saintrich

I never rated Davis before he decided to stay in league one, but I definitely changed my mind in the three seasons after that. Panathinaoikos (H) 06/07 let a mishit cross sail straight over his head into the top corner. Preston (H) 06/07 let a tame Simon Whaley free kick trickle through his legs. QPR (H) 06/07 Got tackled by Ray Jones by the corner flag. Those 3 alone happened in the first 2 months or so of his Saints career and I thought he was terrible at this point. Sheff Wed (A) 07/08 The 5-0/fan abuse QPR (H) 07/08 Him and Jermaine Wright had an almighty mix up to let Patrick Agyemang score (I rightly got a lot of stick for leaving my mums 50th birthday meal after the main course and not staying for Dessert so I could make it to this game on time. Darren Powell scored in the 1st minute so I was chuffed with myself for leaving early at the time, but we lost 3-2 and Jermaine Wright may have possibly been more at fault, but I still blamed Davis anyway). That Leeds game alone made up for all of those (mostly insignificant) moments, but there were plenty of other great performances during that time - what a great period those JPT, Promotion x2 seasons were!

Aribo looked great, looks like the type of player that looks better in a faster paced game, a bit like how Schneiderlin looked twice as good in the prem as he did in the championship and league one.

He is currently injured and obviously visiting family in Southampton, as if he would be posting that if he was signing. Not to say we couldn't sign later in the window I guess.

Kasper Schmeichel heading to Nice pending Leicester signing a replacement first according to reports. Quite random.

Alternatively he has scored 10 goals in his last 12 appearances. 5 in the last 7 games of the season for Bordeaux and 5 in 5 for France at the toulon tournament last month. Maybe he just took a while to get going?

For those worried about his goal return, his minutes to goals ratio looks quite good, especially recent form - 5 of his 6 league goals came in the last 7 matches of the season for Bordeaux and he was also top scorer in the Toulon tournament last month (5 goals).

Just see Kevin Kilbane tweet to say that Bazunu would get into Everton's side ahead of Pickford. Everyone certainly seems to be raving about him.

I think some people are just haunted by Gunn, who I think in the main was overhyped because of who his dad is. Bazunu is a lot more highly rated for starters and Man City reportedly offering him a big pay rise to stay is a good indicator of that. I'm sure the Gunn disaster would have played on the club's mind and the fact we have still pursued Bazunu suggests a large amount of due diligence has taken place. The youtube video displays that he is really athletic and equally adept at getting down quickly to low shots, as he is saving top corner ones. He is supposed to be great with the ball at his feet too, which I imagine is a big part of our interest also. Man City and Pompey fans both seem to be gutted in equal measure, meanwhile a lot of Irish fans are saying it's a brilliant deal for both the player and Saints. The speed at which we are doing this deal gives him every chance to settle in quickly and start the season as number one.

I thought Pope would end up at West Ham, but they're apparently going to make Areola permanent for €9m. If Newcastle are getting Dean Henderson then I guess it would be an easy assumption to suggest he might end up here. I don't think he would be top of Ralph's list though.

Not surprising at all when you look at the coaching set ups at Midtjylland and Brentford where Rasmus Ankersen has worked previously. E.g Midtjylland being the first team to use a full time throw in coach- Thomas Gronnemark, who is now at Liverpool + Brentford losing their goalkeeping coach to Arsenal. Clearly Ankersen has an eye on doing things properly.

6. Fulham

1. Crystal palace 2. Mk dons and Yeovil 8. Kane and Son

Update on two of my suggestions - According to The Athletic this morning West Ham are set to open talks with Hull City for Keane Lewis-Potter who they say is rated at £18m. Also, Brennan Johnson was named championship young player of the year last night. So doubt we have a chance with either unfortunately!

I wrote to Saints in Summer 2005 and asked if I could interview a player for my GCSE project and they sent a letter back saying I could go down to Staplewood and interview David Prutton, but I wasn't allowed to talk about the Arsenal incident. Went down there in pre-season and he was super friendly and genuinely didn't seem to mind that me and my mates were absolutely useless setting a camera up. We talked about loads, but the only thing I can remember in any detail was asking who he believed to be rivals for promotion - he listed about 10 teams, but not any of the 3 (Reading, Sheff Utd, Watford) that actually got promoted, I don't think many would have listed those 3 to be fair. Someone down at Staplewood was talking about us signing Clinton Morrison, but he ended up joining Crystal Palace instead and we signed Ricardo Fuller a week later.

I expect if Burnley go down could be plenty of interest in Nick Pope, Maxwell Cornet (both fairly expensive) and James Tarkowski (out of contract) I'm never quite sure about defenders who play in rigid defensive sides, but could Tarkowski be a good option on a free if Bednarek was moved on? Could be of benefit to Salisu (if he stays) and Lyanco playing alongside a solid pro who holds position well, or would he be exposed in a high line? We have also been linked with Dael Fry who would cost a fairly big fee. Staying with championship but moving forward to attacking midfield - Keane Lewis-Potter has been linked and just been called up to England under 21's, could he a be a good option to take Djenepo's place in the squad? If we wanted to push the boat out then Brennan Johnson seems like someone who could pinch Moi's place in the starting eleven - Brentford had £18m turned down in January, but his contract expires summer 2023.

Obviously we were terrible which has no doubt been covered, so I'll raise two other points. Really annoying leaving Adam Armstrong out who had a half decent cameo against Newcastle. Also, why is the half time music selector man trying to troll opposition teams? so cringey. Was quite funny playing cat related songs vs West Ham as it was topical, but Newcastle we played all songs with a money theme and today all songs with a 'going down' theme, maybe save it for the end if we have won the game rather than at half time when we are playing shite. Just a bit embarrassing really.

We played plenty of good football under Puel. Away at West Ham 0-3 was excellent. We scored 4 away at Watford and Sunderland. There were a couple of bland home games right at the start which was no surprise given the big changes at the summer. We then switched to a more defensive style when Van Dijk got injured, which was absolutely the right thing to do when you think back to one of the first games Stephens came in for was a 5-0 loss to Arssnal in the cup. When you lose players like Fonte and Van Dijk you struggle- see Leeds without Bamford and Phillips. So Puel did a good job keeping us competitive. Some of the 0-0's towards end of season we played fine, Gabbiadini missing penalty at home to Man Utd etc. Basically most of the negativity stems from the Europa game which he got wrong, but was no worse than Koemans Europa exit.

Agree, I think there is definitely a player in there somewhere. How many times has he actually been on the pitch at the same time as both Moi, Stu and one of Broja/Adams? Can't have been many minutes at all given Stu was injured for a large chunk of the first half of the season and he had Walcott and Djenepo ruining any of our attacking play.

Pretty sure I read earlier it's on BT Sport

Just see it mentioned by Fabrizio Romano that Chelsea have a buy back clause of 80m euros on Tammy Abraham starting July 2023. Could perhaps be used a yardstick given he went to Roma for a similar amount that we are likely to be offering for Broja (£34m).

Just see Turkish transfer window shuts end of Feb, so no rush on Djenepo deal today. Bit odd Cantwell and Nat Phillips both going on loan to Bournemouth - just goes to show how many rumours are agent nonsense given they were linked with prem moves throughout the whole window.

Djenepo will have one year left on his contract in the summer and it's likely he would only get a handful of appearances here and there at Saints until then. To maximise his sell price in the summer it makes good sense for him to have a (hopefully) productive loan spell somewhere else. He hasn't been a dreadful signing, glimpses of quality, fun character to have around, put a defensive shift in when asked, but it's clear he is not going to be the player we hoped he could be - certainly not in this league.

I think the fact you didn't see any social media or build up to the match shows that they done well to cover all bases - social media, terrestrial tv, spoke about it on sky sports news etc so lots of different people would be aware of the campaign. I don't know for certain, but would imagine the campaign is getting extra coverage in local printed and TV media in London. Hopefully the money raised and invested makes at least some difference. I guess the Fa cup badge could have been white, but enough of the Arsenal badge and other sponsors, main and sleeve, being white seemed enough to suggest to me something was going on other than just a change of strip in my opinion. I do agree the Fa should have just let them do that Logo white also, but it not being white doesnt stop the campaign being a success. Sorry you're right you didn't suggest black, that's just me getting my point across poorly. I guess my main gripe is with original thread itself and still believe the original post to be nonsense - I saw your comment about white teenagers and thought that was worse so jumped on that instead, but if you weren't being serious then theres no more for me to add, other than apologies for any misunderstanding and wishing you the best of health.

This particular match was chosen because it was shown on terrestrial TV so would be seen by a different audience. There was also videos on social media and time was given in the build up on TV to talk about it - Idris Elba joined the pundits to talk about knife crime and the campaign. All the comments on whether it was executed well are all kind of pointless given that the main idea behind the campaign is that the shirts are then auctioned off with proceeds going to a knife crime charity. Further to that Arsenal and Adidas are investing in more safe places for teenagers to go in London. The discussion on colour - of course I'm aware you can get different colour canvases etc but generally speaking they are white and you are nitpicking - if someone said they were going to remove colour from a painting then most people would picture that as white. Arsenal arent going to remove red and then add Black and because some cynics think they should have done this campaign for a home game, again how does that in any way change the outcome of the campaign? A few people sat in front of their TV saying "oh that's a bit stupid because I can see an Fa cup badge on the shirt" isn't a determining factor in whether the campaign was a success and could have been executed better.

Probably the most ridiculous thing I've ever read. It's called no more red, because blood is red. Arsenal's traditional colours (why are you even thinking about whether they should have been in their home or away kit, that's completely not the point) are red and white, so take away the red and that leaves white. If you took red off one of their away kits it would probably be a little bit of piping that no one would even notice. The whole striking thing about the kit is that there is no colour. If there is no colour its white, that's just the way it is. A blank canvas is white. If I bought my son a 'paint your own TV character figurine' it would be white and he would paint colours on. Why would it have anything to do with white teenagers. Bonkers.