Simon3737

Thanks as always! I notice that the 3 over 21s who you’ve listed as B Team on your opening post (Latham, Johnson and McQueen) are now the only 3 players missing from the official site Teams pages (1st Team or B Team). Not sure if this means they’re all out of favour or just bad website maintenance. We didn’t name any of those 3 players in the official 25 man squad announced at the start of the season either, so maybe they’ll stick with just 17 over 21s in the official squad. I seem to remember that Marcus Barnes was over 21 and excluded from the list last season (although that might be because we had one to many over 21s).

The worst age to be in modern football is 22-24! 22 is too old for the 25 man squad (not a problem for Saints, but is for most teams) and then 24 is too old for the under 23s. Too lightweight for us, but I expect he’ll advance beyond Crawley.

Best case scenario: he has a great season, Stoke get to the playoffs and lose. Then we have a ready made sweeper keeper type who can stop goals too.

His contract ends next June anyway so I assume he’ll have one more half season loan in January to follow this loan and then be a free agent. Thanks always to Josh for setting up ‘that goal’ to get us to a cup final!

I don’t think the whole idea of lucrative international friendlies is going to appeal to many English top 6 fans. I can’t see many rushing to get a PPV subscription to watch Arsenal vs Shanghai Rovers at 7am UK time. I appreciate keeping their domestic fans happy isn’t the motivation of the big clubs any more, but maybe this idea will wake some more of those fans up to the flaws in clubs just getting richer and richer. I can’t see English fans being all that interested in a super league with no jeopardy of relegation either. Surely it would just be dull. Ultimately, I think dull competition will make it less profitable for the billionaire owners of these clubs. The Premier League is only the richest league in the world for 2 reasons. It has celebrity players and it’s more competitive than other elite leagues. I think English top 6 fans protesting (socially distanced obvs) would be the best way to stop this direction (like how Man United fans stopped the Sky purchase). Time to cheer on the top 6 fans! 😳

Something that I think may have been missed so far is that the £250 million would only be a loan! EFL clubs would be expected to pay it back later (I assume with interest). As I mentioned before, i have sympathy with the proposed structural changes to the League size and Cups, but that clearly isn’t the main motivation of the Big 6 here (and I’m pretty sure they’re all in on this behind the scenes). The main motivation is to dominate voting and money for ever more. And I’m totally against that.

The voting proposal is a terrible idea and we’re clearly being used as a fig leaf to let the big 6 dominate everything. However, I think the rest of the proposals are pretty good. I was as excited as everyone else when we got to the League Cup final, but it’s basically a pointless tournament. And the Community Shield is just a glorified pre-season friendly. I think the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy (as we should all still call it 😀) has far more merit than the League Cup because the teams involved actually care about winning it (rather than just being a back door into Europe for big clubs having a bad year like Arsenal last year). Maybe they should just expand the EFL Trophy to include the Championship too (i.e. all EFL teams, maybe call it the EFL Cup 😀). Reducing the size of the Premier League would mean every team had something to play for. At present, there are around 3 teams each year in mid-table obscurity for the second half of the season (no chance of getting relegated or getting into Europe). There was an idea years ago from somewhere suggesting 16 clubs with 4 up 4 down. I think that would be a good idea. I know we’d get relegated occasionally, but it would be easier to come back and it means if the likes of Arsenal could genuinely have a chance of getting relegated occasionally.

Sky couldn’t get PPV to work when they tried before, so hopefully people won’t pay up... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/PremPlus

St Mirren FC? I guess he won’t need to borrow so much to buy them...

I was worried that the whole 1st team squad would now be told to isolate for 14 days as they must have been in close contact. It’s possible to incubate COVID for up to 14 days before testing positive as I understand it (hence why testing arrivals at airports wouldn’t catch everyone). I guess it’s different rules for elite sports than the rest of us...

He was only 10! I think we can safely call him one of ours. 😀

On a positive note, one disadvantage the B Team has is that quite a few of our under 23s are unavailable to them because they’re in the 1st team!

Obligatory YouTube clip 😉

It’s pretty windy in London today. Let’s hope it’s a nice calm day in Burnley this year!

I seem to remember Gao borrowed the money personally to buy us, but as soon as he’d bought us he transferred the debt on to the club (and recovered his personal debt). I’m not overly concerned in principle about owners funding us with debt. The key issue is the cost to the club of servicing that debt moving forward (as that will reduce the amount of money available to reinvest in the club).

‘Let’s go Wilde’ all over again. What could possibly go wrong?? 😏

Out of interest, when do clubs announce their 25 man (over 21s) squad list? Is this after the transfer window closes? Also, I notice the Transfermarkt links you attached list Sims and Hesketh as 1st Team, rather than B Team. Is this because they’re over 23 now?

Any idea when the OS player info will be updated with the new kits?

Let’s bring back Jermaine Wright and Richard Dryden. Top 6!

Thanks as always for keeping this thread up to date! I notice that the ‘unwanted players on long contracts, thanks Les’ saga is finally starting to resolve itself. By next summer, we’ll ‘only’ have 3 of them left (or 4 if you count Forster). I expect all of the unwanted players with 1 year left will be loaned out for next season then quietly disappear (unless we can actually sell any of them!).

Bring back Wise and Bassett! Their reign was cut short too soon! 😉

I’ve got a solution. Let’s cancel Wesley Hoedt’s contract, but don’t pay him anything. Instead, agree to use his copyrighted logo as our new sponsor so he can build-up his celebrity brand worldwide. Simple! 😀

This video convinces me that masks work....

Familiar?? https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/324243695042

To be pedantic, that post-lockdown table isn’t quite right (as 4 teams played 10 games). We’re still 3rd though 😀 https://www.givemesport.com/1586210-liverpool-6th-man-utd-2nd-premier-league-table-based-on-games-since-lockdown-only