Bermuda Saint

WOW what a week, NC leaving, MP staying, Players not being sold. Since this is a transfer thread I will stick to the topic. New people in, not likely, not that I as a fan would not like to see big money , proven players to come in, but its not going to happen the big clubs are looking for new talent too, they will beat us to anyone with any WORLD CLASS talent. The relegation teams will pay over the odds for the rest of the OK players that are available for a January move. Loans I don't like if we have no real chance of signing them full time (like Saha). So here we are with what we have, and to be honest, we have A LOT!!, a team that can beat the best when playing our strongest players and some promising youngsters in the wings that need to be tested. We had a bad spell of results during Christmas, playing top sides that were coming into form, but I saw a team that still competed even though we had key players out and some bad luck. Never had i thought we don't belong on the same pitch as those big teams, we are a good team worthy of challenging for Europe. Now the key part. Just a few more points and then we will be safe. Don't underestimate that, SAFE from relegation and the millions it brings to a club. Half of the league is not SAFE!! bottom 10 are all under huge pressure to stay up. So MP will have an envious position, he will have the time to really tinker and test the players he needs to integrate into his team, I feel we have two major signing still to come in and help this team (Ossie and Ramerez), they still have huge potential (I see it, and hope they can prove it), we have our youth that can be integrated and tested to see how they can handle the PL, our youth coaches have not been to far off when they said Luke and JWP can make the step up, there are about 3-5 more they say are good enough to make it, lets see them tested in the relegation free second half of the season. They are all playing the MP style in training, he is known for integrating youth. This will give him the time to assess these boys under real PL challenges. We had a taste of the top 4, but realized we need more depth, more of our present squad to show they can step up to fill in for the consistent good players. This will help MP immensely in deciding what we really need for next seasons push up the table. I agree we should have a real go for the FA cup this year, our best 11, playing for silverware like there lives depended on it!!!..........now this brings me back to the drama circus of the present. This all depends on where MP head is at, I am staying to make this SFC a top team or I am biding my time to leave at the end of the year

WOW what a week, NC leaving, MP staying, Players not being sold. Since this is a transfer thread I will stick to the topic. New people in, not likely, not that I as a fan would not like to see big money , proven players to come in, but its not going to happen the big clubs are looking for new talent too, they will beat us to anyone with any WORLD CLASS talent. The relegation teams will pay over the odds for the rest of the OK players that are available for a January move. Loans I don't like if we have no real chance of signing them full time (like Saha). So here we are with what we have, and to be honest, we have A LOT!!, a team that can beat the best when playing our strongest players and some promising youngsters in the wings that need to be tested. We had a bad spell of results during Christmas, playing top sides that were coming into form, but I saw a team that still competed even though we had key players out and some bad luck. Never had i thought we don't belong on the same pitch as those big teams, we are a good team worthy of challenging for Europe. Now the key part. Just a few more points and then we will be safe. Don't underestimate that, SAFE from relegation and the millions it brings to a club. Half of the league is not SAFE!! bottom 10 are all under huge pressure to stay up. So MP will have an envious position, he will have the time to really tinker and test the players he needs to integrate into his team, I feel we have two major signing still to come in and help this team (Ossie and Ramerez), they still have huge potential (I see it, and hope they can prove it), we have our youth that can be integrated and tested to see how they can handle the PL, our youth coaches have not been to far off when they said Luke and JWP can make the step up, there are about 3-5 more they say are good enough to make it, lets see them tested in the relegation free second half of the season. They are all playing the MP style in training, he is known for integrating youth. This will give him the time to assess these boys under real PL challenges. We had a taste of the top 4, but realized we need more depth, more of our present squad to show they can step up to fill in for the consistent good players. This will help MP immensely in deciding what we really need for next seasons push up the table. I agree we should have a real go for the FA cup this year, our best 11, playing for silverware like there lives depended on it!!!..........now this brings me back to the drama circus of the present. This all depends on where MP head is at, I am staying to make this SFC a top team or I am biding my time to leave at the end of the year

you might disappear if you came here, more golf courses per square mile, smallest draw bridge in the world, pink beaches and funny shorts, you will win an all expenses paid vacation if you can guess where I am from.

BACK TO TRANSFER NEWS: I see that Sunderland are in for a Argentinian CB, Santiago Vergini, 25 yrs old, 6'3",highly rated and dirt cheap, under a million, I wonder if our Argentine, ex CB coach thinks he is worth a punt. I like the possibility of getting a quality player like Fredy Guarín, his versatility as an attacking midfielder or a more central player, not to mention an ability to shoot from distance with both feet. He is supposedly wanted by Chelsea (can't see it, they are stuffed with CM). Now January is not an ideal time to buy players that are quality, because they are usually way overpriced and have very little time to adapt to a new team. But this year being a WC year you will get a lot of quality players that are wanting to get into their WC squads and pushing for a move (good for us) and some are at the end of their contracts and their clubs will be motivated to sell as to not loose out on a transfer fee (like Astori). As for Gaston and Osvaldo, I agree there is quality there, and with more integrating with the squad and system I think they will come good. I am not willing to let them go until they have a full preseason with us, which will require more patience for the fans, and this years world cup may stifle that integration even longer. If we cannot afford to hold onto a couple of promising Internationals then we have no hope of being a top 6 side, look at how many great players these big clubs have on high wages and not playing every week!at some point we will have to be able to afford to have quality players in depth. I do worry about our meteoric rise up the leagues, with the culmination of being in 3rd place earlier in the season, it lead to dreams of grandeur (i was dreaming of winning the league!, good dream that was) ahead of our squads capabilities. Not to say we can't do it, but the likes of Adam, Morgan, Jack got to improve their skills by playing match games every week for years to become the players they are. Will we give the time to JWP, Chambers, Reed and Gallager (even Ramerez) to improve their promising careers to become fully accomplished footballers, or will our desire to get to the top see us try to buy our way to the top to the detriment of our academy youth and young players. These players will take several years to be the finished articles, will we be patient enough to let this story unfold?

I still see what we paid for in Gaston, a young talented footballer that has the potential to be great. Not the finished product (we would have had to pay double for the finished player), he is willing to take players on, be direct and lay off some sublime passes. I remember a young Giggs, Bale and Lallanna loosing many a dribble to opponents, but they kept at it and now have a much higher "beat the man" ratio. Even Lallanna has said the quality and vision of Gaston was something special when he sees him in training. So give the boy time to develop his game with the rest of the young squad.

These cup games are perfect for giving our academy players to get more playing time. They need every opportunity to improve to break into the first team if we are serious about bringing in more academy players. We have a few teenagers in our first team that have proven they are prem standard. So we need to test a few more to see where we are in terms of strength in depth. If Gallager and Reed can show the same quality as Chambers,JWP and Shaw it will help the depth of our squad. I still feel this is a testing period for all our players. Poch is testing who can make the grade and who can't. We had a great start which clouded the issue in that we thought we could reach higher than our squad depth would allow, but a few injuries and tough games against the big boys has shown we are still short in quality and depth. He has been patient with many like Hoov and Fox, giving them far more games than we humble fans would have, but he has hopefully seen enough to cut them loose. He is known for giving youth a chance, and this take patience, because Poch can see the quality of a player in training and games, he will know if the player is worth developing. Suppose Wenger gave into the pressure of not sticking with Ramsey or Theo, they were given the time and games to develop. The more Poch can stress test the academy and fringe players without jeopardizing our PL standings, the better he and Cortese will know where to strengthen and spend those millions so generously provided. Yes I would like to win the FA cup, but I would like to strengthen this team even more by finding out who is up to the task of moving us forward. The day when we have 20+ great players will be the time to challenge for all cups and PL. If our fringe players can get past this round and give the first team time to get enough points on the board to feel safe from relegation then I would like to see the best 11 we have to fight for the later rounds of the FA cup, and play the future stars and players that need improving the rest of the PL to stake a claim to the first team. This will give Poch and NC a much better idea of who will be needed in the summer transfer window.

I am a big fan of Cork, his tenacity and athleticism is perfect for the way we play, his quickness of feet and intelligence under pressure allows him wriggle out of many tight situations. Would like to see a Wayama and Cork pairing to compare.