Beckenham Saint

"NUFC 360‏ @NUFC360 The agent of Ruben Semedo, Catio Balde, has told Desporto Au Minuto that claims of him moving to #NUFC are "all lies.""

Been rearranged for 10th May, with the United game a week later.

koeman couldn't even beat Sheffield United in this cup when they were out of form, come off it

Caceras very heavily focused on the latest march to wembley post by the club on twitter. Maybe he will be starting on Sunday!

If this is still going, can you pm me? I don't know How To do it!

He was worth it just for that goal. Went nuts when that went in. Had similar levels of anxiety watching last night to leeds away in the championship

Yeah, they do. West Ham is the last game that is counted, Saints twitter confirmed to me a minute ago. Gutted about the criteria, been to 50ish games in the last few years (including up to Sheffield for the worst excuse for a performance in the league cup a few years back!) but will probably miss out as not been able to make it as much this year for various reasons

Worst moment for me came in an interview when he had signed a new contract with us (think it was the 2015 one) - when asked why he had extended his stay with us he shrugged and looked smug as you like, saying "well, this is for the fans. They love me" - not just been since the Euros that he has had an ego on him! Some others include the short back passes vs United, Villa, Norwich and others that have lead to goals since our return to the Prem (the exact kind of passes that Yoshida gets crucified for, but get forgotten when Fonte does them), or any time he goes in too heavily on players in the box leaving you to wonder how he hasn't given away even more penalties, and of course, engineering a move away this summer and then pretending he wanted to stay all along the day after the window closed and no one came in for him. Great for us in the lower leagues, especially great memories of the goals against Brighton and Coventry, and a reliable in the Prem but not without his faults by any means. £8m is great business and looking forward to seeing who replaces him.

Puel said today in the press conference that we're not interested in Sahko, and that it's just speculation. I've never thought we were really in for him, doesn't seem like a very "us" signing. Could easily see us inquiring about Semedo, Kimpembe, Schar, Hernandez or other, similar players and then making a concrete move for one of them once Fonte goes.

I don't think it reads that they're mutually exclusive - replace Fonte when he goes AND add to the squad if possible.

Would Puel still be out of his depth if Rodriguez, Long, Redmond and Austin took even half of the chances they wasted?

nice touch from them to give him the no 2 shirt as a nod to the fact he's half the player now than when he left us

Not sure if it's been posted on here but apparently we've been linked to Valere Germain again. Looks to be a fairly good striker, good with the ball at his feet and looks like he got a goal every other game on average last season. Also worked with Puel before so would know the system already

Wasn't there a stat floating around just before Christmas that we'd made more chances under Puel? The reason we have such low "goals for" is that we're relying on Long, Austin and Rodriguez to finish off our chances. They should each have comfortably more goals than they do this year. It certainly has been better football than under Koeman when it's been going well this year (especially the 1st half of last season), when we were hitting it long all the time and hoping for the best

2/10.

I think in the context here, stability meant not playing a player who doesn't want to be with the club.

How can you say that you don't listen to / watch the interviews and then comment on it? "I haven't seen what we're talking about but..." I'd say if you listen, his English is getting better all the time and much better than Pochettino's when he (very rarely) made the effort. How is your French? It's got to be difficult giving a press conference in a language you only started speaking last year, and a lot different to having a conversation as you need to be careful with your answers and have less time to think about them. He said that the situation with Fonte was difficult and that he wants to keep stability in the defense, which, is pretty obviously saying he doesn't want distracted players in the team. We've got to the semi final without Fonte, I for one am happy he'll be missing out again.

http://www.skysports.com/football/news/11095/10652261/red-bull-not-trying-to-buy-football-club-in-england

Will there be a stream of this later? I know league cup games have been a bit hard to find streams for occasionally but you'd think there'd be something as it's two prem teams...

Bit of a long shot I'm desperately looking for 2 tickets for United away on Friday. Does anyone have any going / know of anyone who does? Massive thanks in advance!

When we first came up I thought Gaston was a huge statement of intent and was very excited. I still maintain he wasn't as bad as some make him out to be, on here. Since then, Alderweireld was another huge one considering he'd just played in the champions league final. Since then, VVD, Romeu and Holjbjerg have all been big, exciting additions, the latter mainly because of the clubs they came from.

I don't get the Clasie criticism and have seen some list his name alongside "failures" like Gaston, Mayuka and Osvaldo before. He gets about a lot, has a good range of passing and when he plays is of a very consistent level. I think he's been tarred with the "failure" brush because he picked up a few injuries last year, which is hardly anything he could help. I think he does little things well and is a very tidy player, doesn't score or assist but is a good defensive midfielder and will be important to have players like him this year with the extra games. I think Koeman's long ball football didn't help him in the 2nd part of last season as the midfield was quite often bypassed altogether with hoofs up to Pelle and it's probably very difficult to look good in that situation!

could be waiting to do a big interview with him in the first programme of the season to ship a few extra units of it?

They've just announced Negredo, too, as well as confirming Ramirez will stay with them last night. Building a pretty decent squad. Wonder where Dave Nugent will fit in.