Giordano

Yup. I didn't say that but thats why its good news. If he's considering bundesliga at a mid table team in which the top two are already awesome then he can re-consider us as well.

The Wolfsburg official offer is euros 20m & 2.8m/ annum . Reported on sky sports 24 Italia. Not reported what he feels about it though. Good news if true. Means that there's a chance yet. He might play for Italy against argentine wednesday too so watch out for that ( though we will all be watching SRL I know!)

I don't think we will get Osvaldo or Damiao. The media reports coming out from all the sources I check say nothing positive. If we get either then it will be all very late in the day. More likely a striker from outside current radar. Maybe this will prove we will have tried to punch above our weight but failed this time. Reading some posters here i think that will vindicate and justify their well known and oft repeated views on the subject. I say theres No shame in trying though. Id Rather we try than not. I Don't see that as cause to slag off the club directly or indirectly at all. Quite the opposite. If some believe we are wrong to try to get the best players in the world fair enough- but to consider the club and many supporters as online idiots for being positive about trying - or at least keeping the belief that sfc SHOULD try for the best players we can first of all and keep it it open as a consideration - I don't get posters who think thats bad. It's not all or nothing. We don't just say its Osvaldo or nothing. If there are posters that think that's how sfc operate then they probably don't work in business. In business you ALWAYS have a plan B, and C and D - and often have to us them. The most successful businesses have the best thought out plan Z. Clubs with nothing beyond plan B are higher risk of failing. Numerous footballing examples prove that point. In other news: I don't understand what point some here are trying to make. The most likely explanation is that there isn't any. Writing posts in a nihilistic/ anarchistic / downer style is quite easy actually and MANY could do that on any topic on any forum if so inclined. It's only a minority that persist in doing it interspersed with occasional breaks for conventional debate ( which confuses even more and acts as camouflage for the next acts of forum hijack/ sabotage. It's fun. Because I can. It's not doing anyone any harm. Yep. Fair enough again. I personally happen to "get" it and most and probably all of the unusual posters here beyond what and how they write. It's just that it does seem to disaffect a lot of people and discourages people who themselves add information, debate and humour. If they leave then the forum is lesser for it.

I feel I must apologise for my posts on this topic. Sorry if anyone is as embarrassed as me at reading the drivel I wrote. Will stop and go back to footy stuff. Or better still go and have a few pints. That sounds a better idea to me.

Maybe Barry, but was it the ONLY reason? If you cannot prove it was the only reason - and you cannot scientifically do so - then it follows there are other contributory factors at play. Ipso facto it is not ALL about the money. I knew that doing that law "O" level would be useful one day :-)

Dalek, This will sound like splitting hairs but I was not saying that money is irrelevant. I was not even suggesting that its not the biggest single factor - and by far. I'm being rather pedantically insistent that it is not the ONLY factor. Maybe its because I want to believe that somebody does do what they do on the pitch for metaphysical reasons nothing to do with filthy lucre. If I can argue that money is not the only reason and prove it - then maybe there is hope. And for a Saints fan that's our bread and butter! Just a few CURRENT players off the top of my head in the EPl that are playing today for reasons sometimes more than the money they could get or have got elsewhere ...SFC Kelvin Davis, CFC Frank Lampard, CCFC Craig Bellamy, LFC Steve Gerrard, MUFC Paul Scholes, NCFC Wes Hoolahan, WBAFC Jonas Olsson...im sure theres more. It was not just a one-off MLT phenomenon of 20 or 30 years ago. It is not ALL about the money.

Not the best example to use, and you are usually so good at this sort of thing :-) If wages were the same then the player would be taking into account other factors - which is not what you are arguing in favour of. You stated that it is ALL about the money - but then give an example suggesting OTHER factors can influence the decision - in this case the prestige of Man utd versus Saints. So its not ALL about the money then is it? And you know there are loads examples too. I get where you're coming from though and it sickens me (the shamelessly mercenary nature of the game - not you!) tbh but your example only reinforces my original point. Its not ALL about the money.

Ok, if you say so. It is and always will be about the money. Nobody plays for less money or because of other reasons. Nobody plays for childhood teams they loved and supported for less than elsewhere. Nobody has ever stayed or joined Southampton when they could easily get more elsewhere, nobody, its never happened. Unheard of in fact.

That's a good summary. We have to do our best to make ourselves an even better proposition next year. A cup run, a higher placing, some standout results against Man Utd, Chelsea etc ultimately Europa league...on the back of sell out crowds every home match. If we do that the next two years we might not be regarded as a small club of lower ambition for much longer. We have to earn the right to be able to go chatting up the best players in the world. Its not ALL about how big the wages are.

Concur. The apologise tweet does not exist on his timeline right now, if it ever did.

If Roma are interested in Mandzukic it suggests he is available. I really doubt that. The article is based on him being a bit miffed with the new manager and that translates into a fantasy story in which he joins Roma and replaces Osvaldo.......He is the centre-forward for the current champions of Europe and will be starting cf this season again. They already unloaded Gomez so what is it with Guardiola - does he hate centre-forwards? :-) Mandzukic apparently "only" earns 3.2M euros per year. Why would he go to not-even-europa league Roma? For the food perhaps - certainly not the money, certainly not the trophies. Out of 100 I give it 5 chances of happening. He is more likely to join the likes of Arsenal than Roma if anything. And no, he would not join Saints unless we at least doubled his wages (my limited math makes that about 120,000euros a week..), nah don't think so. And as for Osvaldo - his name is being touted around again. If we get him it would only be September 2nd at 10.30pm after we agree to pay him what he thinks he's worth, nobody else is prepared to pay him what he thinks hes worth so far otherwise he would already be at Napoli or Zenit or Liverpool or Atletico. My bet is he ends up at Napoli as vice-striker to Higuain. Our vice-striker (back up striker) will probably be the maverick samba assassin to quote a well known hack :-). And don't start me on Damiao..

IMO Saints are not being complacent on player recruitment. We appear to be actively searching given the number of times we hear our name associated with players. We have been unsuccessful to date with getting a striker, but successful with a CB and DM. That is not what i call complacent. That is substantively different from being complacent. Complacent is knowing you need players but just sitting on your hands doing nothing about it. We have two out of the three identified positions filled and tied up other players to longer contracts. Not complacent at all. Its supporters, the fickle lot that we are, being unrealistic and impatient about recruitment and have a limited understanding of whats really involved is much nearer the truth. Some might be driven mad by the apparently inadequate recruitment situation but that is their problem. What I will comment on is that I think it highly unlikely that our professional premier league football manager plus coaches and transfer committee associates will be getting together upon a periodic basis and saying " no need to rush on upgrading the squad, we will be fine, in fact lets not even bother looking". I think they will be doing everything they can. They are being paid hundreds of thousands to do this as part of their job. We just comment on it from an amateur point of view. As for not being able to score for toffee. Opinion accepted but I don't agree its as bad as that. Look at chances created. If we don't create chances - serious problem, if we do but do not convert them - still a problem but not as bad. Ours is the latter. I feel, like many, that we need another top notch striker but if we start with SRL and Jrod Im not unhappy.

A lot of prima donnas here. Some of them id call highly intelligent. Some can be very entertaining and informative, and funny, but some also are high maintenance look at me posters and can be highly destructive to your normal no issues no problem no agendas just interested in saints stuff type posters. Those can get chewed up and spat out pretty quick. And feel pretty disgruntled and annoyed at the treatment. It's like tag team wrestling sometimes for the uninitiated. Shame in a sense but in another hats life, if yo don't like it change channel. There's still enough good stuff from good people to make it the best source of saints info on the web quite often, but enduring the vast amounts of nonsense is hard sometimes.

You are correct. It is a bit of a shame but also inevitable on open forums such as this.

Vucinic? Yes please. He is an ideal SRL upgrade. Tough, skillful and a goalscorer. BUT.........he will not join a club like us. I don't think wages would actually be the problem but if any Juve striker is joining us he would be my choice 10 times out of 10. He would score 20 goals this year imo. Giovinco in the EPl? Well, he is unbelievably short and difficult to mark and he could play as a second striker perhaps ~ but he is not a centre-forward and we seem to want one of those first and foremost.

I would not agree that there has been a lack of activity. We have not bought a top striker, yet. All we have to go on are that MP had three specific ( though i personally think they were more likely generic) targets of which two have landed. If not Lovren it would have been another CB, if not Big Vic it would have been another DM ~ but we still are short a striker. I dont think the OP can point to many other EPL clubs that have got 100% of their targets at the right price and wages and done it early and is ready to go. Maybe Swansea, possibly Norwich. That's it. By the OP criteria that makes 90% of the EPl club chairmen inactive and ineffectual. Possibly true but not really proven. If anything our transfer window work appears reasonably effective to date.

Yeah i still cant get my head around Fabregas as a centre forward though.

Of course - my apologies. Guly is a like for like in terms of size and strength plus he can run faster. Not as good in the air though or at shooting I'd say. But would put a shift in at cf if asked in emergency im sure and he can hold the ball up.

Was just thinking if MP has done this exercise. Imagine Rickie breaks down with something serious and cannot play for six months. What do you do? At present we do seem very lightweight up front. Surely we cannot go into a new season with essentially three forwards - SRL. Jrod and Mayuka plus a couple who don't even train with the main squad as emergency cover ( ie Lee and Sharp)? The only way I can see us planning for that in the absence of a new recruit is by flooding the pitch with midfielders a la Barcelona. A rickie-less line up might have standard back four plus Jrod as the striker surrounded by a midfield perm 5 from these 6 : AL, Cork, Schneiderlin, Wanyama, Ramirez and Puncheon?

If we don't get Damiao then if Rickie gets injured I think we have to just insert Mayuka, keep the other ten players and playing style as is with slight adjustments and hope it works. The guy is supposed to be a top forward, so its show it time. The other most likely option is to push Jrod further up and replace his position with Mayuka or another AM such as Punch or AL, assuming one of those is on the bench otherwise. I'm assuming if fit SRL must start- might be a contentious one for some but not for me - if fit Rickie must start - don't need all that nonsense from start of last year again to understand how important to our style of play, goalscoring threat/firepower and morale he is.

Great work....:-)... Literally crying with laughter over that!

Ramirez does not look out of place. In fact he looks in his element. Please last 90 minutes.

Ramirez will tell them to make him turn. Watched him in the confed and He is good in a straight line and can score from corners and at set pieces but if punch or JRod can get running at him he will just give yellows and fouls away....he has got by on reputation but is past sell by date IMO. He would enjoy SRL- but not JRod.

He was reputedly on £70,000 pw at QPR. They paid £8M for him. He has not certainly not doubled in value after six goals in just 14 games for QPR. If convicted he will be put in jail,for a long time. If innocent then great, but until then what person would not have mental issues with that hanging over them though- guilty or innocent? So imo he is not worth £8Million to QPR at all right now. He's worth "get rid" at any price and get his wages off the payroll too, despite what arry says. Why would anyone pay anything for a player that could soon be in prison? Value plummets overnight (and already has done by association) - sponsorship marketing PR image rights- all in massively minus territory....not only for player but for club that owns player. He should play for free for a club like us until and if proved innocent - then we could talk a deal.

Best answer: I am Damiao's agent, i just met Nicola for a cappucino and we are just thrashing out the final details and thought i should let Saintsweb forum know first. Worst answer: I had a dream.