Giordano

I have put a bit of effort into following up every lead I can find on this possible transfer but still feel about as confused as you tbh. My gut feel is that his agent is waiting for other mega transfers to create a domino effect ultimately leading to demand (and a nice fee) to release his quality striker. Higuain looks like hes gone to Napoli for 37+3m euros and a 6m pa salary (1m more than he was on at RM) and what with Negredo, Jovetic, Soldado, Falcao, Cavani all gone plus the next wave of Hulk, Damiao, Rooney, a Chelsea striker (?) in all probability there will be options aplenty coming soon from one of the teams that loses a striker and needs a good one fast...if there is a chance a CL team will pick him up all well and good...but if we do get Osvaldo by best guess would be that it would be a last day last hour deal when its clear all other options are closed for him. That is not to disrespect Saints btw, its just business and what i would do if i was his agent, keep us warm but check out if the big boys want him until the last possible moment. The next day it gets announced that " I always knew Southampton were interested in me and once i knew that I always wanted to play in the EPl , and MP is my former coach that helped me become the player i am and the project is exciting so i am happy to be here and i will work my hardest for southampton" ......

Sorry Alpine Saint but i simply cannot resist......(in the style of the Fast Show character who always used to say "you did'nt want to do this you wanted to do that "..... "You did'nt want to get the 14.00, you wanted to get the 08.00, that's way too late in the day to be catching a plane. When will Saints learn to get their flights in early in the day so that they can arrive nice and fresh and rested by lunchtime and train in the afternoon. Its just typical of the late-in -the-day last minute thinking that proliferates at SFC, late for planes, late for transfers its all part and parcel of the same late late late attitude.....:-).

Update today : from Calciomercato in the Corriere dello sera by Gabriele Saccone (reliable journo). Paraphrased: Sabatini has not changed his view that Osvaldo is on the market. Notwithstanding that various roman players have been extra conciliatory including captain totti about him, Sabatini still appears to be looking for buyers for osvaldo at the earliest possible opportunity. He remains first on the transfer list-out of players at Roma. Repeats that he scored 35 goals in Seria A (not the exagerated 200 of his comment to a tifosi the other day..) and is available for between 15 and 20million euros which would help roma with the funds to buy admired other targets. Seems fairly unequivocal. Sabatini wants rid of the guy. Sabatini is the one who wants him out....fingers crossed... further update: Sabatini talking with garcia today about what to do about Osvaldo...maybe not so unequivocal. An Online poll of voters vote 80% want him to stay at Roma btw(out of 646 votes). Link:http://www.calciomercatoweb.it/ultime-calciomercato/2013/07/23/calciomercato-roma-sabatini-non-cambia-idea-osvaldo-e-sul-mercato/

Context was he earlier in season took one that he should have left to totti, and missed. Kind of went full circle. Symbolically absolving his fault at that time via generous gesture by the captain, Totti.

Sabatini IS a Boss man. But the new guy (Baldissoni) replaces Baldini. Baldini has always been a wheeler dealer. Hes just pulling in Soldado for spurs as we speak for 26 m euros plus bonuses....the new guys cv says a legal and financial background. I'd still suggest he is relevant and this installation / new appointment may not have helped any ongoing negotiations. NC has a similar background. Maybe there is common ground..

There is a new guy in charge of transfers at Roma. It's news alright. If Saints want to buy Osvaldo NC has to speak with the new guy. I surmised that perhaps the recent apparent slowdown may have possibly been due to the handover not being complete. Now the new guy is in we suddenly hear saints have reignited interest. It might be coincidence, or rubbish, or perhaps it might be relevant. You can decide for yourself. But it IS news relevant to this transfer.

Roma have today formally confirmed their replacement for outgoing sporting director baldini( who went to spurs). Doesn't really matter who he is but it might be the reason that we've not really got anywhere in recent times with this transfer since It kind of broke that we are interested. I don't think it's a coincidence that on the same day the daily mail report we have reignited our interest in Osvaldo. Now nicola has got someone properly in charge to talk to at Roma. Bit of a void until th guy formally appointed. It's still up to Garcia of course as well as the player but without the sporting director any new deals as against deals already agreed and just panning despite Baldini not being there can maybe now take place. We have some small chances still. It's not over yet!

With at least two for each position I just put out the best players we got realistically available ie not billy sharp etc that adds up to 25 (i think!)

I had not taken that into account. Is Cork the de facto replacement or would it be a centre-back put in there like Lovren say, or is Chambers on a similar level to Shaw of 12 months ago and could quite possibly make the step up? I know next to nothing about him.

Nice work mate, an interesting read.

no its not in order- just as the names came to me.

Goalkeepers : Boruc, KD, Gazza Full backs, left sided : Shaw, Fox, Full backs Right sided : Clyne, Chambers(?) Centre-backs : Fonte, Lovren, Jos, Yoshida, Stephens Midfield defensive : Cork, Bigvic, SD, Scheiderlin, JWP. Midfield attack : GR, AL, JP, Guly, Isgrove Strikers: SRL, Mayuka, Jrod. That equals 25. We got enough goalies. We are short at Right FB as our cover is inexperienced- but so was Shaw last year and I think we have players that can cover that. But its a gamble- if Clyne gets injured I expect a purchase/loaner who will go straight in. We got enough CB's.If they are good enough is a different question, but we wont take more without shipping one out I think. It should be Maya and Lovren but if they get taken apart then Jose will have to step in to settle things whilst Jos might play against big hoof it teams like west ham and stoke etc. Stephens to get first team squad cup matches perhaps. We got enough defensive midfielders. Our strongest area by far. Midfield attack looks a bit in need of high quality addition. They need to perform better than last year that lot - too inconsistent. No wonder we are looking at alternates, Adam and Gaston did not really deliver, it was left to JP to clean up his act and inject some offensive forays shots and goals really but not consistently. Guly was Guly. Maybe Isgrove will be this years Luke Shaw if and when he gets his chance. Strikers : Short of a SRL cover/replacement. At present its Guly. So its the most obvious weakness in the squad. I think this year Jrod will be ever-present and Mayuka an "if we are losing" late substitution. Is that fair - or have i got the numbers wrong?

There are not many younger strikers who are already internationals that fit our "optimal" requirement. I wonder if the next option if we fail to get the first choices is to go for the right age but not got much international experience yet, or go the wrong age but they got international experience? Or some kind of maverick player in-betweeen? I present to you exhibit A: Nicola Bendtner. I think we may be put in a difficult place with this decision (on a striker that is) because Rickie is already a certain age, Jrod and Mayuka are young, but neither are like Rickie in technical characteristics. If we want another goal poacher we should just keep Billy Sharp- so I don't think we will just go for one of those ( ie a Defoe type player). It pains me to say it as he apparently thinks a lot of himself, and the good news is that we would not pay his wages anyway, but I think Nicolas Bendtner is a realistic option for us up front and has Rickie-like characteristics - good in the air, good shot and probably more mobility at only 25 years old. He has spent over two years now of doing nothing much and was on loan at Juventus who did nothing with him as well...so id guess he needs to make an impact this season big time or risk being totally written off...... He has got EPl experience with Arsenal and Sunderland (8 goals in 30 matches in 2011-12) so who knows- he might need a fresh start and maybe we are the kind of footballing club that could work with him best - he was used to playing with proper footballers at Arsenal so he might be useful?

They got enough money really to not need to sell. Wealthy American backers. And now Garcia being quoted saying nice things about Osvaldo plus Totti is being extra friendly with him too....hmmm... Some kind of charm offensive going on here. Plus we not heard of Roma looking for his kind of striker which you would right if they were fixing to sell him right? Hmmmm. For me, this is getting odder by the day now. The anti- osvaldo fan banners and now all this other stuff is weird and contradictory. A big offer from atletico or someone like that and still think he goes though...

Totti let's him take a penalty today which he scores to make it 1-1 with bursaspor. Subsequently he goes on twitter to thank his captain for the gesture. We are seeing More of this new found obvious love in between Totti and osvaldo. It's widely regarded as a way to calm down the anger of Tifosi against Osvaldo with Totti doing his bit as a sensible captain/ leader and negating the bad atmosphere with fans. Interesting. Still think he is going but it's a new development, I thought it was a bit odd the way he was chumming up with Totti whilst supposedly on his way out. I think Totti is playing peacemaker in case he stays.

Interesting article as it summarises a few things from before ( his fall out with the management, fans criticism) recycles old news ( he wasn't interested in us or zenit originally) and adds a few new but not necessarily so things. Like 15m is his price ( it's been 20m up until now) like his team mates like him lots ( probably true- see later) and that he was dropped for an earlier friendly replaced by borriello( not dropped- played a half actually). I did some extra research last night on Osvaldo andi it is obvious he is one of the main leaders at Roma. A strong character in his own right- in Italy what they call " a point of reference" for the squad - the comparison with SRL is a good one. It is also clear he is "in" with Totti. The super clique at Roma is basically those players close to Totti which include pjanic and borriello as well as Osvaldo. If he is close to Totti it is harder for the management to just unload him, and supporters will tend to lay off. I think Totti has helped him by showing he is close to him, reducing fan issues a bit. His smiling related demeanour and general body language in and with the team building exercise Roma are doing right now( white water rafting) do not represent a guy hated or ostracised by his colleagues- quite the opposite, so Bradley's words of support for him in the press conference ring very true to me. That's good AND bad. It's good because if we do get him it's possible he's not the egotistical ar?whole he is made out to be, which means he should be ok with our nice boys :-) and be a team player for us. It's bad cos if he is so well liked by his team mates then its less likely Roma will release him to anyone including us. I still think he will go as there has been no evidence of rapprochement with his coach Garcia, but we shall see if its to Saints.

I just hope he stays and we get him to play at the level he has shown he is capable of. At Bologna he was highest( or v close to highest the previous season) in serie A for dribbling success and fouls provoked. To me it suggests he was given an open licence to do that- take ball, run with it, make something happen - and he showed that in some early games for us. Andit was something Saints certainly needed. But little by little he changed into a more orthodox, or more disciplined if you like, player, less risky but more reliable, especially defensively. And it seemed to blunt his highest level skill and he clearly wasn't physically able to play 90 minutes, or equally importantly, by 70 minutes we needed a better defender on the pitch to hold what we had at that point- as if GR was part of our" offence" team to use American football jargon, whereas Davis etc was part of a more " defensive" team. Almost at the same time we saw the rise of JRod as the player who got the ball and went running with it to try and make something happen. Coincidence? He was not playing that way early season out on the wing but from an inside forward kind of position he started making mazy runs and shooting lots, just exactly what we thought we were going to be getting from GR. I've not thought through why that was yet but I think there's a connection in there somewhere....does anyone else see this phenomenon in that light?

I'm sure he has been mentioned before but Keisuke Honda is available from Moscow. Right sided attacking midfielder, 27 years old and still a top player - better than what we have and an instant replacement if make the mistake of losing GR. Moscow want 5m, Milan are offering 2m. His wages will be massive though. Cant believe hes not been picked up yet at that price after his good displays in confed cup shows he is still world class.

Certainly got jet heels. Looks an interesting player but not really the type I would expect us to be getting - unless hes an investment. Defoe style stature and finishing but with extra pace - got Danny Wallace pace id say..

Another boring little bit of inference work.... Roma are playing a friendly versus Bursaspor on Sunday 21st. Then they play Aris Salonika in Greece on the 26th and two days later travel to the USA for more friendly matches. You might be able to find a stream for some of those matches if you are interested in seeing Roma/Osvaldo playing. BUT: If i was Roma intent on selling Osvaldo I might let him have 45 minutes on the Sunday but probably not want to bring him to America with me (or even to Greece) for that other match. A muscle strain "injury" would be the perfect excuse for all parties if negotiations are ongoing. Lets see if he develops one that means he can't travel. This kind of gives a little bit of input into possible time frames for a transfer to Saints IF a transfer to Saints happens. Other contributory factors to bear in mind are that Saints are playing in Austria on the 24th and 27th July before popping off to Spain again for the Celta Vigo match on 3rd August. The logistics might give clues as to what is the likeliest time we would optimally like bring in the striker (IF we bring in the striker of course). Given what we know I'd say that Monday 22nd or Tuesday 23rd July would be likely announcement days if we are getting anyone, not before. I think the players get a day or two off when they get back from Spain but the backroom staff will still be there at SMS + Staplewood - so it seems logical if you are going to announce a signing to do it on one of those two days, preferably from the new Staplewood press room...to inaugurate it with a big name signing (or two...) if you like.

Yes they will be about as reliable as the UK press but sometimes theres no smoke without fire, and in the absence of any UK based information source its the best I can do atm. I just post the link with a (helpful i hope) paraphrased translation so if there are any Saints fans interested in whats being said out there about one of our possible targets they have something to look at, rather than nothing.

http://www.corrieredellosport.it/calcio/calcio_mercato/2013/07/19-328753/Calciomercato+Roma%2C+arriva+Gonzalo+Bueno Confirmation today in Corriere : Paraphrased: twenty years old, powerful, left sided, speedy, offensive second striker from uruguay who was wanted by Inter, Fiorentina and Southampton, to join Roma on loan for 1.5m with a purchase fee set at 6.5m. The perfect identikit player for Garcia who needs those characteristics. As do/did Saints I think!

Napoli are nearly there with Damiao according to this mornings Calciomercato section of the Corriere... http://www.corrieredellosport.it/calcio/serie_a/napoli/2013/07/19-328754/Calciomercato+Napoli%2C+Damiao+in+pugno.+Julio+Cesar%2C+manca+l%27ok Paraphrased: Damiao is in the palm of Napolis hands. Napoli have significantly closed the gap on the 25M euros Inter requested and the transfer, along with that of his International team mate Julio Cesar (from whom Napoli are awaiting a response,and will go for Reina if its a NO) seems imminent. RM are not budging on 40M for Higuain who is the other striking target for Napoli (as well as not instead of). I cant see both Higuain AND Damiao joining Napoli myself - one or the other imo, and I'm 90% sure it will be Damiao at this juncture. But stranger things have happened...Napoli were linked with Zlatan overnight- and thats a game changer if it comes off... One day it will be us linked with the Higuains and Zlatans...dreams..

Davis is a Good honest pro for us. Hardworking with no little skill and a great attitude. Not blessed with pace. Tenacious in tackling and skilful at it too- unlike GR. But Not on same class level as Ramirez for technique and on the ball skill- but better stamina and strength I think- mental strength especially. You can see why he is international captain material plus at Rangers. Like them both but just my honest opinion Ramirez is a Different league- higher that is.

Wow. Divisive topic. Some considered comments. Some by obvious wums who think they are wittier than they actually are. For those that want him to go irrespective- first of all how come that no mark team Inter Milan fancy our player? Secondly how come they think he might be worth 10m after what by all accounts was a bad season with saints? They must be mad or idiots right? Or maybe you are? Which? Or both? Is he really worth 10m now despite being supposedly worse than anyone in our transfer history? Are we lucky to get such mugs to want this hopeless player? Feel sorry for our next flair player tbh. And if he goes and AL does not deliver who will you turn on next? The ones who try to play football always get the haters on their back quickly. Just glad you were not around when MLT was at his peak of strolling around but scoring. You would have sold him to those mugs from Tottenham and got a packhorse fast running mf instead.