saint1977

Club are more astute and professional these days than the Reed era, expect SR have moved onto the next target as the other ins seem sorted and medical/paperwork, AMN rumoured to be at Staplewood today. If you’ve already agreed terms via agents for several targets, it’s then about the fees. PSV clearly in a bit of financial hock after not making the CL group stages and trying to create an auction situation for Gapko and Sangare, who ironically we would get a WP for now. Nice if it comes off but SR should be progressing other deals now and come back to this one if PSV get desperate.

Born in Woolston, left for University aged 18, came back for a bit after holding a ST and going quite a few aways in the WGS years. Moved to South Devon for work 2010/11 and ST went, travelled back for Adkins games L1/Champ, and Poch/Ronald games at SMS. Stopped going under Pellegrino so dire was the fayre compared to the journey and cost, but moving to Cotswolds for recent job nearer Xmas so I may get back in the habit going.

Didn’t know Guy Askham had become HoF at PSV. Brownhill a decent player, has evolved under Kompany so far and MU pedigree from when they produced quality youngsters. Source is Football Transfer Tavern though. Lots of ins and outs needed though in the time left - ST/10/FB and MC if Oriol goes back to Spain. Interesting 48-60 hours coming up.

Agreed, they should have done. Got too concerned about some of the newspapers Blair was trying to woo would say. Whoever is in government, utilities are a fucking shambles whilst we’ve ended up paying shareholders and the pensions of French/Dutch civil servants buying into our market. Smaller scale but look what the Orkneys have done with their North Sea windfall by investing for the community in renewables, solar and insulation. In much better shape to weather the storm.

She’s under pressure going by the Times article this morning, with nearly half of Tory voters wanting energy firms renationalised, and over half in the Red Wall seats. Interesting piece in the FT about a former Conservative adviser saying that energy shouldn’t be treated as another commodity as the Thatcher government intended when privatising, but an essential human service. Not sure Sunak totally out of the contest yet. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-the-papers-62710190

Sad to read this. Hypothetically, I wonder if some of the club hierarchy are under pressure from SR because of the performance of the first team but also commercial and operational eg Man U entry debacle this time last season with the new turnstiles which made the headlines. Therefore, sometimes the response is to create a problem/smokescreen which can be ‘fixed’ quite quickly to demonstrate a ‘result’. This has been known to happen in organisations under scrutiny and certainly Steele/Semmens were very different in tone to other forums, even when there’s been a bad run of results before them. Fans shouldn’t be caught up in the crossfire, if that is what’s happening. You wouldn’t pay £40 or £50 for a round of golf and tolerate course stewards standing in front of the tee when you are trying to drive on the 7th hole. The individuals named above have already demonstrated their contempt with the Kingsland padded seat mess where they just displaced a whole group of people and didn’t seem to follow up with decent service in terms of mending bridges. Not sure what the overall aim is but Block 1 is fairly moderate compared to a lot of grounds I’ve been to where the away and home fans directly face each other.

There were pathetic decisions taken on energy - this Times article makes it 100% clear they are within the last 10 years https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/a-decade-of-energy-failures-fz35xxplw Labour energy policy had its faults too but some stinkers in there from Cameron and Boris which are hitting us hard now. It doesn’t help when you have a very inexperienced Tory populist leadership candidate (Truss) stoking arguments with Macron to show off for 160000 zealots (moderates left Tory membership years ago) but not a leading factor. There was a lot of heavy investment into marine renewables, offshore and wind in Cornwall from EU ERDF funds. Shared Prosperity Fund not kicking until 2025 by comparison, not going to secure energy supplies for a so-called scientific superpower. So yes, Brexit hasn’t helped again but no one can demonstrable a single material example where it has helped anything or anyone, apart from Putin and Crispin Odey’s already swollen bank balance. Biggest factor of the lot now is the German-Russian pipeline which has ruptured the wholesale market. Madness after Putin’s actions of last 10 years.

Agreed, but going to be very tight for staying up if there isn’t new signings for the first team in striker and 10 departments. Rest of the side looking improved.

Been on the wrong end of decisions v them for years - offsides at OT in the 80s, Case sent off, Steve Dunn ruling out Shipps opener in the QF for no reason. Man U have a lot of non local supporters and officials tend to come from areas where there are not large local clubs. Plenty of other clubs have had the same eg Spurs scoring a goal a million miles over the line that Carroll spilled and their quiet supporters helped them out,

It’s the new ‘to be honest’. I always wanted to ask people ‘were you not being honest before then?’ I can understand using ‘to be fair’ if a strong opinion has prefaced it and the speaker wants to balance their comment. Really, it’s just another variant of ‘erm’.

Nice area around Knowle and Hockley Heath, Villa had a few living that way over the years as well. Nathan has served SFC fairly well for a modest fee after selling Mane and not his fault Reed fucked it up not having signed enough frontline strikers for Europa and PL. 2016/17 and Ralph’s first season his best, hot and cold at other times and not a 38 game level PL player but good squad option. Better than Boufal though, that was never going work out. Nathan was the competition but Boufal arrived injured, Les’s August striker trolley dash failed and Nathan ended up with the striker/Henry moniker which was an unfair burden.

Lascelles just scored in the league cup for Newcastle. He’s better than Bednarek, was their skipper IIRC, has the PL experience the club are rumoured to want and will help ABK and Salisu, plus the latter hasn’t signed a new deal so avoids a CB crisis next summer. They need to move one or two on and could suit everyone as loan or perm. Bednarek is done here, a loan fee with Villa so either does OK and gets signed or shop window. Does not want to be at SFC and the loan fee means we are getting some of a fee but still our asset.

Unless we are signing Garner it does seem very risky. I’m still not sure what Diallo offers and would rather he was sold to a league which suits him better before OR. It may be that OR has family reasons for wanting to go to Girona of course.

Indeed, the labour shortages are inevitable in key sectors with Brexit. Was always going to happen with politicians who didn’t understand it properly and how limiting movement would impact a supply-side driven economy. To shift somewhat away from share capital for primary investment is a very long term journey and it appears Truss can’t even stick to that for the next 2 years. Employers themselves don’t help or rather the HR functions don’t - flexible and hybrid patterns help attract and retain new and existing highly skilled people back into the market. Sometimes that is just as helpful to people as big inflationary wage rises, and unlike Liz Truss and Dominic Raab, I actually understand what makes staff most productive as I’ve worked for a living in the real world and employed dozens of people. If you treat staff like adults and set clear, stretching but reasonable objectives, funnily enough most colleagues achieve. Sunak is correct in that Truss’s tax cuts will just fuel more supply-side spending and inflation pressure from the top 1%, majority of households need help this winter outside of the very most affluent to pay the bills whilst we assess whether the energy market in the UK actually works or not. The number of firms failing or about to fail suggest that it doesn’t.

Before that, Jan was covering RB when KWP got injured where the club didn’t fund full back cover in the Gao era (had to play Valery and Vokins at fullbacks v Arsenal). Not a good position for him and remember him having some tough games eg Everton away where he got targeted. Never as confident since despite some good individual performances. Looked solid before at as a CB and decent with Salisu early part of last season before Romeu started to decline in screening them. Could revive his fortunes at a new club as long as he is played alongside a more mobile partner. Has been at SFC since 2017 and under three different managers. Body language hasn’t looked happy for a while eg reaction to Leeds substitution, Watford home and City in the Cup so time to move on.

Can’t see anything online but both this forum and Boro forum started threads. Great player in our best era and featured in my first game at the Dell.

West Ham sites have been reporting Moyes wants him too, on a permanent contract, although the fact Ales Crook repeating the claim probably means it is balderdash https://www.hammers.news/transfer-news/report-west-ham-want-to-sign-southamptons-13-million-brick-wall-jan-bednarek/ Maureen at Roma still reportedly keen as well although that’s been around for a few months. I think Jan is off one way or another and it’s the best for all parties, much prefer MS and ABK as a first choice partnership. I wouldn’t be surprised if Redmond joined Stephens potentially at Watford with Villa’s baffling move for Sarr, given they play a narrow formation. A lot of rumours McCarthy off as well plus the standard August ‘enquiry’ from Turkey for Ely. RH did suggest there may be a few departures before the window closes (I refuse to refer to the Sky Sports ‘slam shut’).

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/05/27/politics/timothy-hale-cusanelli-verdict/index.html https://www.heraldonline.com/news/local/crime/article263731588.html https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2022-election/trumps-pick-pennsylvania-governor-says-sees-parallels-hitlers-power-gr-rcna33167 https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/feds-say-jan-6-rioter-seen-giving-nazi-salute-praised-hitler-sent-raci-rcna17645 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-60149957 https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2022/06/24/hatchet-speed-jan6-arrest/ https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2021/01/10254568/nazi-shirts-swastika-flags-capitol-riot-trump-supporters This is a tiny sample of what was reported then and since as well. Not all of the people there were Nazis, some are thick as you say, some brainwashed and mentally incapable, but others and a significant amount were there as fascists to force a coup. This is what you get with Trump. Watch some of the footage back from the ITV documentary and lots of it is clearly visible. The world made the mistake of underestimating facism in the 1930s so our grandparents generation had to fight it and risk death to clear up the mess. Western media needs to call the QAnon and other movements out for what they are. If you think the impact of the Ukrainian war is bad, the US imploding in 2024 and losing the worlds largest democracy would be catastrophic.

Could be the missing link for them but could also struggle with a high pressing game at 30 in the PL, not being the quickest to start with. 5 CL trophies is stunning though and a great player. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/62603699

At least 895 charged neo Nazi thugs (see link below) and counting in the next few months took him both seriously and literally on January 6 about converging on DC and took his baseless lies whole about election fraud (even McConnell told him to pack it in early on and Paul Ryan had long since worked out Trump was a loon). His whole pathway to nomination was based on racist lies about Obama’s birth certificate. There is nothing sane nor sensible about anyone mobilising a facist coup. Still, you seem proud to be part of it all. I’m proud to be the grandson of Montecasino and El Alamein veterans who fought against fascism. https://www.insider.com/all-the-us-capitol-pro-trump-riot-arrests-charges-names-2021-1

Was going to type before the news on Diego Carlos’s injury that with the rock hard pitches - this week’s rainfall won’t make much difference - that medium to long term injuries elsewhere may create openings to move for the likes of Bednarek, Redmond and Ely, moves they would consider. Bednarek might do OK at Villa if that happened, I don’t think he’s been on it at SFC for a while hence the Man City cup thing, sarcastic applause v Watford and Saturday’s reaction to being subbed. As long as Villa don’t offer a really low ball fee I can see that happening. If Gordon does go to Chelsea watch out for Everton coming back with an actual transfer offer for Che as well. That would free up funds for another couple of first XI players, maybe three if Garner is interested in joining and Diallo interest maintains. That might suit all parties as I like Diallo but I’m not sure the PL physically suits him, same as Ely.

Superdry founder agrees https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-62509760

Elements of Jerry Springer Show from the managers and coaching staff at the end of that game. Spurs and Romero got away with it but appalling marking by Chelsea twice in as many minutes. Mende saved them the first time with acrobatics but nothing he could do for Kane’s header, totally free six yards out.

Sadly, this defeat was needed to rip Ralph from Semmens grasp because he’s a lame duck as well going by the shambles of a forum. I never want Saints to lose…but as this game is gone a couple more for Leeds should seal the manager’s fate. SR need to go for Benitez next - will get 2 or 3 experienced faces in and get organised and harder to beat (not difficult). Not the job for a random hipster punt. Tell the fringe players we don’t want the rest of their contracts are in the u23s. Whole club needs to be far more professional.

Needs to be told he’s in the u23s for the rest of his contract along with Redmond, Bednarek, Theo and others. Their career can either die on its arse or their agents can pull their fingers out. New CEO should sort this out with Ralph and Semmens leaving after today.