Patches O Houlihan

See my post immediately under Jimbo's on the Summer exodus thread. I didn't say we were the wealthiest club in the world. I said we were amongst the seven wealthiest Championship clubs in history (Bearing in mind the huge size of our squad, and their value when sold)

Yes, I agree - when I said we were one of the top seven wealthiest Championship sides in history I was taking account of the fact we would have to spend a huge chunk settling up. All sides relegated from the PL would find themselves in this situation, with very few exceptions. My suggestion was based on the huge size of our squad, their low average age, and huge potential (which had not been realised due to no striker & crap management decisions). Selling a good chunk of the squad, as nearly all relegated sides have to do would raise far more money than is usually the case. This year is our best chance for a reset. Every later year will be more costly, more compromised, or have a smaller purse to buy players with.

Seems unlikely doesn’t it

Nearly all are from inside the box, but there's a good variety of different strikes. He also seems to have a wide variety of penalty choices. No headers though...

When Charles & Downes play together as a pair you'd imagine that would give Alcaraz the licence to roam and cause a world of trouble without having to worry too much about defence. Would also allow a really attacking set of fullbacks - say Manning & Djed Spence if KWP goes

Seem's it was under cooked chicken that gave him food poisoning. Maybe one that we won't need to worry about visiting Nando's?!

Maybe Sarina Wiegman needs a water carrier for her Ismian league team?

Put yourself in Tella's boots. You've left Arsenal to join Saints in the PL but not fitted in. Then you go out on loan. Destroy the Championship for Burnley and fully expect to get signed by them to play in the PL. In your head you have earned the right to be a PL player. It's going to be tough for him to man up and play for Saints for the full season. He was all smiles in pre-season, but seems a little less cheery in the last few games. It will be tricky trying to keep him. Wilcox and Martin seem to have good communication skills so I haven't given up hope, but it will be tough.

Are you honestly worried that he will get his head turned by Ipswich? When he's scored 3 in 3 games and has Russell Martin singing his praises in BBC interviews. No you're not, you're just a WUM and we see you

Has there been any reports linking Adam Armstrong with a move away? It would be great if you could pull your head out of your arse just for once Eeyore

https://foxesofleicester.com/2023/08/20/enzo-maresca-leicester-city-leave/ Leicester appear to have eight players linked with moves away - most of whom don’t suit the new style or have downed tools. We’re not the only ones in this situation

https://the72.co.uk/2023/08/21/pl-names-on-radar-and-more-southampton-linked-with-11-potential-signings-so-far-this-month/ A good round up of our current links - a couple I hadn’t seen before

We can’t afford to do a complete rebuild next year when the players will cost much more. We need to go up with a good confident young team - see my big post this morning.

I was trying to describe different styles: Norwich (yo-yo but without resources) Everton (Expensive, older/experienced squad that is poorly managed and never achieves) Old Burnley (11 big ugly journeymen) New Burnley (exciting young passing team but who will get stripped by bigger clubs, and need to re-invest well to stay in the league + historically a smaller club than us with a shorter PL/1st Div history)

I don’t - but they are indicative of an owner with plenty of resources. Leiceister now, Villa, Newcastle a few years back. Name the long list of historical Championship clubs with greater financial resources. You’re just trying to twist out into different arguments because you can’t justify your opinion

Not since Dragan bought the club. A guy who has bought two more clubs since buying us… Have any other Championship clubs been part of a multiple club model?

We were in the PL for eleven years. Those were the highest income earning years of any league in history. We were a small fish so only got a small piece of the pie. But we’ve owned our stadium a while, and we went down with a huge, young squad.

Villa a few years back, Leicester now. Who else? Back up your opinion

Which Championship teams have had deeper pockets? I’m not saying we are ‘the’ wealthiest, but historically I bet we are in the top 7, and one of the others is Leicester this year.

Which Championship teams have received the transfer fees we have this summer? Please list them. If you’re feeling keen you can adjust for inflation and look back through the years. The gap between the PL and Championship has never been bigger. We went down with a young, relatively expensively assembled squad due to some managerial cock ups and no proper striker. Imagine if we had sacked Ralph last summer & signed Wilcox & Martin…

At the tail end of last season there were a good number of posters who wanted to scrap the vast majority of the team as they weren’t good enough for the PL. Let’s assume we get promotion this year. So in July 2024 we will face the following issues: 1) The PL demands a dramatically higher standard for players to be competitive. Most mid table sides have several players worth 150%+ of our transfer record. Recruiting good PL players is massively harder than recruiting good Championship players because the pool of talent is so much smaller and our rivals are much wealthier and have more cache. 2) If we go back up with most of the team that was collectively humped 2021-23 then there’s a real danger that confidence issues will resurface. Last time we were promoted we were able to carry momentum into the league with confident players who fully expected they could perform on the PL stage. We had some young players on relatively long contracts and relatively low salaries. This gave us a competitive side and the bargaining power to hold out for good money. That gave us the war chest to secure Koeman, Pelle, Tadic, Mane etc and secure our place in the league for 10 years when we were inevitably raided. Signing Martin & Wilcox and completely changing our style is part of trying to repeat this feat. We’re not interested in kicking around in the 13-16th level in the PL. So we aren’t just aiming to get promoted, but want to do it with a ‘mostly young’ confident team of ballers who have great financial value that can at some point be realised. We know we’ll get raided like last time and we know we’ll need that war chest. This is why we keep buying young players with lots of potential - the club are thinking long term, not short term. They want to be promoted with the youngest, ‘highest potential’ team they can. As I think we have established Saints are one of the wealthiest teams to ever play in the Championship. We are currently a ‘big fish’ for Championship level young players around the world. We should have the funds to get them in and get promoted with a team that will thrive in the PL and not just survive. Yes we’ll need some experience on the pitch, but we’ll broadly want to minimise the contract length of players who are older or we suspect won’t be good enough for the PL. This is our year for a reset. We need to embrace that opportunity to avoid ultimately being a Norwich/Burnley/Everton.

I bet the Swansea fan forums are kicking off about how we've unsettled their player, turned his head, and claiming that's why he's not scored in the league yet.

No you reinvest the money, and sell on the other two for a bit less than the cheap money you bought them for. If you go through several cycles like that and get a couple of years out of the good ones you end up where Brighton are. Buy 'experienced, premier league proven value players' and you end up where Everton are

But when you sell every third one for £55 million then surely that pays for the other two average ones...