Patches O Houlihan

What are you getting at? You literally quoted my answer earlier! You saying that you didn't think our most consistent international centre back signing a contract extension was good news. I think this statement is that of someone with very little understanding of football finance. That it also insults one of our senior players warrants you getting one of these.

Is that really all you've got? Villa sadly are a bigger club than us, and have deeper pockets.

These quotes are just from the last 17 days. Yes the club don't always make the best decisions, and aren't always blessed with luck. But perhaps after last season's turnaround and promotion, Adam Lallana showing he can still play a bit, and 'Ross Stewart rising miraculously from the dead' we might just cut them a bit of slack for the next month or two... Bloody well done Ross for getting back to fitness and playing your first 34 Premier League minutes; even if it was under particularly difficult circumstances. I'm looking forward to seeing him play regularly, as his style could work well for us, and certainly offers a contrast from BBD/Archer/Armstrong/Cornet/Tall Paul.

So that means win all our league games then (Everton match is in the League Cup)

He played two full games for Ireland - maybe that is part of the reasoning? The write up I saw suggested he was Ireland's best player in the second one (but that they were crap)

Even if you don't think he is good enough for the premier league. Even if you think he should never play for Saints again. The fact that he has signed a contract has just added about £12m to his value to us! Sell Bednarek in January - he's worth ~£3m In June Bednarek is out of contract and he walks away for nothing Or get him to sign a contract and we get a "28 year old CB, with 150 odd Premier League appearances, and 62 caps for Poland (FIFA rank 26)" that we can choose to sell for ~£15m or play him. Bearing in mind since his return from Villa he has easily been our most consistent and reliable central defender; clearly still values playing for us and wants to stay, and has effectively given the club ~£12m I would call that "Good News" In fairness it is not just this comment: There's plenty more on Twitter and elsewhere on SaintWeb that are also worth the odd helmet emoji. Also his signing might persuade KWP that he would be better to sign a new contract too; rather than risk his career going the way of Ings & JWP. Bednarek came close with the loan to Villa and clearly has decided which side his bread is buttered.

Not only this (and I'm very pleased he has signed) but he goes from being worth nothing on 1st June 2025 to being worth ~£15m. It's excellent work getting him to re-sign.

Best pull your finger out then and offer some advice; there's a lanky Nigerian bloke we need to shoehorn into a Süper Lig side sharpish

I'm getting sick of requesting the bedwetting emoji. Maybe it ought to be a helmet emoji instead.

[cynic]But no doubt his parents have paid their mortgage off which they wouldn't have done if he'd stayed here [/cynic]

You know he's been Brighton's player since January right?

I'm watching last night's Match of the Day. No mention of Dibling at all! We may have a window of opportunity to get him to sign a new contract. We're not going to be able to keep him under the radar for very long though if he plays 30-40 minutes every game and makes PL play look like its completely natural to him.

Not even that. Nate would be bouncing around giving it all the chat. Russ would hang back, be chilled try to stop him embarrassing himself. Nate would get a glancing chin blow in, and Russ would metaphorically take the gloves off. Two sets of three punch combos with a ref intervention separating them. Nate is bloody and dazed in the corner and the ref stops the fight. A small white and green hand towel with a red dragon on it is simultaneously thrown over the ropes

I think you are forgetting (or maybe didn't read the article) but RM is from a brutal family where his dad used his fists regularly. He and his four brothers had to fight regularly. Russ might not strike you as a fighter with his Buddhist Vegan vibe. But that's because he knows the first rule...

Really? You'd pick the bantamweight over the middleweight?! Nate might be the fittest man in Europe but he doesn't have the reach or clout

Lallana literally coached Dibling into the pass that made the goal in real time. He may be slow around the pitch but it actually very impressive to watch him coach from the pitch. He did it against Cardiff successfully, but I didn't think we'd see it in the Prem to the same level of success.

In fairness after a humbling defeat like that RM is likely to be very easily provoked. Are you saying you would have poked the bear hard if you had been in Adam's shoes?! He has a job to do, and he can't do it if he tries to turn every interview into a dick measuring competition. 😉

Fernandez has to start the next game

Yuri with some great defending so far

The Flynn looking nervy - odd

A mixture of supportive posts and vaguely negative ones. They seem pleased we got him. No one seems to think he's a knob. Signed a 3 year contract in July and then a month later signs with us. Not clear what we paid, but based on the SAA & Meghoma deal with Spurs this looks like potentially sound business. If he had already signed a 3 year deal you would hope he has 3 or more years contracted with us. They think he might be a Championship starting striker by next season.

A look around at other fans opinions of their transfer window Newcastle fans having secured the services of Paul Mitchell were hoping for big things. But they secured next to f**k all 😁 I can’t quite believe we’ve shit the bed as much as we have tbh. It started badly with the Anderson and Minteh PSR debacle and got worse from there. I understand what they’re saying about only wanting players who can bring us forward but the idea that, in the whole of European football, the only defender who can do that is Marc Guehi is frankly laughable. The longer we go, the more I think that we are genuinely snookered by PSR and we need to brace for losing Isak, Gordon or Bruno before long otherwise we can’t spend. Trying to get rid of some of the shite in this squad is near impossible since they’re all nothing players on big money who won’t move or they’re permacrocks who nobody will take a chance on. Wolves fans views are summed up by this quote, they seem worried about their defence: "Some great players signed but I feel like some have been signed just for profit rather than targeting what we need. Not signing a CB after letting Kilman go 2 months ago is ridiculous. Still 7 out of 10, but eyes are definitely more on future profit than squad need." Leicester fans: "Pretty good window. We could've gone out and got 15 freebies in for the sake of it and got ourselves in more of a mess Looks like the club are learning(apart from janniks 3 Yr contract) from their mistakes and I think there will be a couple more years of these windows, most likely yoyoing between epl and championship until we get ourselves rebalanced It's one of those, it's as good as it could be because of what's happened in previous years .. but we're here now with a newish squad" Brentford fans seem reasonably happy "Strakosha > Valdimarsson* Goode > Kim Ji Soo (promoted) Zanka > Van Den Berg Stevens > Meghoma Onyeka > Konak* Ghoddos > Carvalho Baptiste > Trevitt + Maghoma (ret. from loan) Maupay > Nunes Toney > Thiago *Technically January signings The players that left, almost none of them were starters, so we’ve lost very little by way of contribution on the pitch from any of those players walking out of the door. So what have we gained? From the looks of it we’ve really reduced the average age of the squad; which gives us more long term squad stability, more resale value in the squad and more of a genuine succession plan if the current mainstays ever move on, get injured or lose form (what I mean by that, is that - for example - VDB could eventually replace Pinnock in our first XI - whereas neither Goode nor Zanka were ever going to do that). The exception is of course Toney, who obviously would have been a starter had he stayed. And with minimum of fuss we smashed our transfer record 6 months before the window even opened to sign a like-for-like replacement for £30m+. It’s a shame he’s injured for the first half of the season, but we kind of already have enough up top based on the evidence of last season whilst Ivan was banned. I think at the start of the summer, most would have said a good window would have been: Sell Toney Sign a quality midfielder New, younger, quality CB Understudy to Rico Mission accomplished really, plus we got a Brazilian wonderkid. Can anyone argue? I think generally you need to refresh around the edges of a squad every so often anyway to keep the motivation, intensity and enthusiam up around the camp. But in the process we’ve spent some very good money bringing up the quality in depth (Thiago, VDB, Carvahlo) and also bringing in some real potential (Nunes, Meghoma)." Ipswich fans seem to be frustrated with the lack of an out and out striker, but reasonably happy: "Even after the above disappointment, if Liam Delap fulfils his potential with Omari Hutchinson, Sammy Szmodics and Jack Clarke sitting fight behind him we should have enough goals in this attacking group to keep us up. If this attacking unit was offered to us at the start of the window we’d have all thought wow, what a fantastic transfer window this has been. On top of this we have the classy Jem’s Cajuste to play alongside Morsy, O’Shea and Greaves in central defence and new keeper Muric albeit yet to convince us plus another handful of players to strengthen the squad eg, Townsend, Johnson and Ogbene this week from Luton. Of course I’ve not even mentioned Kalvin Phillips who could well be the shrewdest signing of all. Come on guys and girls let’s take the positives out of this. At the start of this thread most of us were thinking we’d sign half a dozen players and not spend more than £10m on any player. We’ve way surpassed this annd spent more than £100m and are in a much stronger place than we were when we won promotion. Furthermore the average age of our signings is only 24 with plenty of upside on the valuations of at least half of them. Let’s not allow the lack of a late striker acquisition distract us from the fact this has been a fantastic transfer window for us, probably the best in the history of our football club Let’s just get behind them and focus on the positives because in truth we should all still be in dreamland." Everton fans are not full of the joys of spring:

You can't train speed and size very much. You definitely can train end product - although the player does have to be willing to learn. The PL is littered with physical specimens - that's one of the key differences in the gap between the leagues.

Remember how Ralph's team used to give away goals endlessly in the last 10 minutes because they had been chasing the ball all game? Yes - that. Maybe not against the top teams, but against the bottom ten who are realistically who we need to beat, it is definitely a thing

Fair enough. I haven't seen him play live. But he looks big on the tele and he is definitely carrying some momentum when up to speed. 😁