Damion Downs

[gio1saints]

Fernandes, for me, is guaranteed to be in the Championship player of the season stakes if he stays. Mind you I thought same of Charlie. Keep him and we have a title winning contenders team. Sell him and bets are off.

My personal opinion : if MF, AR and THB stay we will be promoted. 100%. 
oops Sry wrong thread ! 

Edited Thursday at 16:08 by gio1saints

[Verbal]

3 hours ago, gio1saints said:

Fernandes, for me, is guaranteed to be in the Championship player of the season stakes if he stays. Mind you I thought same of Charlie. Keep him and we have a title winning contenders team. Sell him and bets are off.

My personal opinion : if MF, AR and THB stay we will be promoted. 100%. 
oops Sry wrong thread ! 

Don't worry - it's only at the top of the page, where it will stay forever.

[Smirking_Saint]

On 09/07/2025 at 14:32, Weston Super Saint said:

The moral of the tale is we have to put up with an awful lot of shit before we polish one of the turds - oh and a couple of relegations thrown in!

This argument falls down when you look at the ‘experienced’ signings have been absolutely woeful

Our recruitment has been awful, but like the previous poster said, there are far less downsides with buying young talents

[Gloucester Saint]

15 minutes ago, Smirking_Saint said:

This argument falls down when you look at the ‘experienced’ signings have been absolutely woeful

Our recruitment has been awful, but like the previous poster said, there are far less downsides with buying young talents

Whether it’s experienced or younger players, there’s simply been far too many of them overall and the context has been ignored in doing so.

Edozie, Larios and Bazunu were clearly not the right signings for the summer 2023 situation, when the club had been hollowed out under Gao. We need an injection of quality not gambles. One transfer going well, Livramento, and the Lavia transfers making profit became a whole strategy under Semmens, then Shields and Rasmus which was ignorant of the club’s history.

Under Lawrie and then Nicholl, the talented youngsters learned from Keegan, Channon, Case, Shilton, Burridge and were able to grow and then be withdrawn at their own pace (saw this with Shearer after his debut). Bazunu might or might not have done better as #2 to a Ramsdale, the level the club should have been aiming at as first choice in 2023. 

More quality, less quantity. That’s how during the last two PL wretched seasons we ended up with a squad that struggled to fit into the home and away dressing rooms at SMS combined yet mustered less than 40 points from 76 matches which is pathetic.

Edited 12 hours ago by Gloucester Saint

[Smirking_Saint]

On 09/07/2025 at 17:00, Midfield_General said:

This is all fine as a measure of success if you just view the club as a business that exists to make as much money as it can from trading assets e.g. players. 

If however you view Saints as a football club that should exist to, ooh I don't know, win games of football, the analysis of the 'success' of those signings is a bit different: 

Obviously improved the team and became established first-team regulars: Lavia, Livramento, Fernandes, THB

Given lots of first-team opportunities but ultimately were judged not to be up to it for whatever reason (ability, attitude, injury or some combination of those) and ended up dropped, frozen out, loaned out or sold: Mara, Sulemana, SAA, Charles (last season), Edozie, Meghoma, ABK, Larios, Bazunu

Jury's out, could still go either way: Charles (this season), Edwards, Wood, Quarshie, Downs

In summary - in pure volume terms this 'strategy' has resulted in us accumulating way more players who were below the required standard on the pitch, than ones who were good enough. 

And herein lies the root issue - in recent years we've been run way too much as a business that primarily focuses on whether we can buy players that will increase in value in some way, rather than whether they are actually what we need on the pitch to win games of football. 

Hence we've gone from being an established Premier League club who regularly punched above it's weight, to a yo-yo* club unequipped to compete at the top level even if we do find ourselves there. And speaking personally as a supporter, if you can see that the club is basically being run to make profit rather than win games, it does sometimes make you question what the point of it all is, unless you're the type who really, really gets off on a Balance Sheet rather than celebrating a win. 

It will be interesting to see by the end of the window whether it feels like there's been a marked shift. Not many signs yet, but there's still plenty of time. 

(* miss you Dalek)

As fans we get absolutely hung up on the fact that we buy only youth, with no thoughts on experience, but thats not the case, in truth, its just that our recruitment has been awful, with the only real saving graces in some of our youth signings bearing fruit

The reality is, that we simply have to adopt a more moneyball model, its how you break out of the lower league relegation battles, but unfortunately, the way the league is at the moment you need a lot of luck and likely the implosion of an established side

Fact is, we have bought experienced players, but they’ve not been good enough, we’ve had FAR less success in that area then with the youth. We’re stuck with Fraser, Stewart, Taylor, Bree, Aribo… the list goes on

So to clarify… our malaise has been overall recruiting, but they’ve youth players have been a net positive, the ‘experienced’ a failure

[Turkish]

1 minute ago, Smirking_Saint said:

As fans we get absolutely hung up on the fact that we buy only youth, with no thoughts on experience, but thats not the case, in truth, its just that our recruitment has been awful, with the only real saving graces in some of our youth signings bearing fruit

The reality is, that we simply have to adopt a more moneyball model, its how you break out of the lower league relegation battles, but unfortunately, the way the league is at the moment you need a lot of luck and likely the implosion of an established side

Fact is, we have bought experienced players, but they’ve not been good enough, we’ve had FAR less success in that area then with the youth. We’re stuck with Fraser, Stewart, Taylor, Bree, Aribo… the list goes on

So to clarify… our malaise has been overall recruiting, but they’ve youth players have been a net positive, the ‘experienced’ a failure

It not even that. It's the old buy cheap, buy twice (or in our case 3 times) strategy. Too much emphasis on spending caps, buying in the 10-15m mark rather than buying quality in key positions. We've wasted eye watering amounts on centre backs and strikers over the years going for quantity over quality. We've ignored seasoned professionals due to being hung up on future resale value and of course we've brought loads of youth players who haven't been up to it. Yeah we've done well with some but for years we've gone for quantity over quality and once again we've ended up with a bloated squad of average players not good enough for the premier league and too expensive for any other league. 

[Fabrice29]

50 minutes ago, Turkish said:

It not even that. It's the old buy cheap, buy twice (or in our case 3 times) strategy. Too much emphasis on spending caps, buying in the 10-15m mark rather than buying quality in key positions. We've wasted eye watering amounts on centre backs and strikers over the years going for quantity over quality. We've ignored seasoned professionals due to being hung up on future resale value and of course we've brought loads of youth players who haven't been up to it. Yeah we've done well with some but for years we've gone for quantity over quality and once again we've ended up with a bloated squad of average players not good enough for the premier league and too expensive for any other league. 

I reckon at least 7 of our signings last summer could be considered "seasoned professionals" so not sure we've ignored them tbh.

Edited 11 hours ago by Fabrice29

[Turkish]

3 minutes ago, Fabrice29 said:

I reckon at least 7 of our signings last summer could be considered "seasoned professionals" so not sure we've ignored them tbh.

Name them then. Who were the at least 7 premier league quality seasoned professionals we signed last summer?

Edited 11 hours ago by Turkish

[Fabrice29]

Just now, Turkish said:

Name them then. Who were the 7 premier league quality seasoned professionals we signed last summer?

Well you didn't say premier league quality firstly but

Ramsdale, Lallana, Fraser, Cornet, BBD, Archer, Taylor all had at the very least respectable PL seasons behind them.

[Turkish]

8 minutes ago, Fabrice29 said:

Well you didn't say premier league quality firstly but

Ramsdale, Lallana, Fraser, Cornet, BBD, Archer, Taylor all had at the very least respectable PL seasons behind them.

The entire point of my post was signing quantity over quality so it wasn't hard to work out be seasoned players what i meant.

Ben Breaton Diaz had played 14 premier league games when we signed him 😂

Archer had played 39 over 3 seasons

Cornet 37 over 3 seasons

Lallana we over the hill

so even if we remove "premier league quality" 3 of your "at least 7" are far from seasoned players.

Edited 11 hours ago by Turkish

[Gloucester Saint]

1 minute ago, Fabrice29 said:

Well you didn't say premier league quality firstly but

Ramsdale, Lallana, Fraser, Cornet, BBD, Archer, Taylor all had at the very least respectable PL seasons behind them.

Ramsdale - unqualified yes

Lallana - 36, great to watch but a 60 min player at his peak and squad player for Brighton, that’s stretching it

Fraser - in the past but not for a few years in the PL, a good Champ player at beat last summer

Cornet - yes, but had a serious injury

BBD - no, half a seasons loan at the Blades, albeit did go quite well. Stewart played a dozen good games for Sunderland in the Championship but doesn’t make him an established Champ player either

Archer - one season on loan at Sheff Utd finishing rock bottom

Taylor - unquestionably. Don’t know what the hell went on at the club from his perspective. As with Saints in general these days it doesn’t make logical sense. Can only assume him and Martin/Juric fell out.

[Fabrice29]

7 minutes ago, Turkish said:

The entire point of my post was signing quantity over quality so it wasn't hard to work out be seasoned players what i meant.

Ben Breaton Diaz had played 14 premier league games when we signed him 😂

Archer had played 39 over 3 seasons

Cornet 37 over 3 seasons

Lallana we over the hill

so even if we remove "premier league quality" 3 of your "at least 7" are far from seasoned players.

You seemed reasonably satisfied with BBD experience when we signed him

 

On 28/07/2024 at 16:22, Turkish said:

You’d back him to get 10-12 goals a season given his performance at Sheffield United which for £7m is great business and something we’ve not had since the Koeman days

Which is kind of the point I'm making. We've signed so called quality as well and sometimes they also don't work out. Think we need to just get better at recruitment overall, rather than think the answer is in proven quality/season professionals which can also struggle to translate to good performances in a bad team. There is risks either way. 

[Turkish]

3 minutes ago, Fabrice29 said:

You seemed reasonably satisfied with BBD experience when we signed him

 

Which is kind of the point I'm making. We've signed so called quality as well and sometimes they also don't work out. Think we need to just get better at recruitment overall, rather than think the answer is in proven quality/season professionals which can also struggle to translate to good performances in a bad team. There is risks either way. 

Yep, i was and i was wrong, he was miles off it not helped by the fact Martin played him as a winger which he isn't. 4 premier league goals and 14 matches doesn't make him a seasoned premier league player though does it.

Any chance of listing the the others given you claimed there were at least 7 and so far you've come up with 2.

[Gloucester Saint]

9 minutes ago, Fabrice29 said:

You seemed reasonably satisfied with BBD experience when we signed him

 

Which is kind of the point I'm making. We've signed so called quality as well and sometimes they also don't work out. Think we need to just get better at recruitment overall, rather than think the answer is in proven quality/season professionals which can also struggle to translate to good performances in a bad team. There is risks either way. 

I’m not sure I’d call BBD’s record quality last summer, but on paper it did appear better than what we had or no worse than Che Adams. Sadly that didn’t work out. Playing the bloke wide in a v-shape formation probably knackered his confidence and he looked a shell back at the Blades on loan under the same manager he did well for briefly.

Let’s be clear that BBD of last summer is not Tadic from Twente, Pelle from Feyenoord, Mane from Salzburg or Ramsdale from Bournemouth. We needed 4 or 5 at that level and not the huge number of cheap gambles. Lavia turned out well but wasn’t fit for 50% of the games so was an impact player at best, whereas Romeu, from Stuttgart, was crucial for Ralph. I don’t care about the profit, Lavia in and Romeu out was a key contributor to be relegated by miles.

Edited 11 hours ago by Gloucester Saint

[Fabrice29]

2 minutes ago, Turkish said:

Yep, i was and i was wrong, he was miles off it not helped by the fact Martin played him as a winger which he isn't. 4 premier league goals and 14 matches doesn't make him a seasoned premier league player though does it.

Any chance of listing the the others given you claimed there were at least 7 and so far you've come up with 2.

  Make your mind up on the math.

18 minutes ago, Turkish said:

so even if we remove "premier league quality" 3 of your "at least 7" are far from seasoned players.

But no, I named the 7 players that came with PL experience and performances that satisfied some, including you, when signed. You can disagree if you like. Point I was making stands imho. "Seasoned professionals" isn't something we've ignored and isn't the magic bullet to success.

[Turkish]

Just now, Fabrice29 said:

  Make your mind up on the math.

But no, I named the 7 players that came with PL experience and performances that satisfied some, including you, when signed. You can disagree if you like. Point I was making stands imho. "Seasoned professionals" isn't something we've ignored and isn't the magic bullet to success.

Math? 

 

You cant then, that's fine, we all get things wrong at times. 

[Fabrice29]

2 minutes ago, Gloucester Saint said:

I’m not sure I’d call BBD’s record quality last summer, but on paper it did appear better than what we had or no worse than Che Adams. Sadly that didn’t work out. Playing the bloke wide in a v-shape formation probably knackered his confidence and he looked a shell back at the Blades on loan under the same manager he did well for briefly.

Let’s be clear that BBD of last summer is not Tadic from Twente, Pelle from Feyenoord, Mane from Salzburg or Ramsdale from Bournemouth. We needed 4 or 5 at that level and not the huge number of cheap gambles. Lavia turned out well but wasn’t fit for 50% of the games so was an impact player at best, whereas Romeu, from Stuttgart, was crucial for Ralph. I don’t care about the profit, Lavia in and Romeu out was a key contributor to be relegated by miles.

Obviously ffs  That's the point I'm making. You don't need "seasoned professionals" you need people to be good at identify translatable skills into the league you are in.

[Gloucester Saint]

8 minutes ago, Fabrice29 said:

  Make your mind up on the math.

But no, I named the 7 players that came with PL experience and performances that satisfied some, including you, when signed. You can disagree if you like. Point I was making stands imho. "Seasoned professionals" isn't something we've ignored and isn't the magic bullet to success.

There’s not that many PL appearances combined in your list though, let alone what I’d call known performers. We were signing far better players in the 1990s stuck in a 15000 capacity stadium (without Foley as an owner) than the last 7 years. Lallana was right at the tail end of playing and it’s only really Taylor where I’d genuinely agree. Fernandes worked out superbly but could’ve fitted into the Poch and Ronald teams as well. Similar sort of transfer to Mane is some ways (different positions and player types).

Summer 2022 did all of the damage with the high volume of kids and oddballs when that spending should have gone on the core spine of 4-5 players Ralph deserved under Gao and didn’t get. He was a busted flush by that stage but the club didn’t help him. Get those players at 23-24 and they make a profit in 2 years if they shine.

Edited 11 hours ago by Gloucester Saint

[Farmer Saint]

53 minutes ago, Turkish said:

Name them then. Who were the at least 7 premier league quality seasoned professionals we signed last summer?

Not PL quality, cos they were bought for the Championship...

[Saint Fan CaM]

4 hours ago, Farmer Saint said:

Not PL quality, cos they were bought for the Championship...

So what you’re saying is the club deliberately bought players not good enough for the PL because it was nailed on we’d be in the Championship this season? 🤔