verlaine1979

God, I really hope Che doesn't rejoin. Take a punt on someone new, even if they don't work out. At least give us the dream of competence rather than the certainty of mediocrity.

At the moment, there's no indication that Saints are a good stepping stone club for young players. You really have to walk the walk there, as Dortmund and a few others have, giving 16 and 17 year old players significant game time. Obvs no one is saying that our crop are as good as Pulisic, Reyna, Sancho and Bellingham (and accepting that the latter two were transfers into the first team squad) but we're not playing at as high a level as Dortmund either (especially last season). Dibling in particular did enough in his few cameos to earn more minutes than he got, and we didn't give them to him. As others have said, why not go to an elite academy, get the best training, compensation and education and then get loaned out to a club with a decent reputation. You'll be playing first team football at a good level as quickly if not quicker than you would for Saints based on recent history.

O'Riley and O'Hare look like they'd complement each other pretty well.

Are you sure he hasn't just spent a year playing against shitty strikers rather than getting too tight being turned over and over by PL quality attackers?

Solanke is a good example of someone who looked like a failed experiment at PL level until he didn't. Averaged 3 per season from his first three attempts at the PL, interspersed with decent promotion winning performances in the champ. Now, with 19 in the PL last season he's probably a 60-70m striker for anyone that wants him.

Not sure fourth and play-offs counts as "some ease".

Alcaraz is good at carrying the ball forward. We're going to need players who can do that whether RM likes it or not. Our squad is too technically limited as it stands to consistently pass our way around the press of 90% of PL teams. We're going to need to adapt to be able to play effectively on the break and turnover, even if it's just to give ourselves time to reset. As it stands, Downes was our most effective player at running the ball through the middle last year, and he's not even ours.

Good weight of pass and more inclined to look for the through ball than JWP typically was while he was here. Get in Downes and a genuine DM so that Smallbone never has to play deep and I think he'll be a useful part of the squad next year.

I watched the likes of Bournemouth and Forest play a few times last season, and came away fairly convinced that the level of Premier League also-rans is higher than it's ever been, unfortunately. There are plenty of ropey defenses still, but lots of these lower half teams now have real power, pace and technique in the middle of the pitch, which we've lacked pretty much since the Wanyama/Morgan pairing.

Has anyone like Swiss Ramble taken a punt at working out what we could potentially spend this summer? I know our last published accounts showed a loss of about 87m but that wouldn't have included the Lavia/Tino/JWP/Tella money (which I think ended up being about 150m?)

Hah, from bitter experience, you're not getting a lot of change out of a grand (though that was a lost house key rather than a car door).

I'd take Fraser. He can finish, still has a bit of pace and would be a decent last ten minutes option in the PL still. Not a starter though. Aribo isn't going to cut it at CM in the PL - just a bit too slow and ungainly. Smallbone could do a job, but only further forward trying to link play and get the occasional foot in as a bonus. If we get Downes we'll still need some strength alongside him. Unfortunately, the going rate for a young physical and technical DM is about 30m+ these days (going by what Everton and Forest paid for Onana and Sangare). ABK's current value as a saleable asset is much lower than we'd have to pay to bring in a player with equivalent potential. He's the most likely to step back in, and if he stayed fit could make a great partner alongside THB. Bednarek has been great this season, but he's just not a very good PL defender. I just hope we've overhauled our scouting since the last summer window. If we want to play a technical, possession game, we're going to need technical players. And since we can't afford technical, physical and PL-proven, we're going to have to scout well to find them elsewhere.

Eesh is that how long he's out for? Definitely need a starting gk then.

Loan Baz and Charles as starters in the champ, see what they're made of for a season.

THB, Downes or an equivalent, new #1 in goal, new striker to lead the line, maybe a new creative midfielder to replace Stu. Think that's the minimum to have a chance of staying up. Hope Solak has 100m+ burning a hole in his pocket.

Simply immense yesterday. Best player on the pitch by a mile.

Martin's tactics require us to play dangerous passes around our own box and safe passes around theirs. That's the wrong way round.

Even teams who excel at playing it out from the back don't pass it multiple times into the six yard box under that kind of pressure. It's not clever, it's stupid.

Brooks and Fraser crossing to Stewart would certainly be a dimension we haven't had all season.

Trading five minutes spells of dominance. But they've engineered notably better chances while on top. As usual, nobody for Saints really willing to take responsibility for creating something - just hoping that the opportunity to play a killer pass occurs organically as a result of holding onto the ball long enough.

Sure, I get the managerial logic. It's just at odds with the economic strategy of developing to sell. Archie Gray and Jobe Bellingham are both within a couple of months of Dibling in age, and both played the best part of 40 league games for Leeds and Sunderland. Dibling played a total of 2 minutes for us in the league. Maybe they're just vastly better players, but it seems unlikely given Dibling's international performances and the general air of expectation around him. The club get a lot of credit for playing Shaw young, but in reality we only did so because we were forced by injuries to give him a decent stretch in the team, after which he became irreplaceable. I take the point about previous generations of Under 21s clearly proving themselves not good enough, but isn't it widely accepted that our youth teams spent a good decade or more in the wilderness after the 2005, from which we've really only just recovered?

Has this really been the case? I thought Dibling looked dangerous in his few cameos over xmas, but as the season got tighter our willingness to give minutes to youth players vanished completely. Likewise, when Manning was dogshit and Bree was still injured, you'd have thought Meghoma's good showings in the cups would've been worth an experimental start against weaker opposition, but again, nothing. SAA got a couple of games at the start of the season, but after that didn't get a look-in. This season we haven't been a club that puts any faith in youth - cups and a few minutes here and there is the bare minimum.

I'd much rather not make it and be looking for a first professional contract as an ex-Chelsea youth player than an ex-Saints youth player. Perceptions matter, and it's been about a decade or more since our academy had a reputation on par with theirs. Teams like Saints have to grasp the nettle - if you believe in developing youth as a viable business model, you have to play them before other teams would be comfortable doing so. There's no point waiting for them all to hit their early 20s stride before you find out if they're good enough in competitive play. Dortmund are obviously at a higher level than us, and their teenage recruits are better than ours, but they've still been comfortable playing the likes of Bellingham, Sancho, Reyna and Pulisic in the league and Champions League at 17.

There's a difference between playing out from the back and playing at the back. A possession game that involves your CBs having the ball more than your midfield is a very different proposition to the City/Barca model. But as our attack and midfield are not technically accomplished enough to maintain possession in the opposition half for long periods, we end up having to go backwards because we are pathologically opposed to giving the ball away. But then we find out that - gasp - our CBs also aren't really good enough to play keep-ball indefinitely. It feels literally idiotic to watch at times.

Oof, that's textbook. Two goals from players ghosting in unmarked at the far post, one from a giveaway playing out from the back, and one where a static defense are deceived by the simplest movement from the CF.