Nordic Saint

The Watford and Sunderland games were similar in that the team looked shambolic and disorganised in the first half, then they sorted it out amongst themselves to a certain extent in the second half. They might actually play better if they were left to manage themselves.

The attacks on rival fans mostly take place off camera. http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/violence-overshadows-football-in-turkey.aspx?PageID=238&NID=98282&NewsCatID=361

It's likely we'll get a team from Azerbaijan, Turkey or Israel. I hope we don't get Fenerbahçe. They are a very good team and they have one of the most violent crowds in football.

What does that make us? We lose to them..

He's a very good player and one of the fastest in our squad. But, he is tiny and oppostion managers have learned you can beat him by putting high crossfield balls over to his wing. He was also beaten by one in the Euros, which led to a goal. It's a concern that a few of the players we are being linked with now are also very small.

A small bet on him to be PFA Player of the Year might be in order.

Out of that lot, I hope we get Sébastien Haller.

He's also younger than Mo Farah, who's done a lot more miles. Nowadays, central defenders are at their best in their early 30s, which is why Real Madrid have Pepe at the heart of their defence. You could argue that strikers need pace even more. Ibrahimovich is 35 this year and that didn't stop Mourinho signing him. Fonte has at least 2 more good seasons left in him and I can understand why Mourinho would like him to fill the role at Man United that Terry had at Chelsea. We sell most of the players we buy after 2 seasons, so it's unlikely a younger player would here last any longer. I think Puel knows how important Fonte is for the team so he won't want him sold.

Rather than having every thread dragged down by ALWAYS_SFC, C.B. Fry and the Whelk trying to insuilt or make sarcastic comments about everyone who doesn't belong to their Stepford Wives group of tame posters, can we keep all of the comments about other posters to this one thread? Feel free to insult me here as much as you like, ALWAYS_SFC but if you're not going to express any opinions about Saints or football, there really is no need to waste time insulting those who do in every thread when you can do it all in just this one, OK?

He is an inspirational captain and he has been fantastic for us. If anyone has tried to generate team spirit as players have been bought and sold around him, it's him. Why do fans talk about him like this? Our players have access to the internet. They are human and they will naturally be curious to see what is said about them so they must know that the fans just view them as commodities to be bought and sold. We show them very little loyalty.

Fonte is hardly the type of player to sulk. Some of our fans have no appreciation for what a great club servant he has been for us. It seems the only person people are devoted to now is Les Reed. Our players know they will all be sold anyway as part of the club's 'business model' and many of our fans will turn ahainst them as soon as there is a transfer riumour 'leaked' from the club.

That was exactly the same in our first away game last season, at Newcastle. When he plays, every manager knows all his team have to do to create chances is attack down our left flank.

He got the job because he was the candidate who seemed most likely to do exactly what Les Reed wanted. Reed is literally gettting more hands-on. Never one to miss a photo o[pportunity, he was shaking the hand of every player as they got off the coach at Old Trafford.

He probably saw a few cameraman waiting outside the bus and had to make sure there weren't any pictures without him in them.

Fans are not asking the club to spend more money than they get. We just have the modest ambition of wanting them to keep our best players and managers for at least a year or two longer before they cash in on them, so that we have a team which is used to playing together, has built some team spirit and might actually win something, and we won't have to wait until several games into the season to see a full-strength team. As it is, most of our best players are sold as soon as we get an offer for them from a rival club. I do not believe for one minute that players like Mane would have sulked, gone on strike, thrown tantrums etc if they weren't sold 2 years into their contracts. That's just PR bullsh!t from the club to appease the fans. Most of us know that they'll already be planning to sell Van Dijk in the next summer transfer window and Hojbjerg in the one after that, the same as they were planning months ago to sell Mane and Wanyama in this one.

It's very clever. It forecasts which players Liverpool, Spurs and Man United will want to buy in 2 years' time.

And you seem to forget that the club will receive around half a billion pounds in PL prize money out of which to pay those contracts over the next 5 years unless they sell so many of our players that we get relegated.

True. That's why Man United want to replace him with one of the best defenders in the Premier League, Fonte.

The club's policy is to try to sell all of our best players for a profit at some stage, usually after they've only played for us for only 2 years. Fonte has been watching this going on around him for years as all of his former team mates have been sold off. You can't blame him if he wants to have some say in when they cash in on him and which club they sell him to. Les would probably sell him next year anyway and many posters on here would congratulate him for doing it, saying it was the last chance we had to get money for him and that it was a good bit of business. Personally, I wouldn't. We should stop selling our best players but everyone in the football world just sees us as a business now, including our own players.

I'd never heard of him until we were linked with him. I just looked him up on Wiki. Apparently he's got 2 caps for Morocco. It reminds me of the hype that surrounded Clasie just before we signed him, when people who'd probably never heard of him before and had certainly never seen him play started saying what a fantastic signing he'd be. To be fair, I'd never heard of Hojbjerg before either and he looks pretty good, although he has 21 caps for Denmark and is a year younger than Boufal.

I've factored into it the fact that either you really are an idiot or you're being deliberatley obtuse: "Watford have turned down bids of £35 mill from Man United and £37.5 mill from Shanghai Ighalo."

Yes, Watford have turned down bids of £35 mill from Man United and £37.5 mill from Shanghai for Ighalo and £25 mill from Leicester for Deeney. But, they have all of that Premier League prize money coming in so they don’t need to sell their players. http://www.express.co.uk/sport/football/688014/Manchester-United-transfer-news-Louis-van-Gaal-Odion-Ighalo-bid http://www.leicestermercury.co.uk/leicester-city-transfer-news-25-million-bid-for-deeney-rejected/story-29418736-detail/story.html

"The breakdown due to winning the euros" 'ITK leak' is the message the club want to put out there just in case they get a big cash offer for Fonte. Then the fans can all blame the player and say the club sold him reluctantly. There have been similar 'ITK leaks' in the last few years criticising nearly all of our players and managers just before they have been sold.

But surely even Kat and Les must realize that they need the shop window of the Premier League in order to keep doing that and that if they sell too many of our best players this summer, they'll risk losing it. Why the hurry to rake in all the cash now? Is Kat planning to sell the club?

It bothers us because we are strengthening our rivals, which will potentially cost us points when we play them. Fonte is the rock on which our team is built. He would fill the same role for Mournho at Man United that Terry filled at Chelsea. I cannot believe how much some Saints fans underrate Fonte.