Summer Transfer Window 2026

[East Kent Saint]

Well we will just have to see if he was not trying too hard as unwanted !

[iansums]

4 minutes ago, tdmickey3 said:

Not meant to be funny, just a fact, he is a wanker but thanks anyway Mr Tice

Even funnier, you really are on form.

[Danbert]

Well, I welcome him back. Hopefully he's still got what it takes.

[hypochondriac]

GK 

CB- Schlotterbeck

CB - Falchener?

RB - jwp backup?

CM - jwp?

Attacker - Ratkov? 

[tdmickey3]

4 minutes ago, iansums said:

Even funnier, you really are on form.

Cheers, nice to be appreciated 

[HKsaint]

Who will take the free kicks.

[goodymatt]

 

[DrSuess1979]

2 minutes ago, HKsaint said:

Who will take the free kicks.

Manning is left footed 

[Verwood Saint]

41 minutes ago, tdmickey3 said:

No, its Farage

Trump and Farage are both great guesses but surely it's Lowe!

[tdmickey3]

Just now, Verwood Saint said:

Trump and Farage are both great guesses but surely it's Lowe!

All three TBH, but you may get iansums telling you sarcastically that is funny, think he is a fan of all 3

[Verwood Saint]

2 minutes ago, Verwood Saint said:

Trump and Farage are both great guesses but surely it's Lowe!

Rupert Lowe's a Wanker, he wears a Wankers hat...

[Badger]

JWP returning wasn’t on my list of priorities this summer.

But I wonder what the internet response (had it been invented) would be to the prospect of 31 year old Alan Ball joining us in December 1976 for £60,000. “Waste of money..” “past it..” etc.

Alan Ball he certainly isn’t. But JWP might provide us with something although does seem a bit of a retrograde step in many ways. And doesn’t address the need for a more physical player in MF

[Badger]

10 minutes ago, hypochondriac said:

GK 

CB- Schlotterbeck

CB - Falchener?

RB - jwp backup?

CM - jwp?

Attacker - Ratkov? 

Good effort, it’s taking shape. But surely the Ratkov ship has sailed, if not been torpedoed.

Still think we need a more physical MF operator, but accept it might be unlikely with JWP now coming in. 

[hypochondriac]

1 minute ago, Badger said:

Good effort, it’s taking shape. But surely the Ratkov ship has sailed, if not been torpedoed.

Still think we need a more physical MF operator, but accept it might be unlikely with JWP now coming in. 

Who knows what pops up in the final few days of the window. I'm confident we will bring an attacker in of some description before the end of the window. Assuming we sell THB and bring in Falchener for less than ten million that still gives us some cash to spend.

[Matthew Le God]

13 minutes ago, HKsaint said:

Who will take the free kicks.

For ones in shooting range I'd guess at...

Manning when they are on the right

Ward-Prowse when they are on the left

Ward-Prowse when they are central

 

[iansums]

7 minutes ago, tdmickey3 said:

All three TBH, but you may get iansums telling you sarcastically that is funny, think he is a fan of all 3

Not really no, it would be just as pathetic if someone had put Starmer, Corbyn or anyone else on the left.

[iansums]

Just now, Matthew Le God said:

For ones in shooting range I'd guess at...

Manning when they are on the right

Ward-Prowse when they are on the left

Ward-Prowse when they are central

 

Would be daft to be as regimented as that, you would want both over the ball to keep the keeper guessing.

[The Kraken]

1 minute ago, iansums said:

Would be daft to be as regimented as that, you would want both over the ball to keep the keeper guessing.

Maybe that's how its done in computer games.  I wouldn't know.

[Badger]

Just now, hypochondriac said:

Who knows what pops up in the final few days of the window. I'm confident we will bring an attacker in of some description before the end of the window. Assuming we sell THB and bring in Falchener for less than ten million that still gives us some cash to spend.

Can’t wait for the Ratkov first interview which at least one of the cliche lines looks to have been cut off.

Unless:

”yeh, as soon as I heard of Southampton’s  interest I thought … nah, fuck it.. not going there”

Then they came back and I thought nah fuck it …

Then again after Lazio had told me to fuck off … fuck it, why not ? at least they want me …”

[Forester]

47 minutes ago, Charlie Wayman said:

If our aim is to build a side that can stay in and compete in the PL should we win promotion, then the last thing we need is to waste our very limited resources on bringing back a 32 yo Ward Prowse for largely sentimental reasons.

He has no future value to the club, will be over the hill soon if not already and lacks the athleticism that will be essential in midfield to compete at the higher level and even at thios level. It's all very well pointing to his considerable experience in the PL and free kick record but more recently he has failed to cut the mustard at WHU, Notts F or Burnley. Why do people on here expect anything to be different if he re-joined Saints? It won't.

We don't need a geriatric passenger who happens to take free kicks well, we have one of those already. Worse still he will be blocking the progress of youngsters like Akachukwu and our youngsters is where our future must lie.

Signing JWP will be a munumental folly that we must not commit or will come to regret.

For me, this analysis fails in the first sentence.  As Fulham a few years back and Sunderland last season showed, there is a gulf between “getting into” and “staying in” the Premier League.  We need every minute of focus on the first of these challenges, particularly given a four points deficit.

 

We love to look back lovingly on the promotion under Adkins where Fonte, Schneiderlin, Lambert and Lallana were effective in both divisions.  The reality is we had to bring in lots of quality that summer in Boruc, Clyde, Yoshida, Davis, Ramirez, Rodrigues etc.  Then last time we went up the major problem was that our team looked too similar to the promoted version.  Baz, Bree, both centre backs, Manning, Downes, Armstrong all couldn’t cope with the new division.

So focus on getting up.  If JWP can help us do that, next season is another thing

[S-Clarke]

1 hour ago, Charlie Wayman said:

If our aim is to build a side that can stay in and compete in the PL should we win promotion, then the last thing we need is to waste our very limited resources on bringing back a 32 yo Ward Prowse for largely sentimental reasons.

He has no future value to the club, will be over the hill soon if not already and lacks the athleticism that will be essential in midfield to compete at the higher level and even at thios level. It's all very well pointing to his considerable experience in the PL and free kick record but more recently he has failed to cut the mustard at WHU, Notts F or Burnley. Why do people on here expect anything to be different if he re-joined Saints? It won't.

We don't need a geriatric passenger who happens to take free kicks well, we have one of those already. Worse still he will be blocking the progress of youngsters like Akachukwu and our youngsters is where our future must lie.

Signing JWP will be a munumental folly that we must not commit or will come to regret.

I think you need to look at this another way.

When we were in the PL it's fair to say that he wasn't at the elite level we all craved for It was a fair argument that we felt we could potentially do a bit better, or at least add players around him so he wasn't in there on his own.

But you need to realise where we are now, in the Championship, miles off of that PL team he was regularly part of. It's not fair to judge him based upon our expectations from then. In terms of where we are today, he's a great signing for the fee. He's clearly more than good enough for this level, and when you combine his set pieces with the arial ability of Larin and hopefully THB, we could be a big issue for teams. The only fair concern people have is his lack of physicality and that we haven't really replaced Charles 'lung busting' midfield runs in that sense, but we'll have to see how that pans out.

No, he's not a world beater and he never was - but for where we are now, we'd be stupid to turn our noses up at this opportunity - certainly for the fee in question.

[OneMrsWallace]

42 minutes ago, Verwood Saint said:

Trump and Farage are both great guesses but surely it's Lowe!

Are we talking about the horseman of the apocalypse? 

[CSA96]

 

[Verbal]

I think debates about whether JWP is or isn't the player he was when he left us miss the point.

Over the weekend I watched two full premier league games - Newcastle v Liverpool and Fulham v Chelsea - plus highlights of Hull v Man Utd. What was striking about all those games was how physically dynamic they were. Apparently, for one example, the number of sprints per 90 in the Prem has gone up around 20% in the last year or so. 

This seems to be reflected in the kind of signings Prem teams are making - including Hull who've basically recruited an entirely new team. And Arbeloa at Fulham (the team with the oldest average age in the Prem last season) has completely changed the recruiting criteria, signing highly mobile early 20-somethings - a pattern into which Charles fits neatly. All of these teams were coached to get the ball forward fast and furious. It was brilliant to watch.

Did JWP ever fit these criteria? He was fit enough but nowhere near the kind of player that these clubs, and the rest of the Prem, now seek out. 

Arguably this trend hasn't come to the Championship yet, although Millwall, for example, would beg to differ, as we may find out at the weekend. My strong hunch is that the teams that get promoted this year will fit this trend. 

So JWP is just the wrong kind of player in a rapidly changing game - and Nuno hasn't been the only one to notice. 

 

[Harry_SFC]

43 minutes ago, hypochondriac said:

Who knows what pops up in the final few days of the window. I'm confident we will bring an attacker in of some description before the end of the window. Assuming we sell THB and bring in Falchener for less than ten million that still gives us some cash to spend.

We are clearly after another attacker and obviously a CB to replace THB. No links to keepers yet though, although it seems we only want someone to make up the numbers. 

[Harry_SFC]

3 minutes ago, Verbal said:

I think debates about whether JWP is or isn't the player he was when he left us miss the point.

Over the weekend I watched two full premier league games - Newcastle v Liverpool and Fulham v Chelsea - plus highlights of Hull v Man Utd. What was striking about all those games was how physically dynamic they were. Apparently, for one example, the number of sprints per 90 in the Prem has gone up around 20% in the last year or so. 

This seems to be reflected in the kind of signings Prem teams are making - including Hull who've basically recruited an entirely new team. And Arbeloa at Fulham (the team with the oldest average age in the Prem last season) has completely changed the recruiting criteria, signing highly mobile early 20-somethings - a pattern into which Charles fits neatly. All of these teams were coached to get the ball forward fast and furious. It was brilliant to watch.

Did JWP ever fit these criteria? He was fit enough but nowhere near the kind of player that these clubs, and the rest of the Prem, now seek out. 

Arguably this trend hasn't come to the Championship yet, although Millwall, for example, would beg to differ, as we may find out at the weekend. My strong hunch is that the teams that get promoted this year will fit this trend. 

So JWP is just the wrong kind of player in a rapidly changing game - and Nuno hasn't been the only one to notice. 

 

Yep and I've been saying it a while. Whilst we have some good technical players, our starting 11 does lack genuine strength and pace. 

[Wade Garrett]

1 hour ago, HKsaint said:

Who will take the free kicks.

Judging by Manning's last effort that hit someone on the kneecap in the middle of the wall, I'm going to say JWP.

[hypochondriac]

19 minutes ago, Harry_SFC said:

We are clearly after another attacker and obviously a CB to replace THB. No links to keepers yet though, although it seems we only want someone to make up the numbers. 

I think we will get the backup keeper for peanuts once Bazunu and Ramsdale are gone.