Charlie Wayman

Gunn on the scoresheet today?

We'll be OK next week, we have a very strong team spirit and we want to win every match. Oh! The football?

You mean the sole option? Is he of sufficient calibre?

Surely Stephens has to go out on loan now that Danso has arrived, he is so far down the pecking order that unlikely he'll ever get a game here.

I imagine it is the age old trick of delaying expenditure to the very last minute, government departments do it all the time. Headline announcements of big projects followed by years of vacillation and slow building to spread the cost over as long a period as they can get any with. The M3 "upgrade" was a case in point taking twice as long as the original plan announced. HS2, Crossrail?

Impossible to say as our philosophy on transfers has changed so much. None of us has a clue how good or bad the three new youngsters will be and we have failed woefully to sell most of the players that we no longer needed. Just bringing in new faces hasn't guaranteed anything as we have found to our cost these past few years. If we start tomorrow with 10 of last season's side on the field - a side that finished 16th - and do so again next week v Liverpool then I'd have to rate this window as being mildly disappointing.

Written into the contract.

As important as who starts will be who Ralph takes with him as subs. Agree it'll be Romeu or Ward Prowse alongside Hoj so subs likely to be McCarthy, Cedric, Rom/WP, Long, Stephens(!), Boufal, Armstrong

You can't help but feel sorry for the lad, plenty of clubs want him on loan but none it seems prepared to do the decent thing and offer him a decent contract to secure his future. It is also obvious that he has no future here despite the fact that he fits in well with the first team squad. Surely his transfer fee and wage demands cannot be so great as to make him unaffordable by the clubs who want him especially for clubs like Fulham flush with parachute money? Saints owe it to Harrison Reed to get his future sorted out once and for all. He gives his all to the clubs he represents and always plays with a smile. In short he's a decent lad and a model professional. Eternal loan deals are unfair to him, he deserves more.

Soon to arrive at Platform 9 1/2

Especially as nobody had ever heard of him two hours ago!

Bet it isn't, you just made that up to appear smart

Ralph clearly likes Sofiane so we may with a little bit of Austrian encouragement have. player on our hands.

Only Lemmings voted Brexit and they are rushing mindlessly over the cliff in quite predictable fashion.

Most people on here had cottoned on to this a couple of years or more ago, it didn't need a brain surgeon or a rocket scientist to work it out for us.

What on earth makes you think that he'd want to come back here, he couldn't get away quickly enough?

Crafty bastards, no good news about incoming players so announce something that could have waited for a few more days to distract easily duped fans. Hope it doesn't mean Hoj will not sign a new contract. No wonder we can't afford new players if we've just doubled Redmond's salary.

He would be a different option for the Baggies after Jay Rodrigues, static v dynamic but they are a good club and really a PL club by culture. I would expect hem to be in the mix for promotion come the spring. In many respects we and they have run more or less parallel lives for nigh on 75 years and often they have been a bogey club for us. No doubt Chas will come back to haunt us one day!

Yes indeed, every picture tells a story. Why did you select your Avatar for example? It tells me far more about you than you might imagine despite your cynicism. One of my best friends is a renowned recruitment specialist and adviser in London and believe me the way you look and behave at interview matters as much as the CV you take with you.

Absolutely, although not sure your reading of forum intentions is correct. It seems to me that quite a lot of people on here have more belief than at any time since Koeman left. The key to it may be how well Adams & Boufal perform, if they can become regular goal scorers we may have a good season ahead.

It is beginning to look like most of that crop of U23 grads is or has been moved on and out - Valery apart - to make headroom for a new generation which benefitted from better leadership at the Academy. As Ralph has said so succinctly, when you get a chance in the first team you have to show that you belong there by working as a professional should, eating, sleeping and drinking football and putting everything you possess on the line in training until it hurts and then more. It would be good to see Sims' end of year report and where he has fallen short of Ralph's expectations.

Seems well informed and usefully up-to-date.

That makes sense a similar logic crossed my mind. Snuff out challenges before they become problems.

Ralph watchers will be pleased to have seen him in today's training pics although he didn't look his normal ebullient self. Looked a bit tentative. Maybe his minor op was a bit more than that. Hope he's OK.

Yes but will Ralph turn up tomorrow?