Dynel Simeu

[Lighthouse]

1 hour ago, Saints foreva said:

Grim. 

There's nothing grim about it. Aside from a brief purple patch before his injury this season, he's been pretty average across his three years here. A good passer and physical presence but with some pretty obvious flaws.

[aintforever]

3 hours ago, Matthew Le God said:

A guess...

- Salisu to replace Vestergaard as first choice.

- Bednarek and Salisu as first choice centre back pairing.

- Stephens and Simeu as back-up.

- Vestergaard sold and funds used to improve the squad in other areas.

That’s what I thought.

[woodsaint1]

Looks a promising player. Im all for adding further depth to CB and hes one that can be developed further (we dont have many under 23s beating the first team door down).

I would be firmly against moving on Vestergaard and not replacing him just because we've signed Simeu. We would essentially be replacing an established PL and international CB with an under 23 player. Thats taking our CB depth backwards, and in case we all forgot, our defence shipped 68 goals last season. Even Sheff Utd conceded less

[BARCELONASAINT]

I love these completely under the radar signings. Please lets not judge this lad by his brothers antics!

[Saint Fan CaM]

Looks like a good signing with passing attributes Vestergard has. Should prep for Vesty’s departure then.

[Pilchards]

Although this is a great signing for us I feel that going into the season with Bednarek and Salisu as our main two centre backs is a big risk.

Maybe we will get a 3rd demanding centreback who will play In a back 3 with 2 very attacking wingbacks?

[benjii]

6 hours ago, Dusic said:

Nothing to dislike about this signing, exactly the type we should be looking to make more often.

Re Salisu & Bednarek partnership the bit that is really lacking for me is ability on the ball. Bednarek is a very safe passer and Salisu seems the same.

Can imagine oppo just letting them have the ball and covering their passing options and they would really struggle to initiate moves. Thats where Vestergaard does excel.

I know what you're saying but, perversely, Vestergaard's ability on the ball meant we were over reliant on him IMO. Initiating moves should be what the central midfielders do.

The best team on the ball, by far, in the Euros was Spain. Their centre backs play simple balls to Busquets and he knits play together. You don't need your centre backs to be taking people on and threading balls through the eye of a needle, you just need them to have a decent first touch and find a simple pass to someone better than them. That's where you need someone like JWP to step up and show some responsibility for creating things, rather than just playing the first 10 yard easy pass that he sees (usually back to the centre back). Romeu can knit things together but our other midfielders will need to do more. 

Being reliant on a centre back to be your play maker makes you easy to defend against, as our abysmal second half season form showed.

So, Vest out, this lad in cheaply and spend the money on someone willing to put their foot on the ball in midfield is a good strategy for me.

[Saints foreva]

6 hours ago, Lighthouse said:

There's nothing grim about it. Aside from a brief purple patch before his injury this season, he's been pretty average across his three years here. A good passer and physical presence but with some pretty obvious flaws.

I got no issues with us selling Vestergaard for the reasons you state. My grim comment is because we've shipped goals for fun the last 3 years with Bednarek being a mainstay in defence. CB is a position we need to improve on. 

[Ex Lion Tamer]

7 hours ago, woodsaint1 said:

Looks a promising player. Im all for adding further depth to CB and hes one that can be developed further (we dont have many under 23s beating the first team door down).

I would be firmly against moving on Vestergaard and not replacing him just because we've signed Simeu. We would essentially be replacing an established PL and international CB with an under 23 player. Thats taking our CB depth backwards, and in case we all forgot, our defence shipped 68 goals last season. Even Sheff Utd conceded less

We effectively replaced Vest last summer when we signed Salisu. And now we're signing Simeu to hopefully become a regular in 22/23

[SKD]

I Remember the days when we replaced Lovern with Alderweireld and then Alderweireld with van Dijk. 

Not slating the lad, he looks like he’ll be ideal for the future (Although, assuming he’s joined with the idea of being in / around the 1st team) just shows how far we’ve fallen in the scouting department. 

Personally, id rather he replaced Stephens (if we could find a buyer) and we find an upgrade on Vestergaard / Bedernak. Both of whom aren’t very good. 

[Sunglasses Ron]

2 minutes ago, SKD said:

I Remember the days when we replaced Lovern with Alderweireld and then Alderweireld with van Dijk. 

Not slating the lad, he looks like he’ll be ideal for the future (Although, assuming he’s joined with the idea of being in / around the 1st team) just shows how far we’ve fallen in the scouting department. 

Personally, id rather he replaced Stephens (if we could find a buyer) and we find an upgrade on Vestergaard / Bedernak. Both of whom aren’t very good. 

The thing is though, we've not sold anyone of note to fund the signing of another Van Dijk etc. As we all know, it was his transfer in particular that set off a horrendous run of dreadful signings that we continue to pay the price for to this very day.  Going for this lad makes complete sense given the situation we're in.  I remain very hopeful that Salisu will prove to be an excellent acquisition, he has a big season coming up! 

If we eventually sell Ings or Vest then there would obviously be the expectation that we'll put a concerted effort into signing one or two out-of-the-box solutions.

[Saint Garrett]

We can’t afford an Alderweireld or a VVD anymore. We’re rooting around the bargain bin, trying to buy a young players with large potential who will be decent in the future, but unlikely the same season. Or players like Armstrong who should be cheaper than they’re worth due to their contract value…

[SKD]

8 minutes ago, Saint Garrett said:

We can’t afford an Alderweireld or a VVD anymore. We’re rooting around the bargain bin, trying to buy a young players with large potential who will be decent in the future, but unlikely the same season. Or players like Armstrong who should be cheaper than they’re worth due to their contract value…

Alderweireld on loan and VvD was 13m. 

Obviously transfer fee’s have increased over the years, however there are still good players out there at affordable prices. 

look at Leicester, as a prime example. 

[Saint Garrett]

They’re often spending upwards of £20m which on their case is well worth it. We’re looking for the kind of players that were £2m-5m 5 years ago. 

[TWar]

3 hours ago, benjii said:

I know what you're saying but, perversely, Vestergaard's ability on the ball meant we were over reliant on him IMO. Initiating moves should be what the central midfielders do.

The best team on the ball, by far, in the Euros was Spain. Their centre backs play simple balls to Busquets and he knits play together. You don't need your centre backs to be taking people on and threading balls through the eye of a needle, you just need them to have a decent first touch and find a simple pass to someone better than them. That's where you need someone like JWP to step up and show some responsibility for creating things, rather than just playing the first 10 yard easy pass that he sees (usually back to the centre back). Romeu can knit things together but our other midfielders will need to do more. 

Being reliant on a centre back to be your play maker makes you easy to defend against, as our abysmal second half season form showed.

So, Vest out, this lad in cheaply and spend the money on someone willing to put their foot on the ball in midfield is a good strategy for me.

It's not really how it works. You can't have just one player who can start play otherwise the other team just stick a midfielder to man-mark them all game and that's that. We do over-rely on Vest but primarily because Romeu isn't a passer and neither was Bertrand, KWP was more the receiver sitting super high, Bednarek is dreadful with his feet and our GKs have, statistically, the worst distribution in the league. JWP had our most progressive passes in the league and our highest chance creation aside from the strikers setting eachother up. He was not the issue.

What we need is to replace a few of the other members of the back line/Romeu with people who can pass. Bertrand to Perraud would be a good start but it would be nice to get a more modern keeper too and for Diallo to kick on and challenge Romeu as he is already a lot better with the ball at his feat.

[tajjuk]

55 minutes ago, Saint Garrett said:

We can’t afford an Alderweireld or a VVD anymore. We’re rooting around the bargain bin, trying to buy a young players with large potential who will be decent in the future, but unlikely the same season. Or players like Armstrong who should be cheaper than they’re worth due to their contract value…

We bought Salisu for about the same amount as VVD and they were both similar profile, young relatively unproven talented centre-backs with good physical attributes. Not saying that Salisu is going to be as good as VVD at all, but we didn't know VVD was going to be as good as he was, hence why were able to buy him. But Salisu was rated as one of the best young centre back talents in Europe and had a very successful full season in La Liga.

Also Alderweireld was on loan from Atletico IIRC and had struggled to get into their first team, they had also only paid like £6 million for him, he was also far from a proven talent, he was again a promising player who hadn't found his feet at a big club.

None of our signings are ever proven quality because we have never been able to afford them, they are either young players from lesser leagues, i.e. Mane, VVD, Tadic, Jay Rod, Djenepo, Perraud, Salisu, Diallo, Adams etc. etc. of which many have not worked out (Ramirez, Boufal, Elynoussi being examples).

Or they are slightly older (like usually 23-26) players from bigger clubs who haven't found regular football, like Bertrand, Romeu, Ings, Lemina, Toby, Hoedt, again some of which haven't worked out. 

Then are some other slightly left field signings, like the Carrillo one or Pelle. 

Edit: Hopefully we will also add a few of these type of signings as well, young players in big club reserve teams who want a better pathway to first team football.  

Edited 22 July, 2021 by tajjuk

[Toadhall Saint]

2 minutes ago, tajjuk said:

We bought Salisu for about the same amount as VVD and they were both similar profile, young relatively unproven talented centre-backs with good physical attributes. Not saying that Salisu is going to be as good as VVD at all, but we didn't know VVD was going to be as good as he was, hence why were able to buy him. But Salisu was rated as one of the best young centre back talents in Europe and had a very successful full season in La Liga.

Also Alderweireld was on loan from Atletico IIRC and had struggled to get into their first team, they had also only paid like £6 million for him, he was also far from a proven talent, he was again a promising player who hadn't found his feet at a big club.

None of our signings are ever proven quality because we have never been able to afford them, they are either young players from lesser leagues, i.e. Mane, VVD, Tadic, Jay Rod, Djenepo, Perraud, Salisu, Diallo, Adams etc. etc. of which many have not worked out (Ramirez, Boufal, Elynoussi being examples).

Or they are slightly older (like usually 23-26) players from bigger clubs who haven't found regular football, like Bertrand, Romeu, Ings, Lemina, Toby, Hoedt, again some of which haven't worked out. 

Then are some other slightly left field signings, like the Carrillo one or Pelle. 

Exactly this.

[CB Fry]

16 minutes ago, tajjuk said:

We bought Salisu for about the same amount as VVD and they were both similar profile, young relatively unproven talented centre-backs with good physical attributes. Not saying that Salisu is going to be as good as VVD at all, but we didn't know VVD was going to be as good as he was, hence why were able to buy him. But Salisu was rated as one of the best young centre back talents in Europe and had a very successful full season in La Liga.

Also Alderweireld was on loan from Atletico IIRC and had struggled to get into their first team, they had also only paid like £6 million for him, he was also far from a proven talent, he was again a promising player who hadn't found his feet at a big club.

None of our signings are ever proven quality because we have never been able to afford them, they are either young players from lesser leagues, i.e. Mane, VVD, Tadic, Jay Rod, Djenepo, Perraud, Salisu, Diallo, Adams etc. etc. of which many have not worked out (Ramirez, Boufal, Elynoussi being examples).

Or they are slightly older (like usually 23-26) players from bigger clubs who haven't found regular football, like Bertrand, Romeu, Ings, Lemina, Toby, Hoedt, again some of which haven't worked out. 

Then are some other slightly left field signings, like the Carrillo one or Pelle. 

Edit: Hopefully we will also add a few of these type of signings as well, young players in big club reserve teams who want a better pathway to first team football.  

Exactly - its perfectly possible we would sign a young defender from a club like Celtic. What we did then we could do again now.

[DT]

13 hours ago, Matthew Le God said:

A guess...

- Salisu to replace Vestergaard as first choice.

- Bednarek and Salisu as first choice centre back pairing.

- Stephens and Simeu as back-up.

- Vestergaard sold and funds used to improve the squad in other areas.

I reckon that's about right, although I suspect only a portion of the funds...

Good signing on the face of it.

 

[SaintBitterne]

Vestergaard has had about 10/15 good games for us and his passing whilst good is such a low percentage method for success, I would prefer us to move away from our over reliance on it. 

Whilst he has improved, any striker with an ounce of pace would still fancy themselves against him and he always has a clanger waiting to happen.

The truth is there's probably not much between him and Bednarek, but one only has a year left on his contract and supposed interested so it makes sense to move him on and fund other areas.

.... Regardless, I think this could be a shrewd signing and at very least it's always nice to see a local lad get a chance.

[VectisSaint]

Sounds to me like this guy is initially for the B team, only 19 clearly one for the future. Can't see this makes any difference to our first team defence, for now.

Edited 22 July, 2021 by VectisSaint
Got his age wrong

[SKD]

1 minute ago, VectisSaint said:

Sounds to me like this guy is initially for the B team, only 18 clearly one for the future. Can't see this makes any difference to our first team defence, for now.

Can’t imagine he’ll be leaving the best ‘B’ team in the country to join ours… 

He’ll be in and around the first team. 

[ErwinK1961]

Nice to see us getting involved with these types of signings - and also good to see some of these youngsters actually willing to fly the nest and make sensible career moves.

 

Like others have said though, I hope this isn't our Vestergaard replacement. I was hoping selling JV would give us an opportunity to improve the defence, which has been so poor for the last 3 seasons. If that's the case, there is a hell of a lot of pressure on Salisu to step up and be the main man (and for Bednarek to sort his shit out).

[benjii]

1 hour ago, TWar said:

It's not really how it works. You can't have just one player who can start play otherwise the other team just stick a midfielder to man-mark them all game and that's that. We do over-rely on Vest but primarily because Romeu isn't a passer and neither was Bertrand, KWP was more the receiver sitting super high, Bednarek is dreadful with his feet and our GKs have, statistically, the worst distribution in the league. JWP had our most progressive passes in the league and our highest chance creation aside from the strikers setting eachother up. He was not the issue.

What we need is to replace a few of the other members of the back line/Romeu with people who can pass. Bertrand to Perraud would be a good start but it would be nice to get a more modern keeper too and for Diallo to kick on and challenge Romeu as he is already a lot better with the ball at his feat.

My point was precisely that we did have one player - Vest - that we over relied on and that others need to do more, in particular our midfielders. Not that we get one midfielder in to do all our passing.

So I think you actually agree with me.

[TWar]

4 minutes ago, benjii said:

My point was precisely that we did have one player - Vest - that we over relied on and that others need to do more, in particular our midfielders. Not that we get one midfielder in to do all our passing.

So I think you actually agree with me.

I personally think we have three players, Vest, JWP, and a deep dropping Stuart Armstrong to progress the ball effectively but we could do with 6 or 7. Like how in Liverpool, for example, VvD, Matip, Robbo, Trent, Allison, Thiago, and Henderson are all great passers so they can play the system we want to with quick turn over, we can't as we have two players before our attacking line who can pick a pass, maybe three if you include KWP.

But yeah I think we are fundamentally on the same page that we are way over reliant on Vest and because of that his value is much higher to us than it should be for his quality and we should look to fix the fundamental flaws with the team rather than keeping Vest around to tape up the cracks.

Edited 22 July, 2021 by TWar

[Give it to Ron]

59 minutes ago, VectisSaint said:

Sounds to me like this guy is initially for the B team, only 18 clearly one for the future. Can't see this makes any difference to our first team defence, for now.

Not what was said yesterday that he is joining first team squad and Ralph 

[the saint in winchester]

The statement was that he would be part of Ralph's squad, so not part of the U23 squad.

Looks a decent player and could well become a first choice this season.

[Toadhall Saint]

So is this done?

[the saint in winchester]

Not until on the Saints FC website. Or at least as on the Sky Sports transfer window as a Confirmed Deal.

[VectisSaint]

1 hour ago, the saint in winchester said:

The statement was that he would be part of Ralph's squad, so not part of the U23 squad.

Looks a decent player and could well become a first choice this season.

Didn't know that the two were mutually exclusive, you seriously think an 19 year old CB is going to be a regular in the 1st team. I'm sure he will train with the 1st team and might be given the odd run out this season, maybe in the Cups, but clearly he is one for the future. Surprised also that no one on here has dismissed him for being too short either, maybe they imagine he will put on a growth spurt. 

Edited 22 July, 2021 by VectisSaint

[whiteleySaint30]

5 hours ago, Ex Lion Tamer said:

We effectively replaced Vest last summer when we signed Salisu. And now we're signing Simeu to hopefully become a regular in 22/23

We signed salisu to plug a gap in the squad last season so if Vest goes we need an experienced cb - no doubt Simeu will be good in the future but we can't replace Vest with someone who has zero games in senior football.

[Ex Lion Tamer]

56 minutes ago, whiteleySaint30 said:

We signed salisu to plug a gap in the squad last season so if Vest goes we need an experienced cb - no doubt Simeu will be good in the future but we can't replace Vest with someone who has zero games in senior football.

Salisu has substantial experience in La Liga and won't be staying on the bench for another year. Our strategy is (often) to grow players so that after a year or so they are ready to step up when first teamers leave

[whiteleySaint30]

1 hour ago, Ex Lion Tamer said:

Salisu has substantial experience in La Liga and won't be staying on the bench for another year. Our strategy is (often) to grow players so that after a year or so they are ready to step up when first teamers leave

So if Salisu or Bednarek get injured long term the options are? Stephens = not good enough - Simeu = zero prem game under his belt. My point being - if Vest leaves we need to replace him to give us the depth in our squad - not sure if you noticed but we struggled with that last season - I don't want the squad to thin out even more in terms of experienced players (in this case a seasoned prem and international player) without them being replaced. 

[SuperSAINT]

 

[Ivan Katalinic's 'tache]

1 minute ago, SuperSAINT said:

 

"has a clear pathway to the first team" - he's seen Stephens and Bednarek play then...

[Saint86]

11 hours ago, Pilchards said:

Although this is a great signing for us I feel that going into the season with Bednarek and Salisu as our main two centre backs is a big risk.

Maybe we will get a 3rd demanding centreback who will play In a back 3 with 2 very attacking wingbacks?

It will be fine as long as Romeu is fit 😘

[Saint86]

7 hours ago, SKD said:

Alderweireld on loan and VvD was 13m. 

Obviously transfer fee’s have increased over the years, however there are still good players out there at affordable prices. 

look at Leicester, as a prime example. 

We hadn't fucked our wage budget up a wall back then  Also, that was our upwards momentum curve - young squad, selling and improving, a great shop window for players and knocking on europe. Then we signed an absolute pile of awful for high fees, on big wages, with long contracts. And we've been fighting the decline ever since.

Edited 22 July, 2021 by Saint86

[OldNick]

1 hour ago, whiteleySaint30 said:

So if Salisu or Bednarek get injured long term the options are? Stephens = not good enough - Simeu = zero prem game under his belt. My point being - if Vest leaves we need to replace him to give us the depth in our squad - not sure if you noticed but we struggled with that last season - I don't want the squad to thin out even more in terms of experienced players (in this case a seasoned prem and international player) without them being replaced. 

Frankly we shipped 60 plus goals last season and so there must be a major problem there whoever we play!!! 

We are a mess at present unless we pull some players out of the bag

[OldNick]

1 hour ago, SuperSAINT said:

 

I read 3 signings and got excied that I had missed one. Then I saw one was Theo ffs !! To me that is not a true new signing as he was ours last season

[Dark Munster]

We've had some very good signings from Chelsea over the years (apart from Speedie and Dixon of course). So hopefully he'll be another one.

[JRM]

4 minutes ago, Dark Munster said:

We've had some very good signings from Chelsea over the years (apart from Speedie and Dixon of course). So hopefully he'll be another one.

Jack Cork 

Romeu 

Bertrand 

Le Saux 

Monkou 

Osgood 

Definitely more good ones than bad 

[JRM]

2 hours ago, OldNick said:

I read 3 signings and got excied that I had missed one. Then I saw one was Theo ffs !! To me that is not a true new signing as he was ours last season

Agree can't really count Walcott , he's not a new additional player in the squad 

[alehouseboys]

20 minutes ago, JRM said:

Jack Cork 

Romeu 

Bertrand 

Le Saux 

Monkou 

Osgood 

Definitely more good ones than bad 

I was one happy lad when we signed Ossie, big signing for us at the time - would have been nice to have got Alan Hudson at the same time but he ended up at Stoke.

[derry]

Vestergaard's biggest weaknesses are to be painfully slow and switching off. I don't buy into his going forward because when we lose the ball he is so slow, he is out of the game defensively, can't get back, causing a big hole in our defence with Bednarek exposed, KWP up the field often ending up in a goal conceded. Vestergaard needs to cover Bednarek and vice versa. I think he is a massive weakness and the sooner we find a mug the better we'll be. We can then use some of the money to find another Salisu mobile type of centre back.

[Ex Lion Tamer]

1 hour ago, JRM said:

Jack Cork 

Romeu 

Bertrand 

Le Saux 

Monkou 

Osgood 

Definitely more good ones than bad 

Beasant

[Ex Lion Tamer]

13 minutes ago, derry said:

Vestergaard's biggest weaknesses are to be painfully slow and switching off. I don't buy into his going forward because when we lose the ball he is so slow, he is out of the game defensively, can't get back, causing a big hole in our defence with Bednarek exposed, KWP up the field often ending up in a goal conceded. Vestergaard needs to cover Bednarek and vice versa. I think he is a massive weakness and the sooner we find a mug the better we'll be. We can then use some of the money to find another Salisu mobile type of centre back.

I think a lot of people are going to be disappointed if they think we're going to sign another centre back to replace Vest. This is it unless Stephens goes as well

Edited 22 July, 2021 by Ex Lion Tamer

[VectisSaint]

10 hours ago, the saint in winchester said:

The statement was that he would be part of Ralph's squad, so not part of the U23 squad.

Looks a decent player and could well become a first choice this season.

The "statement" you referred to was from Fabrizio Romano. Tom Leach has since "confirmed" my thoughts. Who do you believe? Nothing has been reported by Saints, the rest is just tittle tattle, but all logic points to Tom Leach's version, no one is going to put a 19 year old CB with no league experience in the first team (straight away). Like I said. I'm sure he will become a good player, and maybe make an odd appearance for us this coming season - let's hope he grows a bit as well 🤣

[woodsaint1]

9 hours ago, Ex Lion Tamer said:

Salisu has substantial experience in La Liga and won't be staying on the bench for another year. Our strategy is (often) to grow players so that after a year or so they are ready to step up when first teamers leave

That experience in La Liga is all well and good, but he also needs to adapt to the physicality of the PL and quick. Salisu was badly bullied by Calvert-Lewin last season, it was actually hard to watch at times. If Vestergaard goes, I dont think Salisu is ready to lead our defence (great potential but has he even hit double figures in appearancesnyet?). Jury is also out on Bednarek after his performances last season. Thats why a good replacement for Vestergaard is imperative. We should be looking at somebody who will improve our defence straight away and move Bednarek to third choice. If Simeu is good enough he'll be putting pressure on those ahead of him. As others have posted, two injuries/suspensions at CB and we could be down to Bednarek/Stephens and Simeu. Yikes.

[SKD]

6 hours ago, Saint86 said:

We hadn't fucked our wage budget up a wall back then  Also, that was our upwards momentum curve - young squad, selling and improving, a great shop window for players and knocking on europe. Then we signed an absolute pile of awful for high fees, on big wages, with long contracts. And we've been fighting the decline ever since.

I don’t disagree, I’m just saying how badly our scouting team has regressed. 
 

Im sure there is a new Toby or VVD (whilst at us, not the Liverpool VVD) out there at an affordable price I wouldn’t trust us to find him though. 

[suewhistle]

Hmmm, this has all gone a bit quiet. Time to ignore forum speculation and wait for the OS - and that's a general observation!