Cartman

We clearly have a more extensive scouting network than most outside the top 6. Compare the players the likes of Everton, West Brom, Bournemouth, Burnley, Palace, West Ham buy with the ones we get. Theirs are almost exclusively domestic based and from wherever the manager is from, the exception being some random punt that was probably suggested by an agent and have a low success rate. We get few domestic players, most of our players come from other european leagues and none at all from outside Europe, because our scouting network doesn't go beyond Europe. And who did Puel get? Pied on a free and Hassen on loan. Boufal thought he was going to be coached by Koeman, so Puel didn't have anything to do with that one either. Puel had next to no say on transfers (notice how when a new player is presented, it's Les alongside the player rather than the coach, that started after Koeman left) but I doubt Koeman would have been able to get away with Osvaldo the way Poch did. From Pardew until now, with each change we make I think the coach has been having less and less influence over recruitment, with Puel and now Pellegrino having very little say other than advising Les and Ross on the current state of the 1st team.

They are not that rare, just that they are now officially listed as separate deals because of the complexity of having more than one player in each deal. Lukaku and Rooney was a cash plus player swap, even if officially they were just two separate deals. But the last thing we need is filling the squad up with mediocrity, we already have enough of that. The only realistic player I would want from Chelsea is Christensen, in fact I would even be open to the possibility of selling Van Dijk if it meant getting Christensen. Say Van Dijk to Chelsea for 50m with Christensen being sold to us for 5m, knocking about 20m off each player's valuation.

Players join us because we are roughly the 20th richest club on the planet and are the best offer they got. If players intend to use us as a stepping stone, then sign the initial 5 year contract, reject extensions, stay for 3 years and the club will probably let them go when they are down to the final 2. It's not that hard and I'm sure it won't have gone unnoticed by other players that he signed a 6 year contract last year.

Forster? Dive?

If that post isn't tempting fate, I don't know what is. Practically begging to backfire on us.

Just means we have to wait longer until he gets his head around the fact he isn't going anywhere. Check again next week, he will break after the transfer window shuts at the latest.

Don't see how we will do any worse than last year, between injuries and fixture congestion (and only getting Gabbi in January), almost everything that could go wrong did. Plus we are the second youngest squad in the league, so we should see an improvement in many of the younger players. We bottomed out last year, won't finish any lower than 8th and will easily break 50 points.

Wrote my opinion on this subject last year. As I see it, is that unlike american sports where there is a clear separation between the development leagues (college level) and the elite leagues, in football they are the same as the development leagues (club football) have taken power over what was once the elite level (FIFA and international football). The solution to turn football back into a competitive sport with a level playing field and away from the circus freakshow it has become is to reestablish that separation. https://www.saintsweb.co.uk/showthread.php?57108-Losing-Interest&p=2399656#post2399656

Happy Saints' sales deadline day everybody!

Yeah, there is not comparison. Long is quite a bit better than Rooney these days, and I don't even rate Long that much. At least Long can be useful in certain situations, I struggle to see what Rooney can do at the level of a Premier League footballer. Physically he's shot and somehow his technical ability has gone too.

Les wasn't joking. You could hear a pin drop if it hadn't been for Virgil and the scousers. Can't say the thought of putting a hit on his agent hasn't crossed my mind. Think I played Mafia 2 too many times.

That's bullsh!t, we won't deal with anyone. Don't fall for the scouse propaganda that Van Dijk is in love with Klopp or some other crap. Our stance put Chelsea and City off but the scouse thundercvnts won't take no for an answer (see their pursuit of Keita where no one else is after him either and Leipzig refuse to sell). He wants to go to Liverpool because they are the only ones still after him, trying to force a transfer.

It really isn't. He can't be allowed to leave. Give him what he wants and it's a green light for every other player to act like a cvnt and get his own way, and we will get this sh!t every ****ing year. Holding players to their contract is the only way to put a stop to it. As for this, the source is obviously his cvnt of an agent.

Easy, because he's not for sale. It's not a coincidence that the scousers are the only ones in for Keita and are again getting the door slammed in their moustaches. Other clubs take no for an answer but for the scousers it seems no means yes and yes means anal.

:lol: We know our targets in advance so that we don't turn into West Ham scrambling for anything that moves. And we generally buy late because the players we target will often be waiting to see if any clubs higher up the food chain come in for them. Agree on football not being a level playing field, it's less a competitive sport and more and more a circus freakshow, but then you ruin it by blaming the tv money which is actually the only thing that is keeping this league even remotely competitive by spreading a load of money more or less evenly which by law of diminishing returns disproportionately benefits clubs like us. It's the big clubs' huge commercial sponsorship deals that ruin everything.

How? He was out of contract.

Is it? We are 4 days away from July 28th, which is when we sold Chambers and the latest we have sold a player who wasn't surplus to requirements, when we sell we always do it early. This is playing out just like it did with Schneiderlin and Wanyama.

I don't see any contradiction. Not for sale never literally means "not for sale" but rather "we don't expect anyone to give us what it would take for us to let the player go". If we take what you heard, what Tom28 heard and what the poster with contacts high up at City and Stoke heard then, assuming it's all legit and not ITK wannabe BS, other clubs have less than 3 weeks to come up with at least 75m up front or Van Dijk stays, and even that might not be enough if that club is Liverpool, given that the club are well aware how hostile our fanbase are towards them.

Our revenue for 2000-01 was 29.1m and for 2016-17 it is projected around 170m so in today's money Delap cost around 23m. 23m for Delap:lol:

Isn't that what buying Sigurdsson would be? Both us and Swansea are getting the same increase in revenue, so his price has gone up accordingly. But he should still be costing more or less the same as a % of revenue so what was stopping us from buying him before? It is trashing the business model because it is doing the complete opposite of what we have done over the last few years. Tweeking the business model would be getting the next potential superstars, we haven't actually been doing that. We kind of stumbled on to Van Dijk, who would have guessed a then 24 CB playing in Scotland would become so good, but we have been getting players that may become sub elite. The tweak would be to use our extra financial muscle (which we now have relative to everyone outside the PL) to now get those with the potential to be the very best, or at least absolute certainties to become at least as good as Mané rather than just maybe reaching that level. Clubs like us don't go far buying established players but by buying players who will become more than what they are when they are bought. It is what allows clubs like Monaco to beat PSG to the fench league title and reach the Champions League semis, it is even true for the likes of Spurs (the fact that we were the second youngest team last season is sometimes used around here as a reason for our underperformance. Curiously, the fact that the youngest team was the one that finished second is conveniently left out).

There is tweaking a business model and there is completely trashing it. I can see us spending 30 or 40 million on a player we really want, but it won't be on someone who will soon be 28 or carries that price tag because of the premier league premium. If we spend that sort of money on a single player it will be on a potential superstar in their early twenties from abroad.

Kill me now.

That's terrible, too big a gap between the back 6 and front 4. That team is what is known as broken team. https://arsenalcolumn.wordpress.com/2010/08/04/why-are-two-holding-midfielders-so-crucial-in-the-modern-game/ See particularly the part where Finke says the 2 defensive midfielders should be staggered, in this case both Romeu and Stephens would be naturally very deep, which is made worse by the all of the front 4 are really forwards as opposed to midfielders, by which I mean they are all more comfortable playing in the final third of the pitch rather than playmaking from deeper positions. We would therefore have a lot of difficulty constructing moves as we wouldn't have any natural links between defense and attack and would be very dependant on the full backs to provide those links.

Don't see why, he will still have 4 years left on his contract. And with a possible takeover, any gentlemen's agreement made about letting him leave next year wouldn't be worth the paper it's not written on (though why we would do such a thing when we don't have to is beyond me).

Not quite. We were linked a few weeks ago by the Sun and that was it, even French sources were quoting the Sun. Doubt we were ever interested. Probably see some jumped up scousers trying to absolve themselves of tapping up Van Dijk by pointing to this as "evidence" of our hypocrisy. Which would be ironic, considering how much they love the original source of our supposed interest due to their unfailing commitment to the truth. https://www.redandwhitekop.com/forum/index.php?topic=335603.6280 http://www.footballforums.net/threads/the-van-dijk-transfer-saga-how-did-southampton-fc-find-their-backbone.266360/page-17 Did I say probably? I meant definitely.