Toon Saint

Still have absolutely no idea how Jones wants us to play. Keeps saying he wants buy-in from the players to play the way he wants, but haven’t heard him articulate what that actually means in practice other than being ‘aggressive’. Not a good sign and fear he is well out of his depth. The likes of De Zerbi came in to Brighton and you could his approach immediately, albeit working with a more capable group of players. Signing a decent striker for Ralph was our best chance of staying up and we’ve probably now blown that with this non-entity in charge.

Who the hell is Dean Jones? Never heard of him.

Pretty much agree with all of this. SR have to carry the can for not sorting a striker in the summer - it was a position we were glaringly short of options in. They really let Ralph down there and they need to be everything to fix that by 1 Jan - no excuses. Jones seems a decent guy, but not really read anything to suggest he’s got a clear tactical identity that would inspire a new crop of PL players (in the same way someone like de Zerbi might). He seems like someone who is easily agitated too and not sure how that will transmit to players if we have a couple of bad results in the restart.

Still no credible links on incomings and transfer window opens in 2 weeks. No one else concerned? We need a striker on 1 Jan not excuses that ‘we tried’ on 1 Feb.

Leeds signing Ismailia Sarr from Watford for around £15m. Another relegation rival signing proven PL pedigree without breaking the bank. Who knew?

We needed an additional striker anyway so to sell Che, our best by some distance, seems like utter lunacy. If we sell him to Everton, a relegation rival, then it’s up there with selling Fonte before League Cup final/spunking our transfer record on Carrillo in terms of transfer follies.

Agree with most of this but Brighton signed Deniz Undav in January. He was loaned back to Union SG (who are essentially Brighton's sister club) and finished as top scorer in Belgian league. So I can't see them signing another striker until he's been given a chance.

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The source of this article doesn’t appear very substantive (other than that he scored a hattrick and we are rumoured to be interested in him) so wouldn’t read too much into it. https://www.hitc.com/en-gb/2022/07/07/spectacular-25m-striker-shows-why-southampton-want-him-with-hat-trick/?amp

I'm not sure it matters too much if he isn't in the team in the short-term given we actually have decent options there in JWP and Romeu as first-choice and also Diallo as back-up. It feels like this is the one position where we have the luxury of integrating a player slowly.

Dan clearly had some great contacts at the club but I did miss the tactical insights that Carl offered during his time covering us. Ultimately, you pay for the Athletic as you want to read something different so hopefully Jacob can take up some of that mantle. Best of luck to him, and to Dan in his next venture.

I've been quite critical about Crook on here beforehand, but pretty clear that he now has actual sources at the club (maybe something to do with the fact that he now has a regular spot on TalkSport). Can't think of anything this season that he has tweeted about the club that has been wrong. So I'd be encouraged by what he's said today.

I'd be happy with Walcott. Most on here were clamouring for us to sign him 20-odd months ago. Yes, he hasn't exactly set the world alight at Everton but do think he'd bring something different with his pace and his finishing can be decent when he's playing with confidence. Hopefully the sentimental nature of his return might help restore some of that. Pretty low-risk if it is a one-year loan and assume Everton will be subsidising some of the wages - doubt we'd be pursuing this if it was going to break the bank.

Redmond, Salisu, Djenepo and Obafemi all absent from latest training video...

Hmmm, I wonder whether LeG had this in mind when he was referring to a player reporting back with ‘fitness issues’. 🧐

He’d be a natural selection up front with Ings.

Fantastic news. Prowsey 2.0 is the on-pitch embodiment of the changes wrought by Ralph: from listless and supine, to suped-up machine with added snarl.

He’s written an entire article on this issue. Why don’t you read it rather than dismissing as lazy journalism?

Alex Crook has clearly forgotten to refresh his twitter feed before posting (for once) as he’s saying Saints still holding out for £25m, and Spurs want deal done by end of month.

I don’t think Jermaine Jenas is a bad pundit but I do find him incredibly negative about Saints and we never seem to win when he co-commentates. Him calling Spurs players by their first name also grates. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Not sure we can blame Gao for poor player recruitment. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Saints must be the only club in the premier league that seem to lump the outgoing players wages and loyalty bonus in as part of the supposed ‘loan fee’. Yet again we end up weaker in January despite Ralph’s previous insistence that we would be proactive. Disappointing as it’s the first time in a long while we could operate from a position of relative strength in the market. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Not sure where this £5m figure is coming from. Assuming Cedric is on £60k a week then we’d save about £1.5m in wages until end of June. Can’t imagine he’d be on much more than that. Fee of less than £1m reported in the Telegraph. All seems pretty paltry given we are back to square one in terms of fullback options. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Ian Dennis of BBC confirms we are one of four teams interested in Jarrod Bowen. The others being Newcastle, Villa and Brighton. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk