Summer Transfer Window 2025/26

[Convict Colony]

At this moment in time Spors is Daniel Levy's wet dream.

An absolute garcon at selling players for good mullah and spends it like the pound notes come from his arsehole.

Heres hoping by the end of this transfer window he has an arsehole like a wizards sleeve.

[AlexLaw76]

Oh, as for Downs,

Been saying for weeks we should have signed Kieffer Moore. Sure as shit the ball would not be coming straight back with the regularity that it is.

Kyogo, Ivanovic....

Easy, innit

[Smirking_Saint]

1 minute ago, hypochondriac said:

Absolute bullshit. Someone just named Hamer. I quite liked the like of Furehashi from Birmingham. Absolutely no one has slammed an Azaz signing, the only thing I said was that he was about the level of player I would expect us to sign in our position and that I'd also like to see someone like Fellows signed who I judged to be exciting and quite ambitious. I never described an Azaz signing as boring you've just made that up. 

Rudoni 

Fellows

Furehashi 

Hamer 

Brownhill

That's 5 signings I'd liked to have seen us sign but like I said I'm not a big football club with a scouting network and it's for them to find the best players possible. Now watch as you dismiss all those players because I've dared to give you some actual names. 

You literally called Azaz uninspiring or something of the sort, cba to go back to it

Rudoni … tried, wants prem

Fellows … linked

Furehashi … maybe, not overly hyped by him tbh, Celtic fans were saying he was poor last couple of seasons and was gash at Stade Rennais

Hamer …. See previous post

Brownhill … Wants prem and an outrageous signing on fee apparently 

 

So no… short of chucking names out there its not all that easy

[Smirking_Saint]

2 minutes ago, James said:

So you ask folks to name some players they want, they do it and you dismiss them all as either players you don’t fancy or players you don’t think we could sign. Pretty impossible exercise in that case.

Missed the points entirely I see

We can all name names, but the reality is very different

I can give you Van Ejwick, Hamer, Sargeant… thats easy… none of them likely to move without outrageous fee’s or late next week if the prem moves don’t materialise

[hypochondriac]

5 minutes ago, James said:

So you ask folks to name some players they want, they do it and you dismiss them all as either players you don’t fancy or players you don’t think we could sign. Pretty impossible exercise in that case.

And an entirely pointless exercise. At least smirking Saint has now stuck his neck on the line and admitted that he thinks the likes of Downs and Quarshie are the best players we could conceivably sign in our position. 

[Osvaldorama]

2 minutes ago, Smirking_Saint said:

You literally called Azaz uninspiring or something of the sort, cba to go back to it

Rudoni … tried, wants prem

Fellows … linked

Furehashi … maybe, not overly hyped by him tbh, Celtic fans were saying he was poor last couple of seasons and was gash at Stade Rennais

Hamer …. See previous post

Brownhill … Wants prem and an outrageous signing on fee apparently 

 

So no… short of chucking names out there its not all that easy

If you gave me a salary and made it my full time job to find players for Southampton, I 100% guarantee you I could do a better job than these idiots have been doing since they arrived. 
 

It is not difficult to find players better than Sugawara, smallbone, Aribo etc., or see the glaring weaknesses in the squad. 

Why do Stoke have a better forward line than us, for 5% of the cost?

Why did Sunderland assemble a team that is vastly superior to ours without spending a fraction of what we have? 
 

Shite leadership. Shite recruitment. Shite owners. They need to do better or sell up. 

[James]

1 minute ago, Smirking_Saint said:

Missed the points entirely I see

We can all name names, but the reality is very different

I can give you Van Ejwick, Hamer, Sargeant… thats easy… none of them likely to move without outrageous fee’s or late next week if the prem moves don’t materialise

In your opinion. In reality you have zero idea whether any of those targets are attainable. 

[AlexLaw76]

Just now, James said:

In your opinion. In reality you have zero idea whether any of those targets are attainable. 

As said, I am certain that middle of the last transfer window, when Ramsdale was touted on here it was dismissed as being completely unrealistic..

[CB Fry]

6 minutes ago, Smirking_Saint said:

You literally called Azaz uninspiring or something of the sort, cba to go back to it

Rudoni … tried, wants prem

Fellows … linked

Furehashi … maybe, not overly hyped by him tbh, Celtic fans were saying he was poor last couple of seasons and was gash at Stade Rennais

Hamer …. See previous post

Brownhill … Wants prem and an outrageous signing on fee apparently 

 

So no… short of chucking names out there its not all that easy

It's times like this I wish that Southampton Football Club had a Sporting Director and a Player Recruitment Department.

[LGTL]

Fuck me, Pompey have a better striker then we do. Colby Bishop is better than any of the complete shit we have. I’m stunned there are people arguing that this is the best we could have done, fucking staggering 😂

[James]

Just now, LGTL said:

Fuck me, Pompey have a better striker then we do. Colby Bishop is better than any of the complete shit we have. I’m stunned there are people arguing that this is the best we could have done, fucking staggering 😂

The bloke they signed from the A-League already has two in the league as well, two more than our forwards. He looks to be the product of a decent scouting set up. Who knew clubs could have those?!

[Willo of Whiteley]

20 minutes ago, trousers said:

Whilst I generally like @Matthew Le God, he does do a disappearing act fairly often when asked a question to which he can't quickly respond with one of his pre-prepared "gotcha"s. A quick "yeah, ok, fair point" would suffice but I'm not sure backing down like that is quite his thing...

#trousers:amateurpsychologistextraordinaire

This entirely 🤣

[hypochondriac]

7 minutes ago, Smirking_Saint said:

You literally called Azaz uninspiring or something of the sort, cba to go back to it

Rudoni … tried, wants prem

Fellows … linked

Furehashi … maybe, not overly hyped by him tbh, Celtic fans were saying he was poor last couple of seasons and was gash at Stade Rennais

Hamer …. See previous post

Brownhill … Wants prem and an outrageous signing on fee apparently 

 

So no… short of chucking names out there its not all that easy

No I didn't don't make things up. I said he was what I would class as a good signing. And who said it was easy? It's certainly not easy for one fan on a forum to come up with a list of realistic striker signings better than Downs or centre half signings better than Quarshie but it should be a heck of a lot easier for a professional football club. We managed THB last time out and he was certainly better than Quarshie.

You're the one demanding people name players and then dismissing them all when they do. 

[Baz Fl]

Spors and SR have a quickly closing window to fix this turd. 
£8.6m - Damion Downs
£3m - Joshua Quarshie
? - Mads Roerslev
Loan - George Long

 

[Smirking_Saint]

Just now, hypochondriac said:

No I didn't don't make things up. I said he was what I would class as a good signing. And who said it was easy? It's certainly not easy for one fan on a forum to come up with a list of realistic striker signings better than Downs or centre half signings better than Quarshie but it should be a heck of a lot easier for a professional football club. We managed THB last time out and he was certainly better than Quarshie.

You're the one demanding people name players and then dismissing them all when they do. 

I don’t think Quarshie was a first team signing for a start 

Downs was, and I think so far he looks dissapointing but its very early days, maybe we could of pushed for Ivanovic, not sure what Millwall would want.. Sargeant ? Norwich want 25m apparently which is frankly mental

My point is, we’re in the Champ, we aren’t really signing better than Azaz or Rudoni, Id even take Brooks on loan if he becomes available

Anyone expecting more than that is delusional

[Smirking_Saint]

6 minutes ago, hypochondriac said:

No I didn't don't make things up.

You said - Azaz is indeed what I would call a good signing but he's about what I'd expect us to sign so nothing extraordinarily impressive about it. 
 

So yes.. I was right

Edited 5 hours ago by Smirking_Saint

[Willo of Whiteley]

6 minutes ago, Osvaldorama said:

If you gave me a salary and made it my full time job to find players for Southampton, I 100% guarantee you I could do a better job than these idiots have been doing since they arrived. 
 

It is not difficult to find players better than Sugawara, smallbone, Aribo etc., or see the glaring weaknesses in the squad. 

Why do Stoke have a better forward line than us, for 5% of the cost?

Why did Sunderland assemble a team that is vastly superior to ours without spending a fraction of what we have? 
 

Shite leadership. Shite recruitment. Shite owners. They need to do better or sell up. 

I’m loosely in agreement.

If you watch football regularly you can work out patterns of play, players that look lively etc. It isn’t difficult.

The problem is nowadays clubs base everything on stats and analysis, for example you could monitor a player and he could have a list of the best attributes going but that only lasts as long as the player can be arsed and is motivated.

Look at Dele Alli and Saido Berahino as examples, the latter I remember saying to mates when he was 17, linked with Spurs and went on strike “he’ll be an EFL player in a few years”.

The problem is where it’s all based around stats now and computers and that stuff, it’s not any more reliable than good old fashioned scouting of watching a game.

I’ve probably explained the above terribly but Sport Republic are an example of stats and analysis not working.

[Gloucester Saint]

20 minutes ago, Smirking_Saint said:

You literally called Azaz uninspiring or something of the sort, cba to go back to it

Rudoni … tried, wants prem

Fellows … linked

Furehashi … maybe, not overly hyped by him tbh, Celtic fans were saying he was poor last couple of seasons and was gash at Stade Rennais

Hamer …. See previous post

Brownhill … Wants prem and an outrageous signing on fee apparently 

 

So no… short of chucking names out there its not all that easy

My reading of what he said was that it was a signing that you’d expect a newly relegated club with year one parachute to make.  I’d probably classify it as a higher profile signing that I’d be cursing if Brum or Ipswich made it, but still should be well within SR’s bandwidth to get done quickly for £15m or so if the player wants it.

Fellows is the more ambitious of the two but does Dragan want to go for the title or not? Damion Downs won’t win it for you but Tom Fellows is the quality of player to make a big dent. But that’s nearer £20m. Sort of player that could step up to the PL though…

Edited 5 hours ago by Gloucester Saint

[Matthew Le God]

8 minutes ago, Willo of Whiteley said:

This entirely 🤣

I've answered it

[hypochondriac]

4 minutes ago, Smirking_Saint said:

I don’t think Quarshie was a first team signing for a start 

Downs was, and I think so far he looks dissapointing but its very early days, maybe we could of pushed for Ivanovic, not sure what Millwall would want.. Sargeant ? Norwich want 25m apparently which is frankly mental

My point is, we’re in the Champ, we aren’t really signing better than Azaz or Rudoni, Id even take Brooks on loan if he becomes available

Anyone expecting more than that is delusional

Why has he been playing in the first team then? No one has currently come in for Sargent yet. Are there reports that we have bid 17 for him to test their resolve? Maybe we should have not bothered with Downs to try to give that a go instead.

Who is calling for better signings than Azaz or Rudoni? I think this argument is in your own head. I'd also take Brooks. 

[Willo of Whiteley]

Just now, Matthew Le God said:

I've answered it

Please share what you said then?

How have Saints benefitted from the multi-club model under Sport Republic? You haven’t answered. 

Name three ways in which we have benefitted? You haven’t answered.

I’m still waiting. Don’t just say you’ve answered when you haven’t, and don’t go back and edit previous posts. Just reply to this one.

If you’re that confident there is a benefit you should have no problem in responding to this.

If any other user can find MLG’s answer to the above can they please share it as it would appear he has forgotten how to respond to question.

[Gloucester Saint]

Brookes definitely but he’s still been featuring unless Bournemouth sign a couple of players in his position this week?

[Smirking_Saint]

6 minutes ago, Gloucester Saint said:

My reading of what he said was that it was a signing that you’d expect a newly relegated club with year one parachute to make.  I’d probably classify it as a higher profile signing that I’d be cursing if Brum or Ipswich made it, but still should be well within SR’s bandwidth to get done quickly for £15m or so if the player wants it.

Fellows is the more ambitious of the two but does Dragan want to go for the title or not? Damion Downs won’t win it for you but Tom Fellows is the quality of player to make a big dent. But that’s nearer £20m. Sort of player that could step up to the PL though…

Id take Fellows all day, and yeah, of all the Champ talent Id say he could step up

I think there’s a good player in Downs tbf, needs more game time

[hypochondriac]

5 minutes ago, Smirking_Saint said:

You said - Azaz is indeed what I would call a good signing but he's about what I'd expect us to sign so nothing extraordinarily impressive about it. 
 

So yes.. I was right

A good signing that is about the sort of signing I would expect us to sign. So I never used the adjective uninspiring then. So no you weren't right. There's obviously levels of signings and he's about the level I would expect for a good championship team. I described Fellows as the sort of signing that I would consider to be more impressive in a different position as I consider him to be slightly above our level and probably a good lower prem player. 

[hypochondriac]

9 minutes ago, Gloucester Saint said:

My reading of what he said was that it was signing that you’d expect a newly relegated club with year one parachute to make.  probably classify it as a higher profile signing that I’d be cursing if Brum or Ipswich made it, but still should be well within SR’s bandwidth to get done quickly for £15m or so if the player wants it.

Fellows is the more ambitious of the two but does Dragan want to go for the title or not? Damion Downs won’t win out it but Tom Fellows could make a big dent. But that’s nearer £20m. Sort of player that could step up to the PL though…

Thank you. It really wasn't a difficult one to understand unless you were doing it wilfully... 

[Matthew Le God]

5 minutes ago, Willo of Whiteley said:

Please share what you said then?

How have Saints benefitted from the multi-club model under Sport Republic? You haven’t answered. 

Name three ways in which we have benefitted? You haven’t answered.

I’m still waiting. Don’t just say you’ve answered when you haven’t, and don’t go back and edit previous posts. Just reply to this one.

If you’re that confident there is a benefit you should have no problem in responding to this.

If any other user can find MLG’s answer to the above can they please share it as it would appear he has forgotten how to respond to question.

 

I answered it at the bottom of page 217 of this thread!

 

Edited 5 hours ago by Matthew Le God

[S-Clarke]

Jason Knight is another good option, CM, not a typical 10. But a goal threat.

[hypochondriac]

Just now, S-Clarke said:

Jason Knight is another good option, CM, not a typical 10. But a goal threat.

Haji Wright would be a good signing too. See there's loads and that's only looking at the championship. It's a nonsense to say there are no other options. 

[Willo of Whiteley]

34 minutes ago, Matthew Le God said:

Or... I'm potty training a toddler this summer, and I can't instantly reply all the time!

Signing Joachim Kayi Sanda is a benefit of the club group for Saints; using a sister club to turn a potential quick profit on Daouda Traoré is another benefit for Saints.

If the benefits are that we can buy and loan out players to sister clubs then that is a terrible defence of the multi club model. That’s really terrible.

That’s hilarious 🤣🤣

Edited 5 hours ago by Willo of Whiteley

[Matthew Le God]

1 minute ago, S-Clarke said:

Jason Knight is another good option, CM, not a typical 10. But a goal threat.

3 goals in 46 league games last season isn't much of a goal threat

Nor is 17 league goals in all his 207 Championship games

[SWLondon Saint]

27 minutes ago, hypochondriac said:

Absolute bullshit. Someone just named Hamer. I quite liked the like of Furehashi from Birmingham. Absolutely no one has slammed an Azaz signing, the only thing I said was that he was about the level of player I would expect us to sign in our position and that I'd also like to see someone like Fellows signed who I judged to be exciting and quite ambitious. I never described an Azaz signing as boring you've just made that up. 

Rudoni 

Fellows

Furehashi 

Hamer 

Brownhill

That's 5 signings I'd liked to have seen us sign but like I said I'm not a big football club with a scouting network and it's for them to find the best players possible. Now watch as you dismiss all those players because I've dared to give you some actual names. 

The real problem with the list is it'd cost an absolute shit ton and likely have no chance whatsoever in the PL if you got promoted. Kyogo I'll give you for sure, bargain signing for Brum. Is Brownhill still unsigned? Isn't he a CM though and we're quite stocked in that dept.

But the other 3 would all be £15m+ signings and there are good reasons why no prem club has had a go. Why didn't Sunderland go for any of those when they were splashing the cash this summer? Hamer is probably the best bet of them as I think he had some impact in the PL, BUT from another perspective, that would also mean we'd recreated Sheffield United's PL attack in him, BBD and Archer... Not sure that's what everyone really wants?

Championship players are generally just too expensive and poor value for money for other Champ teams unless you can take advantage of someone needing to sell for financial reasons or a player has run down their contract.

[Matthew Le God]

2 minutes ago, Willo of Whiteley said:

If the benefits are that we can buy and loan out players to sister clubs then that is a terrible defence of the multi club model. That’s really terrible.

That’s hilarious 🤣🤣

Making money that can then be reinvested and signing promising players are benefits. So you agree I did now answer the question? Didn't look too hard before complaining about it!

Edited 5 hours ago by Matthew Le God

[S-Clarke]

1 minute ago, Matthew Le God said:

3 goals in 46 league games last season isn't much of a goal threat

Nor is 17 league goals in all his 207 Championship games

He is more of a goal threat than Downes or Charles.

But even if he isn't a goal threat in the '10 goals a season' level, he's still a really good CM. More mobile and box to box than Downes.

[S-Clarke]

3 minutes ago, hypochondriac said:

Haji Wright would be a good signing too. See there's loads and that's only looking at the championship. It's a nonsense to say there are no other options. 

And even looking outside of the Champ, how were Sunderland able to find Wilson Isidor, or Coventry finding Sakamoto or Wright - or Hamer before he went to Sheff U. These players are out there.

Birmingham signing Kyogo for £7m, or Stansfield on loan when they were down here last. The players are there, but we seem obsessed with finding the next kid or injured player.

[hypochondriac]

3 minutes ago, SWLondon Saint said:

The real problem with the list is it'd cost an absolute shit ton and likely have no chance whatsoever in the PL if you got promoted. Kyogo I'll give you for sure, bargain signing for Brum. Is Brownhill still unsigned? Isn't he a CM though and we're quite stocked in that dept.

But the other 3 would all be £15m+ signings and there are good reasons why no prem club has had a go. Why didn't Sunderland go for any of those when they were splashing the cash this summer? Hamer is probably the best bet of them as I think he had some impact in the PL, BUT from another perspective, that would also mean we'd recreated Sheffield United's PL attack in him, BBD and Archer... Not sure that's what everyone really wants?

Championship players are generally just too expensive and poor value for money for other Champ teams unless you can take advantage of someone needing to sell for financial reasons or a player has run down their contract.

That may be the case but in fairness that's why I was reluctant to put up names when someone routinely demands that we name better players than the ones we have brought in already. As I pointed out earlier, the club have an entire department who should be able to find names similar who wouldn't cost as much. 

Maybe we do have to bring in one of those bigger names though if the alternative is underwhelming and underperfprming signings from foreign leagues which will just mean we don't get promoted and end up losing the remaining quality we had anyway. 

[hypochondriac]

2 minutes ago, S-Clarke said:

And even looking outside of the Champ, how were Sunderland able to find Wilson Isidor, or Coventry finding Sakamoto or Wright - or Hamer before he went to Sheff U. These players are out there.

Birmingham signing Kyogo for £7m, or Stansfield on loan when they were down here last. The players are there, but we seem obsessed with finding the next kid or injured player.

I agree. Our scouting is mostly crap and I've seen very little indication that there's been a big change of strategy this year despite the different personnel and despite the slight changes of location for the players being scouted. 

[Willo of Whiteley]

1 minute ago, Matthew Le God said:

Making money that can then be reinvested and signing promising players are benefits. So you agree I did now answer the question? Didn't look too hard before complaining about it!

I mean I could be pedantic like you and say I asked for three benefits and you only only gave two. 😂

But it’s late.

At the moment there isn’t a huge benefit in this multi-club model.

I’ve always said Sport Reoublic tried to run before they could walk.
Surely you focus on your big club, so to speak, first; and then you build around that. Make your first club successful first and then replicate that.
Sport Republic went out and bought three clubs, two of which have suffered relegations and horrific investment.

Getting a couple of quid for a player that will likely never play for Saints again is not a benefit.

S-Clarke posted a really excellent summary in another thread of all SR’s signings since taking over the club(s). 
How can you hand on heart say Saints are benefitting from them?

Commerically yes they’ve made some developments, the stadium, the bars etc, very good. But it means absolute jack if you sole point of the business, your football team are playing in the lower leagues. That isn’t an attractive proposition.

I’m sure there are a lot on here that would rather we had Jisheng Gao who never spent money but equally never took money out of the club and we were sustainable and a decent Premier League team.

[Turkish]

11 minutes ago, Willo of Whiteley said:

If the benefits are that we can buy and loan out players to sister clubs then that is a terrible defence of the multi club model. That’s really terrible.

That’s hilarious 🤣🤣

A benefit of the multi club arrangement was saints were able to buy a player for 5x his market value 😂😂😂😂😂

[hypochondriac]

29 minutes ago, Baz Fl said:

Spors and SR have a quickly closing window to fix this turd. 
£8.6m - Damion Downs
£3m - Joshua Quarshie
? - Mads Roerslev
Loan - George Long

 

Fuck me 8.6 million from a championship club for Damion Downs. He better start performing soon and settling into this league because that's a huge amount of money for this league. 

[Gloucester Saint]

Just now, hypochondriac said:

Fuck me 8.6 million from a championship club for Damion Downs. He better start performing soon and settling into this league because that's a huge amount of money for this league. 

What I find odd is the signings Spors are making aren’t like the ones he was securing with 777.

They’re still very SR. Wonder if the Ankersons are giving him a list of approved players they can take a cut from?

This week will tell us if that’s the case or not. It just remind me of running a pub with one of the big pub cos, you’re told that you can buy guest beers in with their core limited ranges, but you find all sorts of caveats and that they’re 25% more expensive than the free house down the road. 

[hypochondriac]

Just now, Gloucester Saint said:

What I find odd is the signings Spors are making aren’t like the ones he was securing with 777.

They’re still very SR. Wonder if the Ankersons are giving him a list of approved players they can take a cut from?

This week will tell us if that’s the case or not. It just remind me of running a pub with one of the big pub cos, you’re told that you can buy guest beers in with their core limited ranges, but you find all sorts of caveats and that they’re 25% more expensive than the free house down the road. 

I think this week will tell us a lot. If I had started this summer and had 8.6 million to spend on one player (an absolutely massive amount of cash let's not forget), Downs would not have been the player I went for. He's going to have to really go some to justify that price tag. He's going to have to start justifying it this season, not be someone like Charles whose value is now paying off after three years. 

[Saintsarmy]

1 minute ago, Gloucester Saint said:

What I find odd is the signings Spors are making aren’t like the ones he was securing with 777.

They’re still very SR. Wonder if the Ankersons are giving him a list of approved players they can take a cut from?

This week will tell us if that’s the case or not. It just remind me of running a pub with one of the big pub cos, you’re told that you can buy guest beers in with their core limited ranges, but you find all sorts of caveats and that they’re 25% more expensive than the free house down the road. 

Have you got a few examples of the kind of signings Spors secured for 777? 

[SWLondon Saint]

1 minute ago, hypochondriac said:

That may be the case but in fairness that's why I was reluctant to put up names when someone routinely demands that we name better players than the ones we have brought in already. As I pointed out earlier, the club have an entire department who should be able to find names similar who wouldn't cost as much. 

Maybe we do have to bring in one of those bigger names though if the alternative is underwhelming and underperfprming signings from foreign leagues which will just mean we don't get promoted and end up losing the remaining quality we had anyway. 

That's fair enough, though I also think it's far too early to be writing off Quarshie and Downs. The  championship isn't an easy league for young players from overseas to come into + half our players are still indoctrinated by Russball. If we're going for champ experience I think Azaz has a chance of making the step up at least.

4 minutes ago, hypochondriac said:

Fuck me 8.6 million from a championship club for Damion Downs. He better start performing soon and settling into this league because that's a huge amount of money for this league. 

Don't forget Brum spent £15m on Stansfield last year from Fulham, + Kyogo rumoured to be £8m rising to £10m...

[Matthew Le God]

Just now, Gloucester Saint said:

What I find odd is the signings Spors are making aren’t like the ones he was securing with 777.

They’re still very SR. Wonder if the Ankersons are giving him a list of approved players they can take a cut from?

Quarshie came from the same team our new chief scout Tim Lederer worked for last season! Downs came from the same league our new chief scout Tim Lederer worked in last season. I don't think they are due to Ankersen input. Roerslev perhaps.

[Holmes_and_Watson]

With the window shutting on 1st September, here's a quick comparison of where we are compared to SR's takeover season (the minimum to stay in the PL) and our last promotion season. 

 

Goalkeepers: Despite it being a torrid time in goal, both Forster and McCarthy were better all round 'keepers than Bazunu. With Ramsdale on loan, we have much the same as when we last went up. Except McCarthy isn’t considered as reliable as even then, and only a hope that Baz has improved his shot stopping.

Full-Backs: We're without KWP, so we're automatically weaker than in both our SR takeover year, and our last promotion year. In the takeover year, we also had Tino on the right, allowing KWP to be our left back, with Perraud (unceremoniously dumped by Martin) filling in when needed. When we last went up, we were fine with KWP, Manning and Bree for the season. However, with Roerslev, Bree, Manning and Welington (the others looking likely to go), we do have better depth here.

Central Defence: Bednerak was our best centre back so weaker here. Another area, where we all thought we'd naturally improve on, only for him to remain our best defender. As a partner, Salisu had more talent than anything we've seen since (with ABK's personality ruling him out).

We can hope THB puts last season behind him, and that Edwards builds on his loan move. Like our full back positions, we do have some decent, settled depth here. After seasons of having none, to having a glut of players not working out.

 

Midfield: SR's Takeover season was mainly Romeu, Ward-Prowse and Stu, covering distinct roles in the midfield. When Stu wasn't fit, we had the likes of Ely and Diallo (who we thought we'd improve on).

SR basically pushed Romeu out for Lavia, without planning for counting on the ups and downs of having a talented youngster's form and fitness. That was when we were crying out for someone to join Romeu, not as a replacement.

When Martin took over, for the promotion season, JWP left early on, and he didn't rate Charles or Alcaraz.  But we did have MVP Downes, a much-developed Will, and a fit again Stu (and a fit again Aribo too as cover).

Now Charles is back and isn't a DM, Downes is stuck in MartinBall mode and Fernandes is left to do a lot of work. We're a mile off our promotion season and much, much further from SR's takeover year.

 

Attacking Midfielders/ Wide Players: Another area where we can’t move forward (literally, it seems). SR took over with AA, Elyounoussi, Redmond and Tella getting the most games here. It was an area where SR really needed to give Ralph some support.

We last went up with AA, Sule, Edozie, Fraser and Brooks (with an early impressive Tella cameo).

Our best two options here are AA and Fraser, much as the promotion season, even if they’re not in those positions currently.

Centre Forward/ Striker: In SR's first summer window, they smugly dismissed concerns about our front line, looking to offload Adams, for replacements that never arrived. That was when Adams needed to have an Ings like player to work with. We did get Broja's purple patch, that really helped, and was more than could have been expected of him.

In our last promotion campaign, we still had Adams. As Martin found out last season, and as we face this one, Adams would walk back into the side. Even after all the windows when SR looked to upgrade.

We have much more depth up front than before. But SR have wasted it on targets that were some way down their list, after windows of counting on first choices, while tempting them with SR wages. A lot of them have good Championship scoring records. None of them look capable of recreating those times. We can hope we just need the support players.

Where 50% would be keeping the same side:

% against SR Takeover season: 9%
(AA still in the side, if not position yet, and Fraser being about as decent as Redmond. Weaker everywhere else. And this is being kind.. Fraser's champ form vanished for long spells and didn't do much last season, while Redmond was often just frustrated with RalphBall. AA did nothing in the PL, and Ely actually played more games. So this could easily have been 0% on another day.)

% against Last promotion season: 34%
(Baz, Manning, THB, Downes, AA and Fraser still in the team. Weaker everywhere else, but have some full back and centre back cover).

Still is going to need a very busy, and beneficial week from the recruitment team, to have a chance of implementing a successful system. 

SR's determination to lower that individual wage bill, trade on up and coming talent and take hopeful punts on others has left us with a bloated squad, still lacking in key first team positions and roles. 

 

Edited 4 hours ago by Holmes_and_Watson

[hypochondriac]

6 minutes ago, SWLondon Saint said:

That's fair enough, though I also think it's far too early to be writing off Quarshie and Downs. The  championship isn't an easy league for young players from overseas to come into + half our players are still indoctrinated by Russball. If we're going for champ experience I think Azaz has a chance of making the step up at least.

Don't forget Brum spent £15m on Stansfield last year from Fulham, + Kyogo rumoured to be £8m rising to £10m...

Brum are very much the exception in this league though. They are something of an outlier it must be said. 

I'm not writing off Downs and Quarshie yet, simply saying that I assume we didn't sign them and expect them to hit the ground running and we probably knew they were works in progress that may be able to contribute at some point in the future for us. I'd argue those weren't the sort of signings we should have been making at this point unless we were also buying established players to improve the first team now in those positions. Downs at this point for me is a bit of a waste of a squad space. What we badly needed was someone immediately superior to Stewart and offering something different from Archer and Armstrong and I don't think we can say with confidence that we definitely have that at the moment and that's a problem when you're spending that amount on a striker. 

Edited 5 hours ago by hypochondriac

[Rebel]

I don’t think it’s going to end up being a great window for us.

It looks like we will sell Edozie and BBD for relatively small fees and replace them with loans from the premier league - my money would be on Rak-Sakyi and Iling-Junior. 

It also looks like we’ll get rid of Aribo and Smallbone to raise some cash and cut the wage bill in the hope we can bring in a 10 - but I think that means we are also going to sell Fernandes.

But I don’t think we are signing anyone like Finn Azaz. Why would Boro sell one of their best players to a promotion rival. 

Spertsyan doesn’t look like he is going to happen either - he’ll end up somewhere like West Ham or Leeds.  

I think we’ll end up with Besfort Zeneli or Scienza - or someone like that as the AM 

But I don’t think we are going to sign the 6ft plus first choice centre forward we all knew we needed - or the extra midfielder we need to cover defensive midfield. 
 

Hopefully Spors proves me wrong and plays a blinder in the next few days.

 

Edited 4 hours ago by Rebel

[MarkSFC]

For the sake of my sanity Im going to assume that the lack of quality and neccessary signings is dow. To the selling clubs "knowing/assuming" that we were going to sell Dibling (and possibly MF) and so they have been quoting higher prices because they expect us to have more cash. 

These next few days will be very interesting and I hope exciting.  But Im not very hopeful!!

[Gloucester Saint]

18 minutes ago, Saintsarmy said:

Have you got a few examples of the kind of signings Spors secured for 777? 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Guðmundsson_(footballer,_born_1997)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morten_Frendrup

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mateo_Retegui

At a level we couldn’t attract now under SR but used to be in the Liebherr days https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radu_Drăgușin

[Gloucester Saint]

19 minutes ago, SWLondon Saint said:

That's fair enough, though I also think it's far too early to be writing off Quarshie and Downs. The  championship isn't an easy league for young players from overseas to come into + half our players are still indoctrinated by Russball. If we're going for champ experience I think Azaz has a chance of making the step up at least.

Don't forget Brum spent £15m on Stansfield last year from Fulham, + Kyogo rumoured to be £8m rising to £10m...

Yeah, Downs is medium-upper Champ price these days.