labibs

Has the interest from top clubs dropped off? Do you think they would let him go for £20m? Absolutely dreaming

Wow, it’s an unconfirmed and frankly a bit ridiculous rumour. Can we not just wait to see what happens before flying off the handle? It can’t be true can it? Here’s £30m Mark. Then we sell Lemina, Bertrand, Cedric, McCarthy, Boufal and Gabbi. Do you really think he will see no more of that money? We would definitely get relegated and gao’s investment would be worth a lot less. Can we not just have a dose of reality?

You need to register that this exists though? I think it either goes in as asset with zero value, or you put it in at a discounted rate, based on the likelihood of you receiving it. (E.g. 10% of £1m = £100k asset). Should this not materialise [they sell mane before he plays enough games etc], you just do an impairment? You can measure it how you want, as long as you can justify to your Board and to your auditors that you have followed accounting principles and prepared a true and fair reflection etc

Reid and Fredericks yes (particularly as Reid only has 1 year left on his contract) but I suspect 5-10 prem clubs will be in for them. Not sure Roofe is good enough to be honest. Agree about quality, carillo is a mental signing. I think Hoedt needs a coach to have a word with him, there is a good player in there.

Where has this idea come from?

Their prospects of international football are definitely better being squad players at big clubs. You are insane if you think we have any chance of signing Rashford or Martial. Why would they come here? If available for transfer, do you not think other clubs would want them, that are more attractive than us? Would we pay their wages? Why not just say Messi could do a job for us? Or Hazard?

Fair play, I was a sceptic, but the man has done a great job here. Fully deserves the job full-time.

We don’t know he’s on £100k. I suspect he would have a relegation wage reduction clause, which are between 30-50%. So his wage would be £50k in champo [if he’s on £100k]. So that £60k offer he would definitely take and we wouldn’t need to subsidise anything

Poch has proved conclusively that unless you have a perfect grasp of English (including grammar and diction) ifrom Day 1, its impossible to be a success in the Premier League...

They’re ‘flying’ as they have a massive wage bill. IMO they should have got auto with that budget. Let’s see how they get on next season when they can’t afford Terry, Snodgrass, Grabban etc. What has Hughes shown since being here? That he’s better than Pell, that’s about it. We haven’t won a league game and the football has been knock it over the top for Shane Long. He might change it up, we win 3 games and stay up, fair play if so. I don’t think he’s done enough to merit the job full time though.

There is zero chance of us signing James Maddison. Keeps getting mentioned on here. Crazy

Any source for this?

I take your sentiment about the quality of the football etc. But if we leave the issue of Claude Puel to one side, are you saying you expect saints (regardless of who is in charge) to finish higher than 8th? Or that you expect us to get significantly higher than 44 points? Or that you expect us to win a trophy? For that to be an expectation, not an aspiration, not a target, but what you expect to happen (as in, the base level of performance that you expect) I would argue those are somewhat unrealistic expectations

I would be amazed if all the players didn't have wage cut clauses. The accountants and lawyers the club employs would insist on them and as mentioned above, the players (and their agents) will be happy to agree to them as if we go down, they will get a move. It also help with their negotiation, they are seen to be giving something up [wage cut clause], so can push for something back in return [image rights % or whatever]. Another point to note, pretty sure Les Reed is not hand-drafting all of these contracts page by page. He may lead negotiations, but it is likely our lawyer to the player's lawyer (via agency) who will run the minutiae. So points about him being negligent enough to not include clauses etc are a touch nonsensical. Having said that, we will still not be able to afford many of our squad in champo, even with parachutes (as I don't expect us to run at a major loss) so we will still need to ship out a fair few. It should make it easier for us to get rid of players though, as most prem / foreign clubs should be able to better their current contracts (i.e. give them more than 50% of their current wage). I think the perception of our players outside of the club is that we have a lot of talent here. This is likely why Pellegrino's poor performance was not highlighted more regularly in mainstream media, everyone assumed we have a load of good players and would be fine. As such, I think there will be a lot more interest in our players than many on this forum suspect. Poor performance this season will likely be (rightly or wrongly) attributed to poor management from Pell etc. I think our biggest issue will be sorting out the management swiftly. If we appoint quickly (and someone good) they will have time to look at the squad, decide who if any they want to try and keep (Austin?) and balance their wage bill accordingly. We will have a decent chance to go back up in first or 2nd season, but we have to get things right. Otherwise, I could see us remaining in champo for quite some time.

Do you have any evidence that none of our players have relegation wage cut clauses?

If JWP was made available for transfer, plenty of premier league clubs would be in for him. Forster - not so much

Why the love in for Rowett? He's got a decent enough squad at Derby and not exactly ripping the league up. He would be fine, but I definitely wouldn't be overly enthused by him. Dean Smith is doing a better job at Brentford, in my opinion

I would have thought Ipswich would be their home for next season?

Okay fair. That's the problem I guess, it's all speculation unless you have the spreadsheet in front of you. I'm sure Saints will have modelled income v expenditure if we go down next season and will know who we can and can't afford to keep. I do think we will recoup more than people think though - JWP for example will have a host of prem clubs after him.

Source for all of the above? The figures for some of the players we signed from non-premier league clubs seems pretty high. Hoedt for example

You've just made this up haven't you? Do you really think we will let Boufal and Gabbi go for free?

Yes, as I think there will be a lot of premier league clubs interested. Can’t remember last time Player moved from champo to champo, when there was serious prem interest? Maddison will go the prem. flint is quite old and they would want a big fee as he has just signed a new contract. Would be a massive change of approach from us make that kind of signing, although he would be what we need in that league. As for finances, yes we will in terms of revenue. We will also have a very high wage bill if we can’t shift our high earners (even with relegation wage cut clauses) and other clubs might just overspend and run up a debt to chase the league. We will have a good chance for 2 years, assuming we don’t have a hangover, it I doubt we will walk that league.

Why stop at Maddison mate? Let’s sign sessegnon, Aiden Flint, Cairney etc. Not a chance

I never really want to see Tadic ever play for Saints again