Useful Idiot

I honestly don't know what style our squad is suited to. We lack a playmaker and we don't really have anyone other than Romeu who can win the ball back in the middle. We don't have anyone who can operate as a Pelle/Lambert style target man so we can't really expect to score from many crosses, so we don't have an effective plan B for when things aren't working. We have no pace or leadership at the back, and there is pretty much nobody with the determination to try to lift the team when we need to go up a gear. Overall, we have a pretty poor squad who bottle big games, and they have a habit of downing tools as soon as anything goes against them.

Pretty much impossible to do this post Brexit. Scandinavian leagues don't earn enough points for players to qualify for work permits as they are considered to not be a high enough standard. The only way to get around that is to pay very high transfer fees and offer big wages, and possibly appearing in enough Champion's League games might offer a boost to WP qualification. The other option is to sign a player and loan him to a team in a top European League. If they play enough games for a team in a top division, I think they count as coming from that league for WP qualification. The only European leagues that are likely to get enough points for a player to be granted a work permit are the the top divisions in France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Portugal, and the Netherlands.

WP qualification is difficult from Africa, Asia and the US. Not sure about Australia. I think most of these require that the player gets regular international football (70% of games over the past 12 months). South America is a bit easier. Playing any Copa Libertadores matches offer a big boost to WP qualification, as does playing matches in either the Argentinian or Brazilian top divisions.

Perhaps a better way to look at this is to look at the best 29 year old player in the Eredivise, look at their market and likely sale value, and then compare them to Pelle. Generally the sale price compared to transfermarkt value is between 1.5 and 2.5 for a player in demand. The best 29 year old currently playing in the Netherlands is Steven Berghuis who has scored 31 goals in 51 games for Feyenoord over the past two seasons. His market value is £10.8m (In comparison, Ings' value is £19.8m), so his likely sale value would be between £16 and £22m. However, Pelle was considerably more prolific, so his transfer fee would likely be proportionately higher. I would suggest between £22m and £34m depending upon remaining length of contract.

Pelle was the third highest scorer in European football over two seasons behind Messi and Ronaldo when we signed him. Tadic was the best creative player in the Eredivise by a mile. If we tried to sign the equivalent two players now it would cost far more than we could afford. We've not signed an attacking player with a good record from a lesser league for a while now because we can't afford them. We seem to have changed our model to gambling on players who have had decent but unspectacular runs at a lower level (Djenepo had 12 goals in 61 games in two full seasons before signing, Mane had 42 in 79, Adams had 31 in 81, Pelle had 55 in 66) or players who are unhappy at bigger clubs who are looking for game time (Ings, Walcott). I think that it is much harder to sign the top young prospects as most prefer the Bundesliga these days as it's the more attractive destination at present, both for wages, continental football, and work permit issues. I think we have to look to South America (particularly the top divisions in Brazil and Argentina, along with players that feature in the Copa Libertadores from Colombia, Uruguay and Peru as its easier for them to get work permits.) as there is probably more value for money there than there is in Europe.

I posted about this when he was announced to sign for Chelsea and thought he was an odd signing for them as he doesn't suit the style that Lampard was trying to get them playing. Basically, he works better as one of a pair up front in a team that looks to exclusively score via quick counters. When he played as a lone striker for Germany he wasn't particularly good (compared to his domestic form for Leipzig) as he's not good at holding the ball up or bringing other people into play. Playing out wide or up front alone for Chelsea doesn't suit him either. He's a bit like a German version of a young Michael Owen. Needs a partner to work with and early passes that let him get in behind quickly.

I think Ramirez was a specialist at playing in the hole but only got to play for us there under Adkins, who pretty much got the best out of him. When he played out of position on the right under Koeman and Poch he always looked a bit crap (with the occasional flash of class like the first time chipped through ball assist for Lallana against West Brom). I don't think he was particularly weak or slow to make decisions when on the ball, but he did get a lot of injuries (off the top of my head I remember him getting a haematoma on his thigh after a challenge in training, and ligament damage on his ankle from Wes Brown hacking him down). He was particularly slow at reacting to pressing 'triggers' which weakened us defensively. Overall, I think he'd be utterly incapable of fitting into our current system, as he neither presses well or consistently plays well from a wide position.

Comments: Although the text in your post was correct, you didn't do sufficient research to complete your post's presentation. That GIF is from a show that aired in the 90's. You should have used an image from something like "Valley of the Dinosaurs" (circa 1974) to make the whole piece work together more effectively. Overall Grade: B-

Career longevity tends to depend upon three things: not getting a really serious injury that stops a player from playing at all, niggling injuries that never fully recover and have to be managed to get through matches, and how quickly a player recovers from a match so they can return to training without picking up muscle injuries. Once a player gets to the stage of their career where they are having to significantly cut back on training intensity due to slow recovery or their match performances are being significantly affected by an injury that won't ever get 100% better they are generally heading towards the twilight of their career. How long Ings will be able to stay playing at the top level is anyone's guess. If he doesn't get a niggling injury and can keep his fitness levels high I'd think he'd probably be able to keep going until he's 33-34. His pace will probably drop off a bit before then, though.

Well, one exciting benefit for people shipping to or from the EU is that you can now enjoy having to take the chance that your shipment might be held up even if you correctly fill in your customs declarations! If one other person sharing the same lorry for their shipment messes their forms up, then the whole lorry is delayed, so one idiot can mess life up for everyone else. This makes every shipment for a small business an exciting opportunity to gamble when you book a courier!

King's finishing ability is not much better than Long's, he's only really had two good seasons in his career. He does look less like a pub player when he tries to control a football, though.

I'm not saying that we're in for him, but I think the top Brazilian and Argentinian leagues score highly for work permit points, and if he's played in the South American equivalent of the Champs League/UEFA League that means almost automatic approval. Apparently this guy did play a couple of games in the Copa Libertadores, so he should be able to get a permit IF we're actually after him.

I concur. In an ideal world I'd like us to go for Buendía from Norwich. Plays in all three positions across attacking midfield and likes to drop inside from wide positions. Has regularly created chances for three seasons for them, think he would be a great fit for Ralph's system, but he's probably out of our price range.

I think the match engine is heavily biased towards physical and mental attributes which is why Long is so effective. Pace and acceleration seem particularly valuable for strikers, it's almost as bad as FIFA in that respect. Hope they fix the rating bug for fullbacks and get the game to correctly track key tackles as at the moment my KWP and Bertrand are both averaging around 6.5 while Valery is somehow on 6.8. Apparently the ratings for fullbacks were broken during the last update. The only reliable way to boost them is to have them set to take corners.

He's surprisingly good on Football Manager. Seems to always get a higher average rating than KWP for some reason. Think there is a bug concerning defenders ratings on the game though, so it might be due to that rather than just MLG making the player ratings unrealistic. In real life, he looks like a bit of an ungainly lower league winger rather than a premier league fullback. Not great touch, pretty quick and powerful but lacks positional sense, is poor at 1v1 defending, has a powerful shot and is reasonably ok-ish at crossing. but probably not much better at RB than Danso was when he played there. He might get better one day, but I think he is too limited to be a realistic option long term.

Tadic was my favourite Saints player while he was at the club. I completely respect his decision to move on, though. He deserved the chance to win trophies and play in European competition regularly (and not get kicked to bits when shielding the ball and have the refs do nothing about it). I think he was consistently in the top ten players for chance creation every year he was in the prem (and regularly in the top 5), which is really impressive when you think about it. I don't think Bertrand is that bad to be honest. It's more that the options in front of him are out of form or lack understanding with him. We definitely need another left back because Ralph doesn't think Vokins is up to the job, but I expect that it will be someone who can act as backup and maybe challenge/replace Bertrand over the next couple of seasons rather than a player who will take his spot immediately.

For me it's attacking midfield, which is probably the last place we will improve as we have four first team players who want to play in the two 'number 10' positions that Ralph likes to use. Problem is, we don't really get that much creativity from the players we do have who can play there. Theo is our best option; his movement is clever, he's pretty quick off the mark, he works hard and he's good on the ball. He's set up 2 goals in 11 matches. Small sample size so he might not keep up that level of performance, but it indicates a very promising start. Armstrong does a job there and is pretty solid without being spectacular. He's managed to set up 7 goals in 72 appearances. Redmond and Djenepo are both quite inconsistent and probably more suited to playing as traditional wingers. Redmond, 12 assists in 147 matches for us. Djenepo's managed 2 in 30. Still early days so he might improve, but I've not seen anything that would suggest he's going to become a regular creative force for the team. He seems more likely to win us a couple of games a season with the occasional bit of magic rather than carving out chances with clever passing. None of the above players is regularly able to create high probability goal scoring chances the way that Tadic could, and I think we really miss that when trying to break teams down. Tadic managed 27 assists in 134 Saints appearances. Just to fill in the other players who have played for us regularly in midfield, Ward-Prowse 25 in 247. Steven Davis 17 in 193. Gaston Ramirez 7 in 47. Lallana 11 in 68. All statistics are pulled from www.premierleague.com

Well, he's not relatively quick compared to Anthony Taylor. Maybe we should sign him instead?

Money and greed.

He has good movement off the ball, strikes a football well, can cross effectively and is quite skillful. Unfortunately, he's also very slow and seems to lose confidence easily. I remember him getting into great positions to score a couple of times when he arrived, but missing his finishes and then not making the runs to get into the box afterwards. I also remember a great bit of skill where he flicked the ball over a defender and sent him to the shops, but was then caught by the same defender about twelve steps later and lost the ball. He's nowhere near as quick as Tadic who was never exactly Usain Bolt himself. I think he's a good, technical footballer but I'm not sure he has the physical attributes to dominate a game in the Prem.

1) Barcelona wouldn't want him for their first team. He'd be in the Barce B side which is the equivalent to getting a loan in league 2. 2) He's obviously still behind Smallbone in the pecking order. I didn't say he wasn't a decent prospect for the future, but I've not seen anything from him that would suggest he would currently get into our starting XI. Saying that, Tella managed it and he's a mile away from being good enough. I expect if we had got further in the League Cup he'd have probably have got some game time, but unless he's improved immeasurably over the last few months I can't really see what he would add to the team.

I'm sure if he was good enough for the first team he'd get chances. He's not really stood out in the u23 matches I've seen him feature in. He's a pretty big guy for his age and he's not bad at controlling a football, but the rest of his game (particularly his passing) was nowhere near good enough for the first team. Maybe it would be a good idea to find him a loan so he can get some first-team experience?

He's at least as good as Long. Better technically and less frequently caught offside. Also seems to create a lot of space for Ings and works hard. Don't think he scares defenders from leaving space behind them like Long does, and he doesn't win as much in the air, either. Overall I think he's a decent player, his only problem is that he seems to score in clusters then go on extended barren runs.

I just wanted to add that I'm still not sure how Tella makes the bench ahead of Sims. I don't think Sims is a world beater, but at least he has a bit of pace and can control and pass a football. Tella was overtaken by a tired McNeil the only time he tried to make a run with the ball today, and I've not seen him get the ball under control under pressure or play any sort of useful attacking pass in the Brentford game or during this one. He's also never particularly stood out in any of the youth matches I've seen him take part in (probably around 4-5 games overall). To be fair on him, he did make two OK runs off the ball where he was ignored by Armstrong, but that's probably due to SA not trusting him to finish if he did let him have the ball.

Incredibly relieved that we got the result. Defence actually looked OK for the majority of the game, but apart from the goal we were absolutely terrible going forward. Don't think we'll face many weaker lineups than Burnley were forced into during the game.