SuperMikey

2 spectacular flops - Cortese's transfer record was pretty solid but these along with the likes of Mayuka, Lee and Forren show you don't win 'em all.. Gaston will be easier to shift off our wage bill I think - we may be prepared just to loan him out until his contract runs down which is fine by me although it does represent a significant loss in transfer fee. Osvaldo is a different beast, clubs will be reticent to go for a permanent deal because of his behaviour so he'll probably be carted around on loan to different clubs before finally finding somewhere. I wonder if any of the 'new money' clubs will be interested in him - somewhere in the MLS/China/Middle East?

And yet the tickets have sold out within hours for years without a full announcement beforehand...go figure. If you're a punter who's only interested in who's playing, Glastonbury isn't for you. You must be fun at parties.

Berardi is a striker so if he can pass like that he's going to go far!

Surely Vic's crossing stat on FM should be higher if he's such an avid church goer?

As long as we can adjust accordingly and ensure it's sustainable, sure. That's not going to happen though, so lets be realistic.

I wasn't referring to that specific person, it was a general response to Whiteys post. There will be opportunists like those people you mentioned but at the same time, who actually cares? As long as they come over to work and end up paying back into the system with their taxes it really doesn't matter to me who comes here. The 'middle-class' people you mentioned will likely have a decent education and will probably fit in fine. We're a growing nation (12.2 births to every 9.3 deaths) so we should be investing in our public services anyway to ensure that we can cope with the higher population that we will inevitably have through natural progression. That also lends itself to being able to help refugees when they need it.

Smacks of the mindset of a person who's never had to worry about dying of starvation, of rampant disease or endless war like many of the people trying to get out of these places have. If you swapped Chandlers Ford for Darfur for a few years you'd be begging to come back and I don't begrudge anyone trying to do the same.

Probably the most selfish thing i've ever read.

I think Liverpool matched the £150k he was offered by City, so finances don't come into it too much. For Milner it was more about footballing reasons - being pidgeonholed into the team wherever Pellegrini sees fit would be second for most players behind a regular spot at CM which is what he'll get for Liverpool, taking over from Gerrard. Clyne doesn't have that excuse imo. Yes, Liverpool are a bigger club than us but there isn't a huge gulf in terms of quality between us and them anymore. I couldn't blame him for going to Liverpool for a hefty wage packet if there wasn't any interest from bigger clubs than them, but there is (apparently). Going from Southampton to Liverpool isn't the massive leap in a player's career that it would have been 10 years ago, it's much more of a baby step now. The natural progression for one of our best players now that we're up there in the Top 8 teams or so in the league would be to go to a Top 4 team, which is hardly unrealistic for a player as good as Clyney is. He should be playing Champions League football, and with all bias aside the better deal for him would be to sign a bumper contract with us, get another good season under his belt with experience of playing european football and then look to move to a side that is good enough for him. Take away Sterling, Sturridge and Coutinho from Liverpool and they're nothing special but you can't really say the same about Chelsea, Man City etc. That's the kind of level he should be aspiring to, and to see him join Liverpool would be a bit disappointing in terms of a display of his ambition because he can do better.

Corn

I'm not sure re-sale value factors into this deal too much - £15m for 15 goals a season (if he can replicate last season's form) for a few years isn't a bad deal at all. Many clubs spend more than that on strikers every 2-3 years who don't get as many goals. Look at the likes of Soldado, Balotelli, Jovetic, Remy...all cost more than Austin and haven't had the same success as he has done so far. Definitely worth it imo, but whether we'll get him is a different matter..

N'Zonzi is an absolute arsehole, wouldn't want him anywhere near the club thanks. His attitude on the pitch is appalling, and have heard similar about it off the pitch too.

Forget hotels, who's on earlobe watch!?

If ever a sentence summed you up Hypo...

To be fair Chelsea actually have a fair few HG players in their squad, but they don't often get game time. Cahill, Terry etc are starters for them but they also have lots of academy kids like Loftus-Cheek, Isaiah Brown, Lewis Baker, Chalobah and Bamford registered in their first team as well. I think players like Matic, Fabregas and Mikel all count as HG too although I think that will change when the new rules are implemented. Mourinho works with a small core of players but rotates them a lot to avoid injury.

The weird thing is, these are both accounts run by Glasgow Saint..

Which are? And age absolutely matters! Do I need to bring up the Schneiderlin vs Wotton thread? The general consensus back then was that Morgan was too lightweight and wouldn't succeed in the English game, and now he's our best player and is probably going to be playing Champions League football next season. JWP has about 15 years until retirement, that's about enough time to develop his game...

Have you actually watched him play for us? He's not Messi or anything but he's been key to our attacking play at times this season. Honestly don't know why JWP gets so much stick, he's 20 years old ffs. Lallana didn't really find his feet until he was 22-23, and that was at a lower level than this. Give the lad a bit of time and he'll prove his doubters wrong, it's obvious that he's got potential. Odd that coaches at club and national level rate him so highly but your average forum poster doesn't...hmmmm.

He could sign for Bournemouth and be an automatic starter, but that wouldn't be a particularly ambitious move for him. Newcastle are going sideways at the moment and we're on the up. I get your point that he would probably be the first name on Newcastle's teamsheet but if he plays well he'd establish himself over Pelle here in no time given Graziano's slightly shaky form last season.

The club's in turmoil, fans are incredibly unhappy with the owner and the owner will be putting pressure on the team to get results and overachieve without a huge amount of financial support to overhaul a pretty dire squad. On the other hand, we have an incredibly respected manager, an owner who is willing to support him financially, a good squad filled with young players who will improve and grow with the club and we're playing in Europe next season. A virtual no-brainer.

I like that kit, I have to say. Finally gives us a chance to chant "Green Army" at away days.

He's still only 19 though, Bertrand is 26 in a few months so he's going to look good in comparison because he's got several seasons' more experience than Shaw does. Luke will be a better player than Ryan is now, although i'm very happy with how that particular transfer turned out for us as we have a very capable replacement and made a f*ckload of cash out of selling Shaw. As for Krychowiak, I would pay up to £20m for him. We need a marquee signing in the summer and Morgan is one of our most important players so it's important that we replace him with somebody of similar quality. We're in a financial position now where we can afford to spend what we earn from transfers, so I would be open to investing all the money from the Morgan deal (when it happens) into finding a good enough replacement for him to make it a seamless transition. This guy seems to fit the bill in that respect.

Short memory? There's too much fearmongering going on in the press around this - it's a humanitarian crisis, not an invasion as it's being billed. Is that not our duty as a developed country though? We can't be in the self-preservation game forever.

Not like you to chuck around meaningless figures in a panic Jamie. It is a strain, yes, but hypothetically lets substitute migrants for babies. If there were 500,000 babies born in Europe tomorrow would we all be complaining about the cost of these babies and whether these babies will have criminal attitudes? Population expansion happens, whether through natural means (i.e. higher birth rates) or man-made displacement of people through war, famine etc. Most of these people are fleeing from unstable political climates, a lot of them are trying to get away from circumstances that WE have caused through our military campaigns in that region over the last several decades. Have a heart and start thinking a bit more expansively - they're people too.

If we put half as much of the money that we spent "bringing democracy" to the Middle-East and Africa over the decades into education, housing and proper work for people in that region, there wouldn't be as many refugees. A lot of these migrants are a direct consequence of our military interventions in recent times (you could also argue the same for the birth of ISIS). I'm happy to pay so that these people can have better lives, but the ultimate end goal is for people to be able to live better lives in their own countries rather than having to flee. That's why making sure foreign aid gets to the right people is so important.