stu0x

Oh dear...

Wow. That sort of puts paid to the widely accepted view that Fonte is not 'Premier League standard' (whatever that is) and needs to be replaced in the summer. It just goes to show the importance of evaluating players as part of a team, rather than as individuals. We have arguably the best centre back partnership in the league.

Whilst I agree that Rodriguez would be a great replacement (possibly improvement) for Shaw, I very much doubt he would be a fraction of the price. Wolfsburg knocked back a sizeable offer from Spurs last summer, and since then he's had a blinding season, scored 5 goals and got 9 assists. Add in that Wolfsburg are bankrolled by VW, and he would likely cost significantly north of 20m. Even if we get 30 for Shaw, I can't see this club dropping that much on a left back. More likely we'll look to spend no more than 5m with one eye on bringing Targett through, and recycle the remaining money elsewhere.

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Do me a favour. Goldman Sachs don't even hold £1t assets. How much do you think Blankfein is on? It's a heck of a lot more than 2.2m.

The solution is pretty simple. Cancel your subscription. Sure, you'll only be able to post 3 times a day, but given the paucity of decent content on here anyway it really doesn't make much of a difference. The administrators won't do anything about it until it affects them financially. It's like football fans protesting against their owners but still going to matches. Stop turning up. Then they'll pay attention.

I very much doubt Cork will go. Basic economics, he's worth more to us than he is to potential buyers (figures of 3m bandied about). We have a thin enough match day squad as it is, the last thing you do is sell one of your 18 (which Cork definitely is) for peanuts when you're already struggling to put fresh players on the pitch. More than most other teams in this league, we have learned recently how long and draining a PL season is.

Is it that surprising? Or is it just a function of the modern game? One-club-men are a very small minority in the PL era. I think the average stay for a pro player at a club is just over 2 seasons (less than 100 matches), and transfers are skewed towards the beginning and end of a player's career. So it stands to reason that the vast majority of academy graduates won't hit that landmark before moving on. Does that devalue the achievement of the academy? Id argue the opposite. It's more of an achievement to produce a player of sufficiently quality to be attractive to a better team. It says more to have produced Gareth Bale who has gone on to become the most expensive player in the world, than it does to produce Francis Benali who arguably never attracted any attention from a top tier club.

Shearer won the Premiership. Bridge won the Premier League at least once, maybe twice? And without checking I'm pretty sure he's got at least a League Cup win in there as well, if not an FA Cup. Bale has just won the Copa del Rey and stands a pretty good chance of winning La Liga and/or the Champions League this season. Not exactly a terrible haul is it, especially compared to what they would have had if they'd stayed. And they've not done too badly financially either.

It's not a 6m loss. His value amortises over the length of his contract, which was 4 years, so his asset worth has already taken a 3.2m hit to 9.6m. It's basic economics. Juve are presumably working on the (accurate) basis that he's not going to want to play for us, we're not going to want him back, and we will struggle to move him on in a world cup year unless he lights up the tournament (which is looking increasingly unlikely, I'd be surprised if he makes more than a couple of sub appearances). So 7m is actually a pretty fair sum, all things considered, if the alternative is throwing good money after bad in the way of wages. Albeit the reality of dealing with the Italian clubs is that you could probably push another couple of mill from them, but it will take all summer with a load of grandstanding and histrionics in-between. I'd like him to stay and 'do a Puncheon', but I think it's so unlikely we'd be better off moving him on. Our squad has suffered from considerable bloat and 'journeyman syndrome' because we moved through the leagues so quickly, so we actually have a very small squad of sufficient quality. There will need to be quite a few players in this summer, which means we should be looking to claw back as much from the hangers on as possible. For the record, I'd move Ramirez on for a similar fee.

That one just confirms what the initial report says - that the darker area is Portsmouth, not West Sussex. There's even a key for the geographically challenged on that one. The only difference is that Portsmouth has gone from 'High' to 'Medium', whilst everywhere surrounding it is significantly lower. So there are a few less fatties than there were 5ish years ago, but still a lot more than there should be. Still I guess that is what passes for a 'win' in Portsmouth these days.

" This web page has a redirect loop"

Do you actually think any of our players think "I really shouldn't do this, I'm probably going to lose the ball and concede a goal, oh well never mind" ? Of course they don't. They make the decision which at the time they think is the right one. Sometimes they get it wrong. It's called making a mistake. Making a judgement in hindsight misses one rather vital point - the player thought that they'd retain possession/complete the pass/etc, otherwise they wouldn't have done it in the first place.

So what you're saying is you want them to play one way, except on the occasions it doesn't work or they make a mistake, when you'll say with hindsight on that occasion they should have done something else.

Oh sorry, my mistake. In that case, I'd spend £150m on TRT, HGH, gene therapy, bionics and hyperbaric chambers. And then I'd sign Stoichkov, Hagi, Ronaldo, Zidane, Van Basten, Maldini and Matthaus. All of whom as far as I'm aware are available on a free. I don't think all our players are leaving either. But if they do, I somehow doubt we'd manage to attract the central lynchpin from the best team in the world to replace one of them.

Because we are only 2 first team players and 2 squad players worse off than Chelsea, City, Arsenal and Liverpool...?

1/10. Must troll harder.

For example...?

Whilst I don't necessarily disagree with you, there is another element that you haven't considered - financial fair play regulations. By increasing turnover, you essentially increase the maximum wage bill. The fact that you're already in the hole for the cost of increasing that turnover is largely irrelevant, because FFP only really concerns itself with the 'here and now' - and in fact it's doubly efficient, because the cost of those alterations aren't taken factored into the FFP formula. It's like tax relief against expenses. Sometimes it makes sense to spend more, because even if the benefit you receive isn't worth the additional cost directly, it is worth it when the write off is included.

We really, *really* need to stretch the play. Last third penetration is so poor because we are so slow to move the ball forward, and invariably play in front of teams. It's no surprise that Rodriguez is so much more effective away, when he can use pace and break on the counter. Norwich will come for a point, so we have to find a way to drag them forward and then hit them on the break. Otherwise it's going to be ninety minutes of us knocking it about in midfield while 10 Norwich players stand in front of us and watch. For that reason Clyne *has* to play, and get forward as much as possible - so whoever partners Morgan will need to sit relatively deep and be responsible for dropping in behind Clyne whenever he breaks, as Morgan tends to do for Shaw. Lambert should start, but with the instruction to function more as a traditional 9. His ineffectiveness recently is down to Poch getting him to drop deep all the time, so invariably he ends up behind Rodriguez and Lallana. If he stays high, it forces the Norwich midfield to either split or to leave him to the back four - either of which will create space. I'd then be tempted to bring Rodriguez inside to sit in directly behind Lambert, and then put Lallana and Gaston either side. They can squeeze the play between the Norwich lines, and feed either Shaw/Clyne outside or Rodriguez/Lambert inside. Bit of a radical shift in terms of tactics (although very reminiscent of Bielsa's Chile, so Poch should be at home with it). But we really need to change something if we are to effectively break down teams that are happy to sit off us, which I believe Norwich will be.

Quite. It's pretty sad really.

So Diego Costa, Thiago Silva and Manuel Neuer then? Should be no problem, I don't know why they haven't thought of this before to be honest. Have you thought about applying to be on the transfer committee?

As has the BBC. But saintsweb knows best, so he must be useless.

It's not as simple as we would have got the same draw as Sunderland. Each team has a different numbered ball. The balls go into the bag numerically. So our ball would have been in a different place in the pot to Sunderland's.

Assuming this is even true, which I have my doubts about... And assuming you accept the premise against all the actual evidence that Poch didn't want to progress in the FA Cup... What you're saying is, the manager is performing according to the terms of his contract. So this is his 'fault'... how? Surely if there is any 'blame' then it should go to the club for writing it into his contract to prioritise one over the other, rather than the manager for actually doing as he's been told?