Village Saint

For the team selling him. He has an inflated reputation based on playing well for 20 minutes in an England game. He has nothing useful to offer Saints. At 3 or 4 million we wouldn't be losing much but 10 million. I wouldn't pay that for Shane Long and he has so much more to offer.

Er no he didn't. First of all it was weeks ago. This really is an argument about absolutely nothing. He was asked about a whole range of possible targets including centre-backs and he said Vlaar 'was an option'. He didn't at any point suggest we were in for him and to dismiss him as not someone he would ever consider would surely have been insulting to Vlaar. Then two weeks ago Lambert came out with his gritty hypocritical condemnation of other managers doing exactly the same as him in the local press. Quite why Sky have recycled it now is beyond me.

I thought the argument was about Cork. The sad truth is that although he is an average PL midfielder he just never fulfilled his early promise of something better. He gives the ball away too easily; he isn't creative enough and overall simply isn't as good as several others we have for the midfield positions. He and his father's pronouncements make it clear he wanted certain guarantees which we couldn't give him. He will be under less pressure at Palace where they have lower expectations and might well be a regular starter. I hope for his sake he does well. Given he has only a year to run on the contract 3 million is a good deal for Saints.

Whilst I am not over the moon about Long, do be serious. Wickham has demonstrated no particular potential to be a top player. I am not sure how many of his 40 games for Sunderland have been in the top flight but he has only mustered 6 goals in total in those games. His overall figure of a goal every 5 games is inflated by a spell in League 1. Long in contrast has a proven record of a goal every 4 games at every level including the Prem. He is of an age 27 where he has not yet reached his peak and he will now be coming under the tutelage of a manager known for improving players in the middle years of their careers so his record may even improve. Wickham may himself become that sort of player in time; he might not but at the moment it is no contest.

4-0 is ridiculously optimistic. 2-2 is a better bet. Still work to be done on the CB pairing and it won't be functioning smoothly by the Liverpool game.

Indeed - very reminiscent of Norwich last year who we kept being told on here were the example we should be following. Worked out pretty well for them.

He is championship standard player who struggled to get a game last year in the worst defence in the Premier League.

Like Caulker (thank god we weren't in for him - now that would have shown a lack of ambition) Baines is NOT an international class player as his dsplays last season and in Brazil so clearly showed.

It is impossible to see just how you could come to such a conclusion. The rather big difference here is that the club decided (completely wrongly in my opinion) that we would benefit from Lambert leaving and instigated the move. In contrast we moved heaven and earth to keep Pochettino here but he just didn't want to know.

£4 million for someone who is the fulcrum of our attack around which everything revolves; who is only just approaching his peak as his learning and nouse compensates for any drop off in pace; who featured in the top 10 players for assist and goals in the top 5 European leagues; who has at least another 4 years in him. We might as well have given him away. Certainly without him we will be relegation favourites and deservedly so. And the insult of doing it before the World Cup. Madness.

Indeed they did - Derby County; Nottingham Forest; Liverpool; Everton; Leeds United - all outstandingly successsful in the Premiership years with their 0? Premiership titles.

The proposal might say that now to try and get Championship sides on board but while this would bring its own problems - Chelsea B finish top by 16 points and don't go up but Bristol City finishing 4th do! - it would clearly set a nasty precedent and it would only be a matter of time.

There are many reasons for this but one has been their awful effect on crowds. First of all home spectators have struggled to take seriously say Grimma vs Hamburg B rather than say Grimma vs local rivals Saxon Leipzig (sadly no longer with us) because they don't see any meaning in the fixtures. Secondly, of course Hamburg B bring no supporters with them. The result is passionless game in front of passionless crowds.

Fortunately it is a complete non-starter and is opposed by football league clubs and non-league clubs alike. It would ride roughshod over years of history and the commitment of thousands and thousands of fans to their local club. As you say only the top 4 are likely to benefit. Getting their B teams into the Championship in a couple of years will mean they can buy up and warehouse even more talent. What is worrying is that the FA is in the hands of the clearly barking mad Greg Dyke. The proposal is completely irrelevant to developing English talent and seems to completely ignore the lessons offered by the Liverpool/Saints approach to nurturing talent and the potential impact of recent or planned changes such as the advent of the EPPP which came about after years of careful thought and have the backing of most clubs! He should either resign now or someone should have him sectioned before he can do any real damage.

Indeed - very similar to Oscar or Juan Mata in style, except with more physical strength (he has filled out a bit since his very successful trial at City). Definitely not the sort of player we want???? Could it be you are assuming he wouldn't fancy it on a wet Thursday in Hartlepool? On what basis - his ethnicity? Would be as good punt but I doubt he would come so low. He turned Arsenal down when they only offered him a trial and I think he's a Nike brand ambassador so I very much doubt we could afford him.

It really really isn't. We get some barking posts on here but I think this thread has just about topped it. Well done to the club for putting an end to this practice and giving fans who have actually attended games at least some priority.

No it does not look like this except in the wild imaginings of the depressed and pessimistic on here. We don't have any debts of any significance. We do have some transfer fee instalments to pay. We are paying in instalments as virtually everyone does - including anyone who buys any of our players!

Not a matter of time. According to Pulis he has alreday dones so!

Anything is possible in football but this seems to be a most unlikely scenario. Consider the facts: Spurs have no underlying football philosophy. This is just one of the reasons why they buy lots of expensive players without any idea about how they might fit together into a side. They think that they are a big club and that they deserve instant success. Any manager coming in has to deliver this instant success no matter how weak the materials he has to work with - they are expensive they must be good. If not he gets sacked within a year or so and is left to re-build his career in Bulgaria or Turkey. MoPo on the other hand has a philosophy of grow your own and of continuous improvement. He likes to see that philosophy permeate the whole club and he likes to see everyone pulling in the same direction. He also wants to work in the Premier League (not Turkey or Bulgaria!) for a considerable period of time. It just doesn't fit.

And of course AC. No stripes are much, much classier. We simply must get these back as soon as possible.

Exactly the opposite. Lower effort is okay - reminiscent of the famous Penguin shirts of the Keegan era - but still not a proper saints kit which is stripes.

I totally agree. On Saturday he was once again at the heart of all that was good in our performance. It was a surprise to me that he came off at all. It really is difficult to believe that his critics actually go to the games!

It depends what you mean by 'wrong'. He has done okay despite leaving too early. If he hadn't spent those two years in the wilderness stagnating because Tottenham didn't understand how good he was he might be the indisputedly the best player in the world by now.

I really dont think its most at all. Lambert has remained the hub of all the good things that we do going forward. In the game at Fulham he got good support for all the work he does but HE played exactly the same in that game as he always does. Some people just don't rate players who dont race about at breakneck speed. They've got 'pace' like Johno Quick.

The only trouble with these arguments about poor cup attendances is that they are based on a complete misunderstanding. FA Cup 3rd round attendances this year were the highest for 34 years and those for the 4th round pretty good too (the 5th round has not been completed yet) so overall with two Wembley semi-finals to come it would be very surprising if a 30 year record isn't broken this year. What I think is overlooked is that big (ish) clubs at home to small (ish) clubs and matches between clubs in the same division too often have always been subject to a poor turn-out. On the other hand matches between two big names; local derbies; and small clubs at home to big clubs have always attracted crowds and still do! And look at Sheffield United vs Nottingham Forest. Some apathy.