Summer Transfer Window 2025/26

[sockeye]

I am not opposed to Bah, but an obligation to buy is best refused.

[hypochondriac]

1 minute ago, trousers said:

 

Indeed. A club of our stature in the championship ought to be predominantly focusing on players with both attributes. 

I'm fine with some young exciting players with potential but half of our problem historically has been signing too much potential with not enough quality for right now. 

[hypochondriac]

1 minute ago, Tauro said:

I have it on very good authority that the club has received an offer for Fernandes, however waiting for conclusion of the U21 Euros before considering any offers. He will not be here come September. Like most of our transfer business, will likely be late in the window. 

That's a shame as I was really hoping we could persuade him to give us a season. Hope we get top dollar in order to replace him with an absolute top championship playmaker. Probably our biggest signing of the summer that we have to get right. 

[sockeye]

3 minutes ago, Tauro said:

I have it on very good authority that the club has received an offer for Fernandes, however waiting for conclusion of the U21 Euros before considering any offers. He will not be here come September. Like most of our transfer business, will likely be late in the window. 

I should expect we receive a strong fee for him.

[Wade Garrett]

2 minutes ago, hypochondriac said:

That's a shame as I was really hoping we could persuade him to give us a season. Hope we get top dollar in order to replace him with an absolute top championship playmaker. Probably our biggest signing of the summer that we have to get right. 

We don’t have to persuade him as he’s under contract.  It will be our choice to sell him and a stupid one if we do.  Keep him for a season and sell him next Summer if we don’t go up.

 

[Matthew Le God]

6 minutes ago, hypochondriac said:

I'm fine with some young exciting players with potential but half of our problem historically has been signing too much potential with not enough quality for right now. 

Our young players in recent years haven't been the issue. Many have excelled in poor teams. The issues have been with experienced players who lacked quality.

[hypochondriac]

5 minutes ago, Wade Garrett said:

We don’t have to persuade him as he’s under contract.  It will be our choice to sell him and a stupid one if we do.  Keep him for a season and sell him next Summer if we don’t go up.

 

Let's not be naive. Like Lavia, livramento and even jwp everyone has a price and the club has said as much. £50 million and if he asks to leave then he's gone. 

[hypochondriac]

15 minutes ago, Matthew Le God said:

Our young players in recent years haven't been the issue. Many have excelled in poor teams. The issues have been with experienced players who lacked quality.

Even if that is true which is debatable, the answer to that isnt to not sign experience, it's to sign better experienced players. You would have difficulty arguing that the likes of Stuart Armstrong and Bednarek weren't vital components of our last promotion campaign for example. 

Edited Tuesday at 19:09 by hypochondriac

[Football Special]

1 hour ago, Saint86 said:

Looks monstrous, albeit in the French league - seems to win basically any cross, through ball, or loose ball that comes near him.

Would be a replacement for Big Lesley Ugochukwu I suppose 

[woodsaint1]

10 hours ago, Farmer Saint said:

Not sure about Downes (only plays well in RM teams), but agree with the rest.

Hes only played regularly in a RM team. Definitely cant judge anybody under Juric as it was a shitshow

[skintsaint]

11 minutes ago, Football Special said:

Would be a replacement for Big Lesley Ugochukwu I suppose 

This guy linked plays defence, but I guess we could release Jack Stephens into defensive midfield to add some steel and help control the game.

[qwertyell]

42 minutes ago, hypochondriac said:

It's not alleged that he impressed. He was voted their young player of the season and we was only there in January.

I'm not sure how much stock we should place in being young player of the year for the team that finished 15th in the championship.

Young player of the year for Watford, who finished higher in 14th, was a striker who scored 2 goals. Should we sign him to fix our goalscoring problems? 

[saint michael]

What’s the benefit of loaning different young players every year. Lesley clearly started to improve and another year or two would clearly help develop us as a team. A group of revolving youngsters doesn’t really help build us as a football team that is built on any strong consistent foundation. It’s like constantly replacing the foundations of your house whilst trying to build the house. 

[hypochondriac]

19 minutes ago, qwertyell said:

I'm not sure how much stock we should place in being young player of the year for the team that finished 15th in the championship.

Young player of the year for Watford, who finished higher in 14th, was a striker who scored 2 goals. Should we sign him to fix our goalscoring problems? 

I know a qpr supporter. According to him he was their best player when he was there and they would love to sign him. He was also one of the best players in league one when he played for Peterborough. Nothing is a guarantee but I'd say that evidence would warrant a place in our squad at the very least. He was clearly signed by us as a top prospect with the idea that he would develop into a decent player rather than the finished article. If we go down and then get rid of him straight away without seeing if he can recreate his Qpr form then there really was no point in signing him. You could say the same thing for Shea Charles who hasn't yet shown he can be a key player for us but he's clearly kicked on and should perform very well next year if he stays. 

[hypochondriac]

4 minutes ago, saint michael said:

What’s the benefit of loaning different young players every year. Lesley clearly started to improve and another year or two would clearly help develop us as a team. A group of revolving youngsters doesn’t really help build us as a football team that is built on any strong consistent foundation. It’s like constantly replacing the foundations of your house whilst trying to build the house. 

You obviously need a mix on the championship where we can't afford to bring in a load of top quality in every position. Loans meant we could afford THB, Downes and Brooks who most other championship teams could only dream of and were big reasons for promotion. We will need to do the same this time. 

[Football Special]

30 minutes ago, qwertyell said:

I'm not sure how much stock we should place in being young player of the year for the team that finished 15th in the championship.

Young player of the year for Watford, who finished higher in 14th, was a striker who scored 2 goals. Should we sign him to fix our goalscoring problems? 

Is he in the England u21 squad for the Euros? Then maybe 

[EBS1980]

1 hour ago, hypochondriac said:

I'm fine with some young exciting players with potential but half of our problem historically has been signing too much potential with not enough quality for right now. 

Exactly that.

age doesn’t matter but you need players who are at a certain level now not potential to be. They can be bench opens but our starting XI all need to be at the required level needed to push for promotion 

[Chez]

On 27/05/2025 at 13:39, Chez said:

Was looking at recent Lens players and Still had Juma Bah on loan from Man City for the second half of the season. He was at Real Valladolid previously, before a messy buy out of his contract enabled him to join City. He's a 19 year old centre back. He's a proper unit, 6'5 but looks a little ungainly in his Youtube video.  

i should have got a job in sports (cough* bullshit) journalism. Joining the transfer dots is bloody easy.

[CB Fry]

37 minutes ago, hypochondriac said:

I know a qpr supporter. According to him he was their best player when he was there and they would love to sign him. He was also one of the best players in league one when he played for Peterborough. Nothing is a guarantee but I'd say that evidence would warrant a place in our squad at the very least. He was clearly signed by us as a top prospect with the idea that he would develop into a decent player rather than the finished article. If we go down and then get rid of him straight away without seeing if he can recreate his Qpr form then there really was no point in signing him. You could say the same thing for Shea Charles who hasn't yet shown he can be a key player for us but he's clearly kicked on and should perform very well next year if he stays. 

Even a year ago it felt like Ronnie Edwards was signed for the exact situation we find ourselves in now.

[Saint_clark]

3 hours ago, S-Clarke said:

I don't totally disagree with you, but it would have been daft to advocate against his signing in the summer. The problem with Downes, THB and those sorts were the lack of experienced quality to supplement them. I don't think either are ever going to be top, top level players, so expecting them to carry on 'leading us' like they did in the Champ was a bit daft.

I always wanted us to sign another CM alongside Downes, but we still decided to play everything through him. That was probably down to a complete lack of appreciation of the PL from Martin, he totally underestimated it and probably overestimated his mates.

I don't think either are bad players, far form it, but they had no support and as we have done quite a few times in recent years - we've thrown the lambs to slaughter.

If we'd signed him for £10million less it wouldn't have been so bad. £18million of our budget though was insane. I said at the time that his role was one that could be filled by someone much cheaper, whereas that £18million added to our budget for a centre forward would have made a huge difference. 

[Chez]

26 minutes ago, CB Fry said:

Even a year ago it felt like Ronnie Edwards was signed for the exact situation we find ourselves in now.

he was signed because he was an excellent prospect that we had been tracking for a few years and it was a now or never (too good to miss) situation, plus the club fully expected CBs like ABK and maybe Bednarek to depart last/this summer.

[hypochondriac]

49 minutes ago, CB Fry said:

Even a year ago it felt like Ronnie Edwards was signed for the exact situation we find ourselves in now.

100%. Speaking to some itk people, behind the scenes we accepted it was very likely that we were going straight back down and given that Edwards never played for us, I'd say it was very likely that he was signed specifically to be a strong performer for this upcoming season. 

[hypochondriac]

1 hour ago, EBS1980 said:

Exactly that.

age doesn’t matter but you need players who are at a certain level now not potential to be. They can be bench opens but our starting XI all need to be at the required level needed to push for promotion 

Adams, Stuart Armstrong, Adam Armstrong, Bednarek, kwp, THB, Downes. All players with a history of performing reasonably well in the premier league or decently in the championship. We potentially have some of that with Charles, Downes, Armstrong and Archer but at this point we are much lighter on that extra proven Championship quality and there's a good chance we will lose a few of them. We definitely need a couple of strikers - hopefully at least one who is amongst the best in the division and a top quality Fernandes replacement if he does go. Midfield I think we will be alright as we currently have some decent options and it's just about finding the right combinations at the back. Going forward is where we are going to need work though for me. 

[hypochondriac]

21 minutes ago, Chez said:

he was signed because he was an excellent prospect that we had been tracking for a few years and it was a now or never (too good to miss) situation, plus the club fully expected CBs like ABK and maybe Bednarek to depart last/this summer.

Indeed so vanishingly small chance that he would go from too good to miss to selling him when he's barely played a game for us in a lower league where he really has the potential to be a top performer. 

[hypochondriac]

A decent thread if you want to see a Qpr perspective on him. Debating whether he is up there with their best ever loan signings. Seem to think he was a class above all their other players:

https://www.fansnetwork.co.uk/football/queensparkrangers/forum/320614/page:1

[chivvy]

Has he potential for CDM cover for Charles ? Will Still likes adaptable players. The Height for centre back will always trouble me until I see him play.

Edited Wednesday at 01:01 by chivvy

[Saint_clark]

1 hour ago, chivvy said:

Has he potential for CDM cover for Charles ? Will Still likes adaptable players. The Height for centre back will always trouble me until I see him play.

We don't need to reinvent the wheel here. He's performed well at centreback in the league we're about to play in. Plenty of centrebacks have done well without being the tallest. 

[Wade Garrett]

9 hours ago, hypochondriac said:

Let's not be naive. Like Lavia, livramento and even jwp everyone has a price and the club has said as much. £50 million and if he asks to leave then he's gone. 

We could still keep him.  Nobody is offering us £50m.

[hypochondriac]

7 minutes ago, Wade Garrett said:

We could still keep him.  Nobody is offering us £50m.

Curious to know why not. Didn't we get 60 for Lavia? It's just being realistic. 

[Saint_clark]

52 minutes ago, hypochondriac said:

Curious to know why not. Didn't we get 60 for Lavia? It's just being realistic. 

Lavia had signed a 5 year deal the summer before, Dibling only has one season left on his contract. Lavia was also consistently playing at a high standard, Dibling has fallen off a cliff. 

[Farmer Saint]

9 hours ago, hypochondriac said:

100%. Speaking to some itk people, behind the scenes we accepted it was very likely that we were going straight back down and given that Edwards never played for us, I'd say it was very likely that he was signed specifically to be a strong performer for this upcoming season. 

Glad to see people are finally coming around to what I widely told people last Summer - a lot of our signings were based on the fact that we thought we were going down. Shame it just took so long for everyone else to catch up.

[trousers]

Just now, Farmer Saint said:

Glad to see people are finally coming around to what I widely told people last Summer - a lot of our signings were based on the fact that we thought we were going down. Shame it just took so long for everyone else to catch up.

House!

[hypochondriac]

1 hour ago, Saint_clark said:

Lavia had signed a 5 year deal the summer before, Dibling only has one season left on his contract. Lavia was also consistently playing at a high standard, Dibling has fallen off a cliff. 

We were talking about Fernandes? 

[Chez]

11 minutes ago, Farmer Saint said:

Glad to see people are finally coming around to what I widely told people last Summer - a lot of our signings were based on the fact that we thought we were going down. Shame it just took so long for everyone else to catch up.

Utter twaddle. We signed players last summer to improve the side in an effort to stay up. The fact many of the players turned out to be only good enough for the championship does not indicate they were signed for that purpose.

[SaintNewForest]

1 hour ago, Saint_clark said:

Lavia had signed a 5 year deal the summer before, Dibling only has one season left on his contract. Lavia was also consistently playing at a high standard, Dibling has fallen off a cliff. 

Get your point, but Dibling has 2 years left on his contract.

[hypochondriac]

10 minutes ago, Chez said:

Utter twaddle. We signed players last summer to improve the side in an effort to stay up. The fact many of the players turned out to be only good enough for the championship does not indicate they were signed for that purpose.

Almost none of them were. I reckon Edwards was signed with the future in mind though as evidenced by the fact that he didn't play. 

[Saint_clark]

21 minutes ago, hypochondriac said:

We were talking about Fernandes? 

Well then that's even more ridiculous. No way Fabrice is going for that much. He's barely kicked a ball in almost 20 years.

[DT]

10 hours ago, hypochondriac said:

100%. Speaking to some itk people, behind the scenes we accepted it was very likely that we were going straight back down and given that Edwards never played for us, I'd say it was very likely that he was signed specifically to be a strong performer for this upcoming season. 

Quite a sensible insurance policy if you ask me. As it may turn out.

[gio1saints]

12 hours ago, saint michael said:

What’s the benefit of loaning different young players every year. Lesley clearly started to improve and another year or two would clearly help develop us as a team. A group of revolving youngsters doesn’t really help build us as a football team that is built on any strong consistent foundation. It’s like constantly replacing the foundations of your house whilst trying to build the house. 

You’ve just succinctly described one of the strangleholds that the wealthiest clubs of the EPL have on us. 

The loan system, ostensibly helpful to teams like us, simultaneously guarantees disruption to squad after squad once they leave. 
 

That Disruption undermines clubs that cannot afford the stockpile of talents that the Chelsea’s and Man City’s have and basically, as you describe, have to fix the house whilst repairing the foundations year after year. 
 

The big clubs - and their Managers- can concentrate on just fixing the house. 

Southampton FC and all the other non elite clubs are just tarted up Academies for the big boys. Nothing more. 
 

When we are told winning the Championship playoff is the most valuable match in world football it’s true on one level - but it’s also the classic magicians trick of distraction creating the illusion that it’s not a fixed system, fixed in favour of the biggest, wealthiest clubs. 
 

We won the worlds most valuable football match and yet - look at the state of us. 
 

Edited Wednesday at 08:37 by gio1saints

[BARCELONASAINT]

1 hour ago, Farmer Saint said:

Glad to see people are finally coming around to what I widely told people last Summer - a lot of our signings were based on the fact that we thought we were going down. Shame it just took so long for everyone else to catch up.

If fans were being honest with themselves i would not be surprised if 99% of Saints fans thought we were favourites to be relegated before a ball was kicked last season. I said it myself right at the start we were going down with such a weak team and a manager that had no game B plan. Every team buys players that are not at the quality they need immediately but hope they become those players within a season of buying them, we are no different. I said it the season we won promotion under Martin, i honestly don't think the club planned for automatic promotion that first season and thought season 2 would be more realistic. It didn't work out that way and we had too many Championship players on long contracts that we couldn't shift.

Also add into the mix and this is the biggest mistake of the lot, we had a management team that was completely inept at running a tea fund let alone a professional football club!

I really hope major lessons have been learnt. Unless players have something in their contracts that allow them to walk away for below market value (eg. Aaron Ramsdale) then we stay firm and either don't sell or hold out for big money. We don't have to sell either Dibling or Fernandez and our team should be built around these two. The bar has been set by the sale off the Bellingham brother who has NO Premiership experience and is nowhere near the qaulity of either Fernandez or Dibling. I accept Dibling fell away second half of the season but anyone can see this lad is absolute quality and could go on to be a brilliant player if managed correctly.

I live in hope the new management team will not make the same awful mistakes their predecessors did! 

[Farmer Saint]

1 hour ago, Chez said:

Utter twaddle. We signed players last summer to improve the side in an effort to stay up. The fact many of the players turned out to be only good enough for the championship does not indicate they were signed for that purpose.

The funniest thing is, this isn't really up for debate. I KNOW this was part of the strategy last year.

[CB Fry]

1 hour ago, Farmer Saint said:

Glad to see people are finally coming around to what I widely told people last Summer - a lot of our signings were based on the fact that we thought we were going down. Shame it just took so long for everyone else to catch up.

what you were actually saying was the club were furious we got promoted and wanted to stay down another season. which was nonsense then and remains nonsense.

[Farmer Saint]

4 minutes ago, CB Fry said:

what you were actually saying was the club were furious we got promoted and wanted to stay down another season. which was nonsense then and remains nonsense.

Literally never said that once.

What I said was that they knew we couldn't compete due to the financial situation from the previous season and the effect from PSR, and that fed into the transfer strategy last Summer for us to sign the majority of players who would stay with us and enable us for 2025/2026.

You didn't understand it then, and you still don't seem to understand it now.

Edited Wednesday at 08:42 by Farmer Saint

[CB Fry]

1 hour ago, Chez said:

Utter twaddle. We signed players last summer to improve the side in an effort to stay up. The fact many of the players turned out to be only good enough for the championship does not indicate they were signed for that purpose.

Let him have his delusions. We did not sign Fernandes because we knew he wasn't good enough. We signed BBD because he literally was proven to score goals for a relegation zone Prem team. We signed Downes and THB because they were integral to how we played and it was the sensible logical step to go into the Prem with them. We signed Archer as a Prem fringe player at a big club to step up. We also signed that world famous "only-good-enough-for-the-championsip" goalkeeper Aaron Ramsdale. Of course we did.

Be brilliant to see all of those players stepping out to play for us in the Championship next season won't it. All of them. Because they definitely will won't they? Because Farmer said that's why we bought them. 

[hypochondriac]

4 minutes ago, Farmer Saint said:

Literally never said that once.

What I said was that they knew we couldn't compete due to the financial situation from the previous season and the effect from PSR, and that fed into the transfer strategy last Summer.

You didn't understand it then, and you still don't seem to understand it now.

Signing some decent young players with potential because they consider it likely we might go down again is not the same as giving up before a ball was kicked which is essentially what you said. 

[CB Fry]

5 minutes ago, Farmer Saint said:

Literally never said that once.

What I said was that they knew we couldn't compete due to the financial situation from the previous season and the effect from PSR, and that fed into the transfer strategy last Summer for us to sign the majority of players who would stay with us and enable us for 2025/2026.

You didn't understand it then, and you still don't seem to understand it now.

you posted several comments that indicated that the club were not happy we went up and would have preferred we didn't. You can walk it back now, but you did.

[Farmer Saint]

Just now, CB Fry said:

Let him have his delusions. We did not sign Fernandes because we knew he wasn't good enough. We signed BBD because he literally was proven to score goals for a relegation zone Prem team. We signed Downes and THB because they were integral to how we played and it was the sensible logical step to go into the Prem with them. We signed Archer as a Prem fringe player at a big club to step up. We also signed that world famous "only-good-enough-for-the-championsip" goalkeeper Aaron Ramsdale. Of course we did.

Be brilliant to see all of those players stepping out to play for us in the Championship next season won't it. All of them. Because they definitely will won't they? Because Farmer said that's why we bought them. 

I know you like to think you're clever, but you're clearly not as clever as you like to think you are. I have explained all this before to you in the simplest way I possible could - go back and read it and stop trying to be the forum enforcer that you think you are 😂

[Holmes_and_Watson]

2 minutes ago, Farmer Saint said:

The funniest thing is, this isn't really up for debate. I KNOW this was part of the strategy last year.

When this came up before, there was the feeling that the club 1) realised how weak it was since last relegation 2) Did the business it could within resources, but clearly didn't get some main targets 3) Knew that it would be a struggle, but looked to have a more solid foundation for the next promotion push when it happened.

Personally, I think SR are their own worst enemies in creating these problems in the first place. And by stronger for the next push, they meant not a massive dressing room full of sulking cliques. Which hasn't been fully solved, as it turnsed out anyway.

But yes, if you have to go down, it does make sense to recruit to minimise that impact. Which is why, if those plans were at all effective, we should be pushing for a straight promotion.

[Farmer Saint]

1 minute ago, hypochondriac said:

Signing some decent young players with potential because they consider it likely we might go down again is not the same as giving up before a ball was kicked which is essentially what you said. 

But I didn't say that.

[Rebel]

15 hours ago, Willo of Whiteley said:

I think it depends what route we go down. We could go down the route of buying established Championship or bit-part Premier League players.

Or we could be going after really obscure foreign players.

I think we all know which route we are going to take!

But really it should be a combination of all of them