saint1977

This is probably Ings’s agent’s perspective but I don’t see it as so cut and dried if Saints are proactive here and there is no risk free option for any party. Get the Adam Armstrong deal over the line first of all - club are bound to say it’s not a straight replacement to keep options open and not drive the price for Ings down. If he doesn’t come down top 4’s lists towards the end of the window then the player has a problem - he could leave in Jan for a cut price fee but you’ve overlooked his injury history. Probably no takers at all if ACL/MCL number 3 happened and no contract. He’s clearly the best player at the club but a 4 year deal at £100k per week plus is a huge gamble in his late 20s. If the interest fades and there’s no big injuries to top 4 striker line ups in the autumn that creates an opening, he may have to look at Villa/Everton/W Ham as Leicester look well stacked on the striker front and not sure he is a Spurs or Arsenal signing. Saints may finish higher with AA, CA and DI alternating up front leading to £10m extra maybe in prize money which covers some of the lost fee plus other players gain value as part of a team getting better results. Ideally, one of the CL clubs bids £30m for him and he goes but risk/reward for them too.

He may not be next season but covering RB did hurt his game. He may be better again although Poland’s Euro displays probably didn’t help… Vesty and Salisu are both largely left footed so that’s why RH didn’t play them in tandem much. Jan and Jack are better when they have competition and the club are likely to sign a player that will start as 4th choice like Jan, Salisu were. The savings on wages and fee go towards Adam Armstrong I would think. Don’t forget, quite a few are already off the wage bill with interest in Lemina etc so that probably helped with Perraud plus Ryan would have been on c£75k p/w.

Superb knock by CDG this morning and good fifty by Organ. 412 and still going. Over to the bowlers if the pitch hasn’t flattened. In other news, a 16 year old has scored a 50 for Sussex in an innings of only 226 total. One to keep an eye on.

Bednarek was shredded a bit by the appalling planning last summer having only one RB when KWP and then Diallo got injured, his confidence really nosedived. Back at CB he is lower-mid table PL standard and that’s where SFC are. Salisu as first choice, Jan, Jack and new competition are fine. Vesty is a good footballer but too slow for RH’s system. Jan isn’t quick but Vesty is glacial. Jv to Spurs pays for that. Danny less worried about, would rather he wound down his deal and we had him available, provided we sign Armstrong this summer. If those two and Adams are in form, extra place monies help towards new players next year as well as staying up.

Looks like some conspiracy loons bothering Whitty in a London park https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-57648608

I don’t have any faith in owner and hierarchy than you do but there will surely be more movement than this. Quite a few are gone/going and it looks like Lemina joining them which will get him off the books fully. Vesty will either go or sign a new deal - former IMHO for c£20m. Ings ditto but higher figure if he leaves. Not sure he will with a lack of substantive recent rumours. More squad players with not much left on their deals will go as well eg Obafemi. The Long extension will cost money for the final year - a bit like the Ramsay extension, not sure if just an appraisal box tick for someone or someone who doesn’t know anything about the industry sanctioning these deals. Ideally Redmond needs a fresh start elsewhere but no rumours linking him elsewhere. Wide options not exciting. Adam Armstrong a must sign for £15m or less. Freshen up the CB area with a more experienced partner for Salisu, Jack and Jan as back up.

Is that Piers Corbyn? Looks like him. Either way, totally bell end thing to do but hardly a surprise. Being deluded seems to run in the family.

Has a role and very effective at it. Victor performed that role for Saints and the defence was far more secure because of it. He dovetailed really well with Morgan who could afford to be a bit more offensively minded. Lallana, J Rod, Rickie and then Tadic, Pelle and Mane enjoyed the platform. At least Dullgate has taken off Kane who either is distracted by his agent or isn’t fit. Rashford at least is more direct but would have taken Sterling off for DCL. DCL must have spat in the manager’s coffee or something. Great season for Everton but Southgate won’t give him a proper go. Oh Che! Needs to get that on target. And I agreed on a decision with Peter Walton! Sterling getting desperate there. Chance for Armstrong to be a hero….

Do you have a swimming pool and a Cadillac to make it Keith Moon style? Grealish is a different player to MLT - more athletic but not as productive in finishing and set pieces. Both flair players with creativity though and both viewed with suspicion by England managers despite public clamour for greater opportunities in an England shirt. And no-one on his wavelength there. Only Mount that could be. Phillips off the boil compared with Croatia display but Rice playing his own game. Can understand playing both of those v France, Italy, Spain but Scotland and Czech Republic? Che has played very nicely, good movement and hold up.

Saints have been like a person holding on for ages and then going for a big dump in the toilets of all Les’s (and his wee assistant) pension day specials tat in the damaged/ONO/only an idiot would pay that aisle. Hopefully more outgoings keep heading for the exit. The contracts winding down seem to have helped. Well done on your move Wesley - your SFC appearances have earned you a spot alongside Callum Davenport at CB in my worst ever SFC XI. Olivier Bernard and Steve Baker at full backs. Lee Todd just didn’t have enough appearances. Long, Lemina, Forster and McCarthy, Redmond, Obafemi, Vestergaard, Valery, Vokins, Ely hopefully next, Gunn to Norwich looks imminent. Wouldn’t be upset tbh if Moussa went as well, linked with loan move to Turkey but prefer to sell. Prefer to keep Danny but north of £30m the club will sell I’d have thought. Leaves a core of players who will work for the shirt at least and add some new faces who will do the same with a bit of surprise quality. Hopefully that’s enough for 17th or better but with such a tough starting set of fixtures I wouldn’t be surprised if they are playing under a new manager by October.

Oh yes he can, or will have no choice, if the club gets relegated or looks very likely to be, even with that and the pressure from PRC. A smaller loss is better than most of £200m.

Tells you everything you need to know about how the club has been run over the last 4 years. Get the little things wrong or don’t bother with them, the big things won’t have the right level of attention either. SFC has always gotten complacent and parochial after a run of success - after Lawrie mid 80s, post WGS and Cup Final and Europe and after Ronald. You can’t start coasting as a mid size top flight club.

Not a very nice start, could be like 2012/13 repairing a poor start. First six out of seven not games Saints have good history in. Gets better after that. Ralph could be under huge pressure quickly unless Saints can pull off a couple of upsets from somewhere. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/teams/southampton/scores-fixtures/2021-08

Makes him a more likely target for Saints IMO because Ings’s future won’t be decided early in the window and Norwich will move on if Venky’s are asking for too much £££. Blackburn can’t afford for him for go for nowt summer 2022 unless they risk a smaller fee in January or have made a storming start and look like promotion candidates. Less likely with a 2nd ACL for Dack. The price will soften and Saints will have a bit more of an idea as the summer goes on if the clubs Ings would prefer have secured their first choice targets. Eg is Armstrong an Ings replacement or have they shifted Lemina and others so they can afford a third striker if Ings stays + Adams. Obafemi could be part ex and very handy at that level.

Adams made positive difference already with touch and hold up. Scots nearly scored twice already this half, Scots well in this game as long as they don’t give a soft one away at the back as Czechs starting to panic.

Feyenoord are a huge club - European trophies, big stadium and big gates. Newcastle sort of size but a lot more successful. We had Feyenoord and Groningen fans at our games under Koeman and they were brilliant. If that lot down the M27 think they are passionate and make noise they should go to a game at the ‘Tub’ in Rotterdam and they will see what fierce support looks like.

Maddison was interested but Leicester came in, Midlands lad. And frankly Leicester’s vision was a hell of a lot more compelling than Les Reed’s. Lemina was a fairly ambitious signing at the time but due diligence would have shown a lack of consistency and focus. Hoedt and Moi - eff knows, Moi’s record in Switzerland was good but I’ve never seen PL raw attributes there. Hoedt wasn’t showing the trajectory that was worth anywhere near the fee paid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wesley_Hoedt Squad players at Lazio should not be going for premium fees, even a supporter knows that, let alone people that are allegedly football professionals. Gunn was stranger still when the club already had one keeper failing on huge wages (thanks to an inexplicable second contract extension) and another with a new deal. Why was he signed? Very strange and unexplainable transfer that has wasted more money. Carrillo - Les has been appearing regularly on Football Fan Cast and apparently it’s Pellegrino’s fault as he wanted him and then didn’t play him enough. Nothing to do with not seeing that the worst ever manager in club history needing sacking months ago or that even a Northam ST holder after 13 pints of Carling could see Carrillo was never a £2m let alone £20m player. Apparently also Osvaldo was a gift to Poch and nothing to do with Reed. At least Parrish admitted he cocked up on De Boer, who was equally unsuitable as Pellegrino, and sacked him after 4 games. Any board with their eye vaguely on the ball would have sacked Les after the Jan 2017 window debacle, I wasn’t a fan of Claude but Les shat on him then and again in the summer. The recent signings have been better but because the names above were abject disasters, it’s meant there’s no Mane, Lovren funds etc to reinvest. Even the better signings from that period - Stu, Bednarek, Vesty - aren’t going to make a great surplus but do help the team. Redmond is even stevens - not too bad for that number of games and a POTS award, but unlikely to make a net profit and terrible last season.

I think both BBC and ITV are using UEFA’s footage so I’m not sure how much they could do. The work of CRY - Cardiac Risk in the Young - needs promoting and more funding, saw a presentation on it by Professor Gregg Whyte through work a long time ago. Vivienne Foe, Muamba and now Eriksen, hopefully the outcome is more the latter than the former and he survives this for the sake of his young family.

Real determination there from Italy to keep the clean sheet even at 3-0 with a minute to go. Winning mentality, forgotten what that’s like at SFC. Kept coming for more goals as well. Turkey were woeful but Italy a side to watch.

Agree but also think Ralph is wrong about not needing a 6. Look at how little screening the back 4 received after Romeu did ankle at Leeds. Diallo will end up being a box to box midfielder and JWP want to see further forward which is certainly where Stu’s strengths are. Ideally move on either McC or Gunn for a new first choice keeper but in danger of getting into fantasy realms.

Cheer up, at least this means no more baby shark song. I hope Wrexham’s movie star owners have a good pipeline of blockbusters ready to go as Les Reed will be preparing to squander more money at that level.

And to add that in Morgan and McCullam’s cases the tweets had been deleted a while ago so either someone has sat on them waiting or actually gone to the trouble of digging them back out. I agree it’s pathetic either way. I have a diverse group of friends and cannot think of anyone that would be offended by Anderson’s to Broad, two of the greatest cricketers ever. As you say, where was the outrage at the time? Robinson’s were in poorer taste and the Ebola, Speed/McCann and Muslim ones were plain nasty but I don’t want to give another inch now with this further wave of political hysteria until this stops. Ban him for a Test, bowlers were never going to play in all 7 Tests anyway, education and community work with England’s under age squads so they understand the implications. The lad has apologised and I’ve no doubt he feels gutted. First Test should be very special so ruined it for himself, hard to think of a worse punishment than that. Cricinfo has the right idea, worldwide amnesty now on all cricket social media and have a proper, adult set of discussions about the values in the sport. Put some meat behind spirit of cricket which we want to see played in a competitive and fair spirit. Not this hysteria and dragging up ancient deleted tweets. The far bigger issue beyond social media is ensuring cricket draws on more of its diverse talent to help run and advance the game. More outstanding coaches like Otis Gibson need encouraging and some corporate cultures may need updating to accelerate progress. BAME CEOs as well at more counties and a pipeline to compete for national level jobs. That will do more good to embed change than picking out a single tweet about a haircut from 11 years ago.

Another perspective from Mark Ramprakash who has been both an England player and coach - https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/57398052 Useful to hear. Michael Carberry quoted again in the article. One of my favourite Hampshire players over the years but alarming to think that someone can’t mature or change with either education or experiencing different cultures through sport, and/or with age. I think it’s possible both to listen to experiences he had as a player of racism and directly address those for the better of future players from diverse backgrounds that we want to see more of in the game, but to also recognise people can genuinely change.

It's frightening - what was posted was wrong clearly but the player has admitted he has done a huge amount of growing up since 18 which his career history also demonstrates. People said Freddie Flintoff was unlucky with the pedalo incident in Barbados in 2007 as camera phones were becoming mainstream as far worse happened in the 1980s and 1990s - as the Sky Spinwash documentary of the India tour in 1992 shows. Now it's a different gravy last 10-12 years with social media as well. Craig Overton actually said something allegedly racist on the pitch during a county game in 2015 but only a fraction of the headlines, he apologised, underwent training apparently and may well play in Robinson's place at Edgbaston. He was lucky it was pre-2016 when the socio-political climate changed in so many ways. These lads aren't straight A students in many cases, especially bowlers (batters tend to be from different backgrounds on the whole) and the cricket world is part of broadening their horizons by mixing with different people to their background, global travel to see different cultures and challenging for themselves the lazy and incorrect stereotypes they've grown up with in their peer groups where they come from. Isn't that another form of widening participation but through sport rather than further/higher education? People complain that successful sportsmen and women don't connect with the public like the 1970s and 80s but it's not difficult to see why with the level of scrutiny/trawling back so far into the past. Whilst I very broadly agree with Dowden and Boris, let's be clear they are stoking a culture war every bit as unpleasant as the obsessives trawling social media for their own purposes to play to the ignorant. The wellbeing of Ollie Robinson isn't at their forefront. Agnew's piece on BBC Cricket yesterday was good - basically saying the ECB is in a more difficult place than the politicians because you have two live investigations - one on Rafiq at Yorks CC, a county that has had historical issues, and the other IIRC is John Holder the former umpire which involved the ECB itself. EDIT - the latter case was settled the other day after mediation. Good to see Devon Malcolm and Dean Headley, two fine ex-cricketers and bright people added as match referees: John Holder & Ismail Dawood: Umpires withdraw ECB employment claim - BBC Sport

Why they didn’t pick Billings having put him in the squad - a longer standing wk and experience of batting for England in other formats with decent degree of success I do not know. Mahmood for Broad and Billings for Bracey at Edgbaston please. Oh and Crawley out until he can differentiate outswing and inswing bowling. Talented kid but needs some basic coaching.