Unbelievable Jeff

Not really, gets him some game time. If Cedric is staying, he'll be first choice with a smattering of Valery.

It's possible - he didn't look that appalling when he first joined, but I think that defensive genius Hughes really managed to set him back further...

I asked Phillip Hammond about this last weekend, and he asked me to wait and see...I guess this is what he meant.

The idea was decent, the implementation was ****ing rubbish.

And that's fine, but his severance pay would be the full amount remaining on his contract. It's like signing a 12 month FTC, with no option to give notice from the employer. As a contractor myself, I've had 2 week, 4 week and 3 month notice periods. On any of those, if they expected me to leave my role immediately I would expect full payment of the notice period - this pretty much what we are expecting him to waive.

That's the worst kit I have ever seen. Ever. EVER. It must be a joke - there's regulations as to how big a sponsor can be on a shirt and that looks too big.

I would say that a genuine ITK, making a comment like that, doesn't need to infer that much.

Like a bloke.

I don't think so - players have different fitness levels and the vast majority train to the level they are trained to - hence why we were so unfit under Hughes. If he wasn't training hard enough I would presume we'd have heard about fines being issued etc.

Just comes back to my loyalty comment - it seems that we're more than happy to show no loyalty, yet when a player does the same he gets roundly criticised. My point is that he has every right to sit out his contract - my issue is people criticising him for doing that.

So, do we still think clients will flex to this? It seems that a lot of companies are already saying they'll be going down the blanket route.

Have we ever actually heard that he doesn't train well, or is this something that people assume because he's not that fit?

What, even if you were earning £80k per week before bonuses where you currently live? That's very odd. I assume your family and friends don't like you very much if they'd encourage you to do that.

Because he's been frozen out and left behind. I'd be doing exactly the same as it's a pretty ****ty thing to do by Saints.

So you think it's reasonable for him to take a 50% paycut and move to another club because Saints have asked him to? And potentially have to move to another part of the company or spend large amounts of time living away from his family and friends? People talk about the lack of loyalty in the game, yet I bet you lot were bleating at the first sign of Lallana and Van Dijk wanting out.

Yes, which is what I think he's fully entitled to do without being derided like he is on here.

See, neither of them seem to be saying "oh, and by the way, we will be freezing you out of the squad and make you train with the youth teams unless you agree to take a 50% paycut and **** off". I know some people on this forum are of the "they're footballers, they're well paid so **** em" school of thought, but some of these people still have financial commitments that they rely on their contracts for. Would you quit your job for a 50% paycut cos your company wanted to end your contract early cos they made a mistake hiring you? **** no. Think some of you guys need a little perspective in life TBH.

I think we've treated him pretty badly myself. "Thanks for your efforts, but find yourself a new club on less money as you've got no future here. Cheers."

Absolutely, but it shows how little power these players have - and when you see what happened to players like Earl Thomas when they play on without those contracts it actually doesn't seem fair...there's a balance needed.

Indeed, it is extremely rare that players have any sort of power - if you look at what happened to Le'Veon last season, he's ended up on a worse team, on less money. Similar might happen to Melvin Gordon if he doesn't toe the line this season.

Libel's not a criminal act, you plum. You know less about law than you do the goings on at Saints.

Questioning it isn't. Asking a question is not libellous.

Having a smaller, better paid squad and ability to pay that bit more to players will obviously increase the quality of players available.

Only a small aspect of a third hand story has to be untrue to be libel though.

I don't think it's called "ITK snippets", it's called "libel".