loan to Atletico or somewhere else in Europe. No-one wants to / can pay the 35M+ we want and doubt he fancies a season getting kicked around at the likes of Millwall and Stoke.

He will not be loaned anywhere. His contract is long enough for us to tell him to suck it up.

[SWLondon Saint]

On the team front, I could see something like this possibly being a good use of what we have:

--- Bazunu ---

- Edwards -Stephens- Quarshie-

Sugawara - Charles - Downes - Wellington

-- Robinson or Matsuki or Smallbone --

- Downs - Archer -

Obviously the AM spot is the weak point.

[Saint Fan CaM]

1 minute ago, Farmer Saint said:

He will not be loaned anywhere. His contract is long enough for us to tell him to suck it up.

Because that’s what we do right? 🙄

[Toadhall Saint]

2 minutes ago, Farmer Saint said:

He will not be loaned anywhere. His contract is long enough for us to tell him to suck it up.

Just like we did with VVD - that went well.

[SWLondon Saint]

2 minutes ago, Farmer Saint said:

He will not be loaned anywhere. His contract is long enough for us to tell him to suck it up.

Same could have been said for all our loanees last time round in the Championship... And they all went. 

[sockeye]

Were clubs competing for Fernandes’ signature last summer? Or did we sort of put him on the map so to speak?

[trousers]

1 hour ago, Farmer Saint said:

It's all supposition though - we haven't sold them yet. It's very difficult to judge how good a team is when not at the end of the transfer window. It's why the phrase "at the moment" is key.

But fine, Ramsdale, Dibling and Fernandes. I also think Archer is a very good Championship player and if he plays will score a lot of goals. Downs is an unknown but Adams was no great shakes. I would say KWP is better than anything we have now (although our piss poor defences have also been on his watch as well), but apart from that we have a lot of the same players with more experience. For instance, THB is now an England International. Downes is older and more experienced.

Fair enough. To me, that doesn't equate to our squad being "far better" now than it was at the same point in time before Martin's championship campaign, but you're obviously entitled to see it differently 👍

[Farmer Saint]

13 minutes ago, Saint Fan CaM said:

Because that’s what we do right? 🙄

What proof do you have that we don't? Ramsdale is a ploy to ensure if we do get re-promoted we either get £25m, or him back. So what other players have we done this with?

[Farmer Saint]

13 minutes ago, Toadhall Saint said:

Just like we did with VVD - that went well.

Yeah, I forgot about that £75m loan.

[Farmer Saint]

13 minutes ago, SWLondon Saint said:

Same could have been said for all our loanees last time round in the Championship... And they all went. 

What high price players was that?

[danjosaint]

They've bought well in xhaka as prem ready leader, something we never got right, we should have got Delaney when available for about 7m. Not sure Bellingham will be that greater miss for them but it depends on if there talented youngsters can step up 

[saintant]

21 minutes ago, SWLondon Saint said:

On the team front, I could see something like this possibly being a good use of what we have:

--- Bazunu ---

- Edwards -Stephens- Quarshie-

Sugawara - Charles - Downes - Wellington

-- Robinson or Matsuki or Smallbone --

- Downs - Archer -

Obviously the AM spot is the weak point.

You're forgetting Stephens at CB.

[Toussaint]

4 hours ago, OldNick said:

Is Tyler the right personality to have Moyes giving him the hair dryer treatment?

I don’t think Moyes does that, I seem to recall an interview recently where he said he does not do that and it doesn’t work on modern players?

[Farmer Saint]

14 minutes ago, trousers said:

Fair enough. To me, that doesn't equate to our squad being "far better" now than it was at the same point in time before Martin's championship campaign, but you're obviously entitled to see it differently 👍

Why are you struggling so much with the concept of comparing now to the end of 2024's summer transfer window? It is the only real comparison we can make.

What we can't do is compare the end of this year's transfer window to the end of 2024's transfer window, because it hasn't happened, and that is surely fair enough?

[Matthew Le God]

2 hours ago, trousers said:

Is there any reason why you focus on players' hard skills and hardly mention their soft skills, if at all? (that's a rhetorcial question, in case it's not obvious...)

Yes, we obviously have players that have played well in this division before (that goes without saying, except for those that like to repeat such observations several times... ), but you're assuming that, psychologically, they are in the same place now as they were back then. It's not unreasonable to question if they are mentally capable of achieving what they've achieved before, as well as physically, given what they've subsequently been through...

They were in a hard place last season mentally because most of them were too shit for the league they were in. That led to defeat after defeat and is mentally draining. This season they will go into games with higher ability players than most of the rest of the league. They'll soon forget the omnishambles of last season IF we get off to a good start.

[SWLondon Saint]

8 minutes ago, saintant said:

You're forgetting Stephens at CB.

I'm trying to forget...

[trousers]

13 minutes ago, Farmer Saint said:

Why are you struggling so much with the concept of comparing now to the end of 2024's summer transfer window?

I'm not "struggling" with it... (a) I don't see the point in comparing oranges with apples and (b) even if we do, I still don't class the squad 'now' as "far better" than it was at the end of the 2024 summer transfer window. We just happen to disagree on that assessment, which is fine. Maybe it's someone else that's "struggling" here...

Edited 14 hours ago by trousers

[trousers]

9 minutes ago, Matthew Le God said:

They were in a hard place last season mentally because most of them were too shit for the league they were in. That led to defeat after defeat and is mentally draining. This season they will go into games with higher ability players than most of the rest of the league. They'll soon forget the omnishambles of last season IF we get off to a good start.

Ok Professor Le God... ;)

Edited 14 hours ago by trousers

[revolution saint]

I'm going to be optimistic and can't wait for quite a few links to players coming up.  Spors and Still should have been planning for ages on the possibilities of Ramsdale, THB, Dibling and Fernandes leaving so we should have a shortlist of several players in each position ready to go. 

I bloody love incoming player links - best part of the summer (well, from a football perspective anyway).

[Turkish]

1 minute ago, trousers said:

Ok Professor Le God... ;)

Has he forgotten about the scar tissue? 

[trousers]

Just now, Turkish said:

Has he forgotten about the scar tissue? 

I'm not sure there's such a thing in the black-and-white world that some people seem to live in...

[Farmer Saint]

5 minutes ago, trousers said:

I'm not "struggling" with it... (a) I don't see the point in comparing oranges with apples and (b) even if we do, I still don't class the squad 'now' as "far better" than it was at the end of the 2024 summer transfer window. Maybe it's someone else that's "struggling" here...

If you don't see the point, then why have you spent so much time arguing about it?

However, that's fine, you think the 2023-2024 squad was better than our squad is right now. That's OK - I wholeheartedly disagree, and again I would point you to Saint jack's post as to why.

Edited 14 hours ago by Farmer Saint

[trousers]

5 minutes ago, Farmer Saint said:

That's fine, you think the 2023-2024 squad was better than our squad is right now. That's fine - I wholeheartedly disagree, and again I would point you to Saint jack's post as to why.

Incorrect....Where have I said that? All I've questioned is whether the current squad is "far better" than the 2023/24 squad. It could be slightly better, it could be about the same, it could be worse. In other words, I'm undecided, other than thinking that "far better" is stretching the reality somewhat.

Edited 14 hours ago by trousers

[Matthew Le God]

4 minutes ago, trousers said:

Ok Professor Le God... ;)

I haven't gone beyond MSc

[Matthew Le God]

Just now, trousers said:

It could be slightly better, it could be about the same, it could be worse. 

Any splinters sitting on that fence? 

[trousers]

1 minute ago, Matthew Le God said:

I haven't gone beyond MSc

You're ok, it doesn't show...

[trousers]

2 minutes ago, Matthew Le God said:

Any splinters sitting on that fence? 

I appreciate open-mindedness is a difficult concept for certain people to grasp...

Edited 14 hours ago by trousers

[Farmer Saint]

3 minutes ago, trousers said:

Where have I said that? All I've questioned is whether the current squad is "far better" than the 2023/24 squad. It could be slightly better, it could be about the same, it could be worse. 

It could be all of those things. I don't think it is, but it's an opinion. What are you concentrating all your ire on me as there are loads of odd opinions on here?

I think the squad is far better at the moment. I also think you're being a prick.

Edited 14 hours ago by Farmer Saint

[Saint Fan CaM]

32 minutes ago, Farmer Saint said:

What proof do you have that we don't? Ramsdale is a ploy to ensure if we do get re-promoted we either get £25m, or him back. So what other players have we done this with?

I was referring to your assertion that we make players ‘suck it up’. List the times we’ve done that, because I’m struggling to remember seeing any formal proof that’s happened in the last decade and certainly not since Kat sold us out.

[revolution saint]

3 minutes ago, trousers said:

I appreicate open-mindedness is a difficult concept for certain people to grasp...

As is spelling, apparently.

Edited 14 hours ago by revolution saint

[Ex Lion Tamer]

1 hour ago, hypochondriac said:

I'm not sure that's true at all. Arguably we did that last time and it meant the quality of the squad was much too low and we finished bottom by miles. 

If we look back at 2011/12 then none of our Prem-ready players were signed for big money at the start of the promotion season.

 They were all smart signings for reasonable fees or academy products who we spent at least a couple of years nurturing.

It's something you have to build over time - hopefully we're doing that with our latest crop

Edited 14 hours ago by Ex Lion Tamer

[trousers]

7 minutes ago, revolution saint said:

As is spelling apparently.

Touche!

<MLG Mode> Although technically it was a typo due to speed of typing rather than an intentional misspell (hence the immediate correction before I saw your swift quip)

p.s. good to see the addition of a comma in your edit

Edited 14 hours ago by trousers

[trousers]

4 minutes ago, Farmer Saint said:

It could be all of those things. I don't think it is, but it's an opinion. What are you concentrating all your ire on me as there are loads of odd opinions on here?

I think the squad is far better at the moment. I also think you're being a prick.

Have you been a buffoon your entire life, or is it a recent development?

(seeing as we're now lowering ourselves to insult territory  )