HarvSFC

Isak was the first name that came into my head, he'd be a dream signing, but no chance Sociedad loan him to us with him being their first choice striker. He's one of those currently in between our level and the top six with the potential of moving to the top. On Salisu watch, he's on a training camp as per his Instagram. Usually when players that do this and want to leave their current club, they don't wear the attire of that club. He was wearing the Southampton training kit yesterday. Although, it's just Nike today, so don't read too much into it. 😂 I think Newcastle are firmly focussed on Botman now though, who, I'm always gutted we missed out on when he went to Lille from Ajax. Another one that shows the deals are out there if our scouting is any good and now we can be a bit more flexible with our money.

Could be a good one, 22, played in the Champions League and a full international. Played for a top club, not quite made it, but shown enough previously to be picked up and play for a club of Bayern Munich's stature. Like a Bertrand/Romeu signing, but they don't always come off as you do also get a Lemina, although, he didn't fail here because of a lack of talent. I believe our last signing from Bayern was Hojbjerg and despite in my opinion him being the definition of average, a consistent 6/10, we did make a small £3m profit on him. (Due to contract and him not wanting to go to Everton).

The run of Bournemouth, Newcastle, Nottingham Forest, Fulham and Brighton at the end is favourable. I guess you could even hope Arsenal have one of their off days and Palace prior to include those in the run. You’d just hope whatever we’re playing for doesn’t go down to the last game, and if it does then Liverpool need to be on their metaphorical beach, resting players before a Champions League final.

One thing about Henderson going on loan to Forest, would be that they would then only be able to take Garner back on a permanent from United. A player we’ve been linked with this summer and you would hope we would be moving for were he to become available.

Very good move from Forest. Henderson was a large part of why Sheffield United finished 9th in the league. Replaced by Ramsdale who turned into a £30m goalkeeper after finishing bottom.

Feed Kane and he scores 9 times out of 10. My problem is, is that Southgate has had 6 years working with these players and still, if you were a casual football fan, who only watched international tournaments you would think that Kane was a make a wish winner. Southgate's never got the best from our best, despite a golden boot win which saw Kane score just the one goal in open play, which was a deflection against Panama. Too much focus is on the defence, and fortunately we've had Pickford putting in some heroics, as that defence isn't, but if you put Ramsdale in, you get pummelled, as we did tonight. On another note, Ryan Giggs is the manager of Wales, but hasn't managed a game since November 2020.

Vincent Kompany taking charge at Burnley, so they're likely to have first call on the Man City youngsters, although links have seemingly gone quiet there with us.

I’m guessing we didn’t sign that midfielder from Cheltenham who was on trial with us around the same time as we signed Armitage?

I like reminiscing and the other week I looked at the 2014-15 Premier League table to remind myself that we once finished 7th. I know we finished higher and did better the following season, but that's not relevant to this little tid bit. What is, is that the clubs who finished 8th and 9th in 2014-15 were Swansea and Stoke. Following this, Swansea and Stoke made a string of errors, appointing the wrong managers in Paul Clement, Paul Lambert and Bob Bradley, a number of costly transfers in Berahino, Bojan, Wimmer, Imbula, Borja Baston and Renato Sanches, while not replacing stars sufficiently like the one currently at Everton, Bony, Michu and Arnautovic. Now, both are firmly lodged in the mid-table mediocrity of the Championship. Just goes to show how quickly everything can fall apart up here and while we have made many mistakes over the last few years, we have also done extremely well to maintain our top tier status. I know some say that they prefer when we were in the Championship and League One, but that was when we were winning most weeks. The seasons post the play-offs under George Burley and Jan Poortvliet were far worse than this when we tried to hype the signings of Lee Molyneux and Ryan Smith to name but a couple, and that's the danger that comes with relegation. Watford and Norwich, I'm sure are also sick of being yo-yo teams, despite having one season every other year of celebrations. It's very hard to come back up and establish yourselves these days, given the disparity in finances and while we're up here we still have the potential of signing the next superstar, or even bringing them through and not having to let them go at the first instance like we had to with Walcott, Bale and Oxlade-Chamberlain before (although we still do give it a go). The longer we're up here, the longer our gap against Portsmouth increases too, and that's what I take delight in. We're at the top table, yes we may lose to Arsenal, Leicester, West Ham, etc. But, it's a damn sight better than losing to Stevenage, Accrington and Harrogate.

Diallo was signed with just over half a season of top flight French football and some appearances in the French lower divisions. Svanberg is a full international with over 100 appearances in Serie A and a two time winner of the Swedish top flight. I'm a little bit more excited by him and am all for making him our modern day Anders Svensson. Mavididi's had a weird career. I remember he wasn't exactly pulling up trees at Charlton or Preston on loan from Arsenal and then all of a sudden he ended up at Juventus. He seems to be adding goals to his game now and he's more of 10 for us than a striker, contrary to his Wikipedia page. Would be a gamble, but he does have pace.

Eriksen transformed Brentford. They had three wins in 20 matches between October and February, including a 4-1 defeat against us and were looking pretty certain for relegation. Eriksen comes in and they win 7 of their last 11, finishing above us in 13th. He was on another level and was creating pieces of magic out of nothing, something which we have missed for a number of years now. I'd be surprised if he doesn't return to his level this summer, which is at the top and if he doesn't, he'll probably return to Brentford as they're the club who gave him the opportunity again, while many stayed clear. Essentially, he's well out of our league.

O'Brien/Garner would be good options to add to our midfield and I believe United want another look at Garner, so O'Brien may be the more obtainable. Full of energy, always hassling the ball and very good on the ball himself. £12m would be a bargain, Leeds are usually linked with him, so would have to depend on if he wants to come south.

Did you know that the departure of Loris Karius on a free transfer funded the Nunez move?

The club scream poverty whenever they speak to the media, while handing out deals to Stephens, McCarthy, Walcott, Long and reportedly Elyounoussi. Their wages combined must be over £250k a week, assuming they are all earning over £50k as Premier League footballers. A million pound a month, £12m a year on players who contribute the bare minimum to our side and who if we want to get any better we should be replacing. I like Long and said as much in his thread when it was reported that he was going back to Reading. However, I just can't see how the club can justify extending a 35 year old, who started 3 matches last season. His previous extension was debatable, but he had just come off the season where he played a big part in the partnership with Ings, creating more space for him, etc. However, that partnership never really played again the following season with the emergence of Adams and with the loan to Bournemouth I thought the club may have viewed that extension as a mistake, but apparently not. We just need to be more ruthless, really. The best players shoot off as soon as possible, while we hand out life time contracts to those who are never going to help us to progress and then hinder us with the wage bill, as I keep seeing graphs where our wage bill is actually quite high. It's not just the first team either, as even Ramsay and N'Lundulu have had extensions over the past year and they're simply never going to make it here. For JWP, it would have to be silly money for him to go. He was our top scorer last season, from a deep midfield position. I know he has few open play goals, but the world class free kicks is something we wouldn't be able to replace. As for Ings, I'm unsure. Last time we signed him he had a point to prove after Liverpool and was looking to get back to that level as well as the England team after a torrid time with injuries. He spent the summer we signed him permanently training for the most part. Then, we all thought he'd actually go to a Champions League side, but he went to Villa, which was a surprise, but we did get a good deal for him given his contract situation. Now, it feels like his career is heading on a natural downward slope given his age and if we did sign him and he continues with his current form, then that again would be a mistake, as nobody would take him off us then. I'd have to echo what others have said and go with the loan option, if that is an option.

Iago Falque, 56 minutes of an uncharacteristically all round poor performance in a 2-0 loss against Leicester, never seen again.

At least it's providing some entertainment. This guy appears to be a journalist and a lecturer at Winchester Uni.

That's going to the other extreme though, and fans didn't want Walcott signed permanently, or Long getting a contract extension and now Elyounoussi will reportedly also be joining that list. For many years now, we as fans have been told that the charity contracts that we used to hand out were handicapping us in the market. We couldn't sign a first choice goalkeeper for four years with Gunn being the last in 2018 because of the deals Forster and McCarthy had and in those four years, we as fans have always been hoping each summer to sign improvements on the two, but accepting that it wasn't possible as we couldn't shift them. The club should have had two names ready to replace both this summer, Bazunu to replace McCarthy and somebody else to replace Forster, so that we have options, as with Bazunu and McCarthy we have to hope there's only one option and McCarthy goes back to being a backup keeper.

City put a buy back clause on Gunn, so it's likely they'll do the same for Bazunu.

Well, with Livaremento we already had a perfectly capable top 10 right-back in KWP, so we weren't solely relying on him to come good and putting all our eggs in one basket. The same with Broja, he wasn't signed as Ings' replacement, he was signed in addition to Armstrong and to add further depth to our front line, rather than being expected to come in and be the main man straight away. Both players saw their form drop off after bright starts and we did end up relying on Broja, which had a huge impact on the teams end of season form. Gunn had a similar drop in form after his best game in a Saints shirt being his debut against Chelsea and then winning the starting goalkeeping position. We had to go back to those who we were looking for him to replace and mark his signing as a failure, while his career has seemingly not recovered after the 9-0. I don't think many have an issue with the Bazunu signing in isolation. He is as you say, a rated youngster who is seen to have hight potential. However, he's 20 years old. If his first season of Premier League football follows the pattern of Livaremento's and Broja's, then we know that we're going to need to turn to McCarthy, as we cannot afford to ship goals with our poor quality attacking threat. That's the issue. While McCarthy has shown to be capable as the number one, he's also one whose form drops off a very costly cliff and there won't be another experienced goalkeeper in Forster to bail us out next season, unless we keep Caballero, who is turning 41 in September. As I said, we should have had a plan and a list of many names to replace both Forster and McCarthy this summer, as we used to harp on about having constant names in our manager pool in a time of need. Forster's departure isn't a surprise that's came out of the blue.

Benrahma would be ideal for around £15m and below an £80k-a-week wage. Although, sadly, I don't think he'll accept that after being at West Ham. Bazunu, I don't know. Gunn was as rated at Norwich and the England Under-21s as Bazunu is/was at Portsmouth, and of course the former was playing at a higher level, but we all know how it turned out in the end in for him. Gazzaniga was also highly thought of at Gillingham in League Two, winning their young player of the year before coming to us. It's always a risk and as I said previously, not many Premier League clubs would look to strengthen a problem position that needs someone who is first team ready now with a player who most recently played for a 10th placed League One team. We've had at a minimum of two years of knowledge knowing both Forster and McCarthy's contracts were (or in McCarthy's case, should have been) expiring this summer and in past windows we haven't had the budget to make a move to replace them, but we should certainly have a long list of potential goalkeeper signings that are better than the names that keep coming up in the media.

Yeah, I’m in the Redmond’s better camp too. The issue with both really, is that when we’re good, they’re good, but when we’re not on top in a match, it’s like playing with 10 men. And that happens often, as even when we are good, we give Jekyll and Hyde performances in either half.

Slightly erratic and prone to making a mistake, but better than many of the goalkeepers we've been linked with this summer.

But, we’d have to play those other CBS for the 30+ games that he misses.

Double barrelled surnames are very Saintsy. Don't know too much about him, but he pretty much won all of Hull's end of season awards at 21.* *They finished 19th, so his competition wouldn't have been too great.

Phil Jones has played six league games since 2019. 14 in all competitions. Why would we want him?