Nidger

A very valid point IMO! Lee Holmes against Plymouth is an example from this season!

1) We need at least 1 winger with some pace and skill to run at defenses and break down defensive teams. 2) We have a severe lack of competition for places in CM. We only really have Schneiderlin and Hammond as players in that area with any quality. Wotton and Pulis are the back ups, need I say more! 3) A Rickie Lambert double is a major priority! If this player could have some pace as well, we would have a great signing! Guilherme do Prado fills number 2 (although I would be happier if Pardew brought in another CM because Wotton and Pulis are beyond sh*te!). Now we need to address points 1 and 3! We need another 6ft plus striker that can offer us what Rickie does (i.e. an outlet from goal kicks, goals and a threat in the air)! The team also has a severe lack of pace, and as a result our counter attacks are pedestrian at best! Some suggestions for points 1 and 3 from this forum seem to be: 1) Matt Phillips (Wycombe Wanderers), Michail Antonio (Reading), Anthony Wordsworth (Colchester United) 3) Tom Craddock (Luton Town), Luke Varney (Derby County), Alan Lee (Crystal Palace), Elliot Benyon (Torquay United) I would also like to suggest Anthony Pilkington (Huddersfield Town), Daniel Ward (Bolton) and maybe a sneaky loan bid for Nathan Delfouneso (Aston Villa).

I think you mean 19:45 John

100% correct! If we can get a tall striker who has some pace as well, all the better!

I agree that it would be perfect if we could sign a player like Lambert to not only be a backup, but to be competition for him as well! Have you got anyone in mind? Brett Pitman maybe? While I agree that with do need at least 1 winger with some real pace, I feel that without Lambert in the team, there isn't much point in having quick wingers who can cross in the air if we only have Barnard (5ft 10in) and Connolly (5ft 9in) in the middle! If Rickie was in the team against Plymouth, he would have scored at least 1 headed goal from a cross in the 1st half! IMO we need 1 CM (hopefully 2!), 1 quick winger (hopefully 2!) and a tall striker in the same mould as Rickie who is over 6ft tall!

Hopefully someone better than him! For a guy that was 6ft 2in tall, he was sh*t in the air! He doesn't play for Spurs anymore so, case closed!

Jonathan Obika looks like he could definitely be an option! 6ft tall, pace and something to prove to his parent / previous club (depending on if we sign him or get him in on loan). As I've mentioned before, Spurs have a reserve side, but they aren't entered in the reserves league. This means that the only way their younger players can get game time is to either break in to the 1st team or go out on loan to another side. I definitely think we could attract a Spurs player to St Mary's on loan (Dean Parrett has just joined Plymouth on loan from Spurs reserves!)! I think Chelsea maybe looking to play Fabio Borini in a few games next year. Carlo Ancelotti has previously said that he will be looking to promote about 5 players from the Chelsea reserve team to the 1st team squad for this season. I think Fabio Borini may be 1 of these 5. A good shout though! Brett Pittman looked good against us at SMS on Tuesday night in the league cup. As he plays for a side that has recently been promoted to league 1, I think he would be interested in moving down the round from Dean Court to SMS. The fact that he scored a hat trick on Saturday (against a team that got relegated from the Championship last season in Peterborough!) only adds weight to the argument! 1 thing is for sure, we DEFINITELY need another big front man that is at least 6ft tall! Every 1 of of our goal kicks at the moment goes straight to the opposition's centre backs because without Rickie, we have no way of competing against 2 6ft+ centre halfs with Barnard and Connolly upfront!

A good point and well made Mr Gilchrist! I remember a friend of mine at work saying something similar to this a couple of weeks ago when I mentioned Alan Lee as a possible signing!

My brother really rates this guy! I think we could do a lot worse than raiding Charlton for another of their top players!

Pace, height and strikers! Just what we need! Central midfield competition for Schneiderlin and Hammond! Again, just what we need! Alan Lee would be another quality signing (height and a striker), but I can't see Palace selling him!

TBH i don't know for sure! I hope I am wrong, but you have to wonder when all these players are moving around and we haven't signed any of them! I appreciate the point that some of them have moved to a higher league than we are in, but surely we could have landed 1 or 2 of them if we wanted too!

We must have some quality targets lined up if we can afford to let all these top players (i.e. Vokes, Jackson, Garvan, etc) join other clubs without us making an offer! Given the choice, I would rather sign Roberts than Harewood! However, I think Harewood is the more realistic target!

We must have some quality targets lined up if we can afford to let all these top players (i.e. Vokes, Jackson, Garvan, etc) join other clubs without us making an offer Given the choice, I would rather sign Roberts than Harewood! However, I think Harewood is the more realistic target!

Very much so! We need a player in the same mould as Rickie because Davis is just wasting every one of our goal kicks by kicking it up to the front 2 and the defenders are winning every goal kick because our strikers (with the exception of Lambert) are too small to compete for the ball in the air! We need another striker over 6ft tall!

The main thing that confuses me is that after his experiment of seeing how the team would play without Rickie against Gillingham at the start of May, Perdew stated that he needs to find another player like Rickie in case Rickie was injured. I appreciate that Rickie is a top notch striker at this level and it isn't easy to find another player like him, but surely it doesn't take 3 1/2 months to find at least 1 player of similar quality! I know there might be the issues of wage demands and player availability holding up potential deals, but I can't imagine it takes 3 1/2 months to find this player! A positive is that we didn't sign Rickie from Bristol Rovers until after the 1st game last season! I really hope Pardew has got at least 1 player in mind, otherwise we could have a big gap in our team that we can't fill with any other player in the current squad! The fact that we have left the numbers 8 and 11 free suggests to me that we are close to signing a striker and a winger. Here's hoping!

2 games that spring to mind from last season were the 2nd halfs against Norwich (JPT) and Swindon (CCL1) at home! These were easily the best 2 teams I saw play against Saints at SMS last season! You need a balance in midfield of 1 play maker and 1 ball winner to be a successful team IMO.

We need at least 1 winger with some pace and skill to run at defenses and break down defensive teams. We have a severe lack of competition for places in CM. We only really have Schneiderlin and Hammond as players in that area with any quality. Wotton and Pulis are the back ups, need I say more! A Rickie Lambert double is a major priority! If this player could have some pace as well, we would have a great signing!

I expect Carter asked for more money than NC was willing to pay him! Fair play to NC on not being willing to break the wage structure for 1 player! We can do better than Darren Carter IMO!

Hopefully Saints might be looking at another England U19 player called Dean Parrett! A young CM who plays for Spurs reserves, so the only way he can get a game is to go out on loan because Spurs don't have a reserve team entered in the reserve league! Apparently he takes a wicked free kick too! Another option to Rickie at free kicks!

I find it hard to believe that Pardew has had over a month and a half to identify a Rickie double and at least 1 central midfield player that he wants to sign, and won't sign them before the season kicks off! The transfer window does run until the end of August, but I would imagine we would have at least 1 new player before the Plymouth game kicks off on Saturday! Although Barnard was very impressive against Reading on Saturday!

I think the main stumbling block for this transfer in January was the fact that we left it so late to try and sign Danns (about 4pm on transfer deadline day I recall!). His wage demands were quite high and Cortese was not willing to negotiate at the time. It would be interesting to see what could happen if we got Danns and Cortese around the negotiating table now!

Carlisle are close to signing Manchester United reserve centre back James Chester on loan! This hopefully means that we might be getting 1 ,or hopefully 2, young players from Premiership clubs in on loan before the transfer window shuts at the end of the month! We seriously need to strengthen our midfield options! Especially if the back up to Hammond and Schneiderlin is Wotton and Pulis! Another pacy winger or 2 would be nice too! Scott Sinclair from Chelsea maybe?

Unfortunately not, but Carter was nowhere to be seen and neither was Cortese! Maybe negotiating his contract?

I agree, Barnard was easily our best player today! Butterfield looked good and Dickson looks like he can deliver a quality ball on the run or from a dead ball situation! Bring back Lambert Lallana, Puncheon and Schneiderlin next week and we will be fine! We still need a couple of pacey players in midfield and attack though! I reckon we will sign our number "8" and "11" next week!

I reckon the number 8 will be given to our new "Rickie Lambert double" striker (probably Nathan Tyson!) and the number 11 will be for our new pacy attacking winger (not sure on who this will be though!)! Darren Carter to take number 24. A great loan signing would be Jonjo Shelvey from Liverpool. He is less likely to get a game now at Liverpool after the arrival of Joe Cole (even though they have sold Yossi Benayoun) and I reckon he would be up for the challenge of getting us promoted this year! He also plays as in CM and can score and create goals too which is exactly what we need!