TWar

Duje Caleta-Car please. I don't know how well Serbians and Croatians get along but I do know I want another CB.

Calm it down son. It's a good day. No need to go out calling everyone "pricks" and "bellends".

Yeah sounds true to me. They are the shadiest club honestly. They sign a bunch of top players for way under their normal asking price then suddenly drop £40m on a random teenaged striker who barely plays.

I imagine we will get more specifics at 4pm

Yeah I hope it pushes us up to that level spendingwise. I also think Villa are about to spend a bit less now, having seen their FFP situation. Wolves can dodge regulations with Mendes' dodgy dealings. Palace are spending well this season but the previous few they seemed very underfunded.

You can't just spend £500m over 4/5 seasons from your net worth. The club needs to generate it. Thats why Everton suddenly have 0 money to spend. Same will happen to Villa in the next year. We need to generate more money. The amount of money we generate is sufficiently low that any money he might want to pump into the club will be low compared to his net worth, that's what I ment with the FFP wiggle room comment.

Some random guy on reddit said this: "As a Serbian, this is genuinely the funniest shit i've read in a while. Basically yeah, from neutral standpoint guy just appers to be a regular run of the mill mogul, but in state media guy is an absolute piranha, joint state enemy number one. Unfortunatelly here state propaganda runs wild brother, and Mr. Solak is to national media basically root of everything bad in this country. He "works with opposition" to depose the government, he finances that with, get this, money laundering schemes from Madagascar, of course he works with mafia as well, all in all, very liked guy by the state media. Does that mean something bad for Southampton tho? Doubt it honestly, although since there are many brainwashed people here, I wouldn't count on getting hella popular in Serbia. But I am looking very forward to the state media talking how evil Solak uses Southampton as his new money laundering scheme with which he will try to depose our very beloved leader." No idea of the truth behind it but thought it was an interesting read so reposted it.

This was kind of my point... Owner net worth doesn't make much difference. Our FFP wiggle room is like £35m due to lack of the above things, given that it makes little difference if he has £1bn or £10bn. This is proven by the fact that Palace, Wolves and Villa have richer owners than United, Spurs and Liverpool.

It's not that much less that the net worth of the guy in charge of Liverpool. Net worth isn't really that important, it's how much you spend of it (and FFP ofcourse)

Yeah Brentford are a really good example of how useful data is in football.

Lucky asset stripping is blocked as it is under half the value of our playing squad according to TM. And that's with pretty strange valuations like Salisu at £9m.

I am cautiously optimistic. The brentford guy being involved is pretty exciting if he brings some of that Brentford transfer know how.

For those who spent months loudly wondering why Ralph wasn't starting him and laying into the manager about it. Maybe he just wasn't very good.

If Salisu is suspended for Brentford I'd go: For Swansea Willy Valery Lyanco Salisu Perraud JWP Diallo Stu Tella Adams Armstrong And for the Brentford game: FF Tino Stephens Bednarek KWP JWP Romeu Ely Redmond Broja Armstrong I think Adam Armstrong should play both as he needs minutes in the side, Stu needs minutes too and the Swansea game is the right time. Without Salisu then Bednarek Stephens is our best pairing (but still is not good). Elyounoussi and Redmond on current form are our best AM's but Tella is doing well too and should be the first off the bench in the second half if we need goals.

Trippier to Newcastle looks a decent bit of business, good quality player with prem experience in a position they seriously need strengthening. £25m seems steep for a 31 year old but they are loaded so I doubt they care. He isn't the sort of impactful player who will single handedly keep a team up but I think it is, annoyingly, a step in the right direction.

Than the current champions of europe?

I think he played like 6 matches this year in the league. Yes he had remarkable goal scoring form in them but I doubt they will be happy with just him and will probably want another player to rotate and compete going forwards. Now he is out for a while I really wouldn't be surprised to see Digne come in. Let's wait and see.

Out of interest, what makes you say point 1? Chelsea are wealthy as anything, Digne is a class player, neither Chilwell or Alonso have really impressed that much this season, and Chilwell is out for the season probably as he needs knee surgery. I could easily see them investing in Digne and then in the summer selling one of Chilwell or Alonso. Paterson could end up being a good signing, but that team is on the ropes and if they are spending £15m they need more depth and quality at AM first and CB second imo and, even though they do need an RB too, they probably would be better off looking for someone more proven.

Again, why can't you have a conversation without calling things drivel and embarrassing bullshit? I have points I'd make in response to this if you actually want to discuss but if so why be so needlessly hostile?

Our business for Livramento looks unreal full stop. I agree though, poor signing. I think regarding money they'll sell digne, probably to Chelsea, for £40m or so and then spend the lot on this fella and the new lb who cost about £25m iirc.

Why on earth would you give a manager a job on the basis of their playing career? What an utterly ridiculous thing to do. If Ralph left, I would snap your arm off for Potter.

Villa and Everton are sidewards moves for him in their current states, they are midtable sides and judging by their FFP situation won't be spending any significant money to change that any time soon. He is a very good manager and imo should have had a top top job by now, competing for top 4 and playing in europe at a minimum which West ham and Leicester are. And I do think he'd be a good pick for the United job, he's a lot more qualified than Ole was. Also, I never get why people say things like "blathering" and "significant lack of grasp on reality". Would be great if you could have a conversation on this forum without the desperate need to throw insults in a situation that really hasn't called for them. I haven't insulted you, is there any need to be needlessly inflammatory?

You could say a manager doing well in league one should try the championship. The next step up for a manager way overperforming with a midtable club is a european level club. I don't think he's ready for a City or Liverpool now but I think he would do well at Arsenal if Arteta stumbles or when Conte gets bored of Spurs not backing him financially and leaves. Also, which small club did Rodgers take to the top 10? His Swansea finished 11th, but past them he has only managed Liverpool and Leicester, neither of which could be considered small clubs, one of which having won the prem three seasons prior. Regarding Nuno and Poch, the teams they respectively guided to a top 8 finish were far beyond the quality of this Brighton team. This can be shown by the fact that after Poch left saints we didn't drop at all and the same seemingly is true of Nuno. If Potter left Brighton they'd be relegated within a season or two with this squad imo.

How can you prove you are good with top level players without having a go at managing top level players? Potter is excellent tactically and fantastic at improving players. I think with a good budget he will do great. I would be very surprised if his next move isn't to a pretty impressive side and even more so if he doesn't do well when he gets there.

You think Graham Potter is maybe or perhaps better than what Watford or Norwich have?