January 2023 Transfer Window

[Badger]

3 minutes ago, Turkish said:

It’s my mission to get them to answer me as to why they aren’t also in the men’s toilets 

Good point. Don't forget to wear your rainbow laces or shirt when you storm the club offices demanding answers. Just to let them see what a Diversity Champion you are.

 

None of which helps bringing in a CF.

Edited 22 January, 2023 by Badger

[danjosaint]

2 hours ago, Chez said:

The idea that Jones was brought in with the Championship in mind is poppycock. We'd only played 14 of 38 league games. You may have given up at that point, but SR most certainly hadn't.

What so somebody at SR said 'i know just the right manager for our premier league push, now that is poppycock, he has been appointed as they knew there was a very good chance we'd be relegated, the 1 thing they have got right

[Turkish]

15 minutes ago, Badger said:

Good point. Don't forget to wear your rainbow laces or shirt when you storm the club offices demanding answers. Just to let them see what a Diversity Champion you are.

 

None of which helps bringing in a CF.

Any player worth having will want to join a forward thinking modern club leading the charge for diversity. How inspired would you be as a potential new employ to see a white board pitch from Semmens about our sustainability and diversity policies to name but a few. You won’t get that from Karen Brady

[Hodgey]

It infuriates me when people buy the clubs nonsense around ‘we can’t compete’ and ‘we can’t find someone better than out championship standard players’. We’re the 30th richest club in the world, we play in a division 90pc of players aspire to, we pay well, it’s a decent place to live, we’ve produced or helped world class players like Bale, Van Dijk, Mane. And if anyone still wants to argue - can I suggest they take a look at Brighton who seem to be able to spot and get the next superstar with regularity, without having to spend 30m plus. Someone should be asking big questions about our scouting network and not making excuses for them.

[Osvaldorama]

1 hour ago, Wade Garrett said:

Probably vaping hipster twats wanking over xG stats.

Whoever they are, whether they are spotty student virgins wanking each other off over Football Manager or not, they need to pull their fingers out and find a striker.

I’m pretty sure if it was my full time job to scout the world and find someone better than Adam Armstrong and Che Adams it would take less than a couple of weeks to come up with a huge list. I agree with the post above, for our “model” to work we have to have the best scouts in the league  

Whoever sits above them also needs to understand that ‘Experience’ is a vital metric to add to their spreadsheet too. Something which has clearly been overlooked until now. 
 

 

Edited 22 January, 2023 by Osvaldorama

[Dusic]

9 minutes ago, Hodgey said:

It infuriates me when people buy the clubs nonsense around ‘we can’t compete’ and ‘we can’t find someone better than out championship standard players’. We’re the 30th richest club in the world, we play in a division 90pc of players aspire to, we pay well, it’s a decent place to live, we’ve produced or helped world class players like Bale, Van Dijk, Mane. And if anyone still wants to argue - can I suggest they take a look at Brighton who seem to be able to spot and get the next superstar with regularity, without having to spend 30m plus. Someone should be asking big questions about our scouting network and not making excuses for them.

Very fair point, although interestingly the one position Brighton (and many other 'smaller' clubs) have never got right is centre forward.

Fair to say its the most difficult position to recruit - Man Utd for all their wealth have gone for Weghorst and clubs like Leeds and Wolves have spent huge sums in January on players with very mediocre goal records.

[HarvSFC]

Lets just be thankful Man City rejected our offer for Liam Delap in the summer. 3 goals in 24 Championship appearances. Now looking for his first Preston goal after struggling at Stoke, played 129 minutes for Preston so far.

Another good player identified by the recruitment team/Shields.

[Badger]

1 hour ago, Hodgey said:

And if anyone still wants to argue - can I suggest they take a look at Brighton who seem to be able to spot and get the next superstar with regularity, without having to spend 30m plus. Someone should be asking big questions about our scouting network and not making excuses for them.

Good post and in line with my view on it.

I've said before about Brighton , that they've quietly gone about their recruitment whilst our hierarchy (Reed, Wilson, Semmens) have largely just talked about it.

But it should not be forgotten that Saints invented clever scouting, and the publicised 'Black Box' as widely spoken about in 2014. Trouble is that those involved - at the time and since - believed their own hype too much. All of which predates Rasmus, who may be similar  from what we've seen to date.

Edited 22 January, 2023 by Badger

[ally_uk]

How we operate is embarrassing constantly trying to underpay... 

It's not rocket science is it January window opens boom sign a striker.....

What are these clowns at the helm doing? Taking us into the Championship 

 

[woodsaint1]

2 hours ago, derry said:

I heard a concerning thing if true about our scouting. It was that we have a bunch of graduates with Sports Degrees on computers scouting. No wonder if that's true we are signing mostly trash. 

It's not rocket science, pace, non negotiable, Strength, non negotiable, a cool football brain, non negotiable, two footed, non negotiable, skills such as tackleing, heading,  shooting as appropriate to position, non negotiable and above all courageous. It doesn't take much watching to pick out what's wrong with most of our players. Defenders, one footed, slow, poor in the air and just stupid how did that happen.

I think you're referring to the recruitment support team who compile the database of clips of players from videos of games. They dont do the scouting. The scouts still go out and do the scouting and then they supplement their reviews with clips from the database. Our scouting network isnt huge so we need to review videos of games the scouts cant get to.

[Toussaint]

2 hours ago, derry said:

I heard a concerning thing if true about our scouting. It was that we have a bunch of graduates with Sports Degrees on computers scouting. No wonder if that's true we are signing mostly trash. 

It's not rocket science, pace, non negotiable, Strength, non negotiable, a cool football brain, non negotiable, two footed, non negotiable, skills such as tackleing, heading,  shooting as appropriate to position, non negotiable and above all courageous. It doesn't take much watching to pick out what's wrong with most of our players. Defenders, one footed, slow, poor in the air and just stupid how did that happen.

For all those attributes in one player, £80 million, non negotiable 😉 

Edited 22 January, 2023 by Toussaint

[John B]

57 minutes ago, Hodgey said:

It infuriates me when people buy the clubs nonsense around ‘we can’t compete’ and ‘we can’t find someone better than out championship standard players’. We’re the 30th richest club in the world, we play in a division 90pc of players aspire to, we pay well, it’s a decent place to live, we’ve produced or helped world class players like Bale, Van Dijk, Mane. And if anyone still wants to argue - can I suggest they take a look at Brighton who seem to be able to spot and get the next superstar with regularity, without having to spend 30m plus. Someone should be asking big questions about our scouting network and not making excuses for them.

Very true - something that annoys me is that the Academy has not produced a regular PL for SFC for years in fact yesterday there was not even an academy player even on the bench

 

So what is the point of the Academy 

[Wade Garrett]

I’m fucking sick of our ‘model’.

We’re more like a stock exchange for players than a football club.  It’s been doing my head in for years.

[Turkish]

1 hour ago, Hodgey said:

It infuriates me when people buy the clubs nonsense around ‘we can’t compete’ and ‘we can’t find someone better than out championship standard players’. We’re the 30th richest club in the world, we play in a division 90pc of players aspire to, we pay well, it’s a decent place to live, we’ve produced or helped world class players like Bale, Van Dijk, Mane. And if anyone still wants to argue - can I suggest they take a look at Brighton who seem to be able to spot and get the next superstar with regularity, without having to spend 30m plus. Someone should be asking big questions about our scouting network and not making excuses for them.

The ones that buy all that are a bunch of saps that would lap up any old shite the club told them. We’ve had 11 frigging years of premier league TV money,  aren’t there only something like 6 clubs been in the premier league longer than us and for only really up until the last couple of seasons most signings were funded by sales. There is absolutely no reason why we can’t compete with with all but the top 6-8 clubs. Fans have been conditioned to think £15m is a lot of money for us, we were spending that 10 years ago FFS. It’s because the clubs ambition has been to stay in the premier  league while spending as little as possible. 
 

When you’ve got goons like Semmens running the show saying we’re entitled and we should just be grateful to be on the league whilst at the same time expecting fans to fork out an absolute fortune but if they play down manage expectations, make us believe that you should just be thankful for what youve got it then they’re playing a blinder as a lot of fans buy it. 

[Osvaldorama]

19 minutes ago, Wade Garrett said:

I’m fucking sick of our ‘model’.

We’re more like a stock exchange for players than a football club.  It’s been doing my head in for years.

But it’s working so well! 

[Monk]

1 hour ago, HarvSFC said:

Lets just be thankful Man City rejected our offer for Liam Delap in the summer. 3 goals in 24 Championship appearances. Now looking for his first Preston goal after struggling at Stoke, played 129 minutes for Preston so far.

Another good player identified by the recruitment team/Shields.

I'm gonna (slightly) play devils advocate on this. I can't argue your point about the bid from our perspective and it's value but Liam Delap is rated very highly in football circles.

You have to be slightly careful when it comes to gauging a players potential ability when using their early career loans as a marker. Harry Kane, is arguably the best example of this. Liam was (still is) very highly thought of by Manchester City and England. I won't lie, I was really pleased to hear we were in for him (perhaps not for the rumoured value the fee was reported) but nonetheless a player I feel will go on and have a decent Premier League career. If it was say a £10-15 million deal then fair enough but as you rightly highlight, at £25+ there was more 'proven' players worth pursuing. 

There's a young player on loan at the club I work for now, he's very highly rated by his parent club in the PL and hasn't quite hit it off here. There's always a number of variables to loans not working out and I'd bet my bottom dollar if the lad played 10 games for his parent club right now, he'd have scored more goals than his current football league club - most likely due to the standard and frequency of service better players would provide him (his current club in possession model doesn't perhaps suit his profile).

I would've liked to have seen us make a move for Beto if this rumoured £25million is available. 

Edited 22 January, 2023 by Monk

[Ivan Katalinic's 'tache]

Let's hope Fabrizio knows again...?

[Lord Duckhunter]

1 hour ago, Badger said:

Good post and in line with my view on it.

I've said before about Brighton , that they've quietly gone about their recruitment whilst our hierarchy (Reed, Wilson, Semmens) have largely just talked about it.

 

Fucking hell, Brighton have a couple of decent seasons, sign some good players and all of a sudden some of our supporters are in awe of them.

Brighton aren’t doing anything we didn’t do a decade ago. We were the “model” club then, and somebody else will be in a couple of years. They’re having to sell their best players and at the moment aren’t missing them, remind you of anyone? They’ll end up selling too many, & making some shite decisions and managerial appointments and in a few short years their supporters will be pointing at another club wailing “why can’t we be like them”. When they’ve got into Europe, a cup final and had 4 top 8 finishes running, perhaps you should lay off the “Reed only talked about it” pony. 

Edited 22 January, 2023 by Lord Duckhunter

[charliemiller]

18 minutes ago, Monk said:

I'm gonna (slightly) play devils advocate on this. I can't argue your point about the bid from our perspective and it's value but Liam Delap is rated very highly in football circles.

You have to be slightly careful when it comes to gauging a players potential ability when using their early career loans as a marker. Harry Kane, is arguably the best example of this. Liam was (still is) very highly thought of by Manchester City and England. I won't lie, I was really pleased to hear we were in for him (perhaps not for the rumoured value the fee was reported) but nonetheless a player I feel will go on and have a decent Premier League career. If it was say a £10-15 million deal then fair enough but as you rightly highlight, at £25+ there was more 'proven' players worth pursuing. 

There's a young player on loan at the club I work for now, he's very highly rated by his parent club in the PL and hasn't quite hit it off here. There's always a number of variables to loans not working out and I'd bet my bottom dollar if the lad played 10 games for his parent club right now, he'd have scored more goals than his current football league club - most likely due to the standard and frequency of service better players would provide him (his current club in possession model doesn't perhaps suit his profile).

I would've liked to have seen us make a move for Beto if this rumoured £25million is available. 

Beto has been priced at 30 mil by his club , but 25mil plus adds would get him .......why we are not bidding that i have no idea 

[Ivan Katalinic's 'tache]

More Jackson news:

 

[Dellman]

But if it happens,, will they be selected or sit on the bench with Alcaras and Orismo?

[Millbrook Saint]

3 minutes ago, Lord Duckhunter said:

Fucking hell, Brighton have a couple of decent seasons, sign some good players and all of a sudden some of our supporters are in awe of them.

Brighton aren’t doing anything we didn’t do a decade ago. We were the “model” club then, and somebody else will be in a couple of years. They’re having to sell their best players and at the moment aren’t missing them, remind you of anyone? They’ll end up selling too many, & making some shite decisions and managerial appointments and in a few short years their supporters will be pointing at another club wailing “why can’t we be like them”. When they’ve got into Europe, a cup final and had 4 top 8 finishes running, perhaps you should lay off the “Reed only talked about it” pony. 

Brighton will be the same as most provincial clubs who do well, eventually their players will be bought, then one or two replacements won't quite be as good, they'll start to lose games and fall down the league whilst the rest of their good players get picked off.  It happened to us, Leicester and will happen to them.

The problem with clubs like us and Brighton is, when we buy a player and it doesn't work out, we're stuck having to try and make it work for the next few years or till we can get rid, we can't do what the bug clubs do and say fuck it, lets just spend another £30m to replace him and stick him in the reserves.  This is what leads to the downfall and every club will buy players who don't work out.

Fair play to Brighton I say, but let's see where they are in 2 or 3 years time, I guarantee they'll sink back into the pack like we did.

[FarehamSaintJames]

Ah well, the more random players we panic buy now means the more Lemina, Hoedt, Carillo type loans out of the club we'll have when we get relegated. 😂

[Daft Kerplunk]

14 minutes ago, Millbrook Saint said:

Brighton will be the same as most provincial clubs who do well, eventually their players will be bought, then one or two replacements won't quite be as good, they'll start to lose games and fall down the league whilst the rest of their good players get picked off.  It happened to us, Leicester and will happen to them.

The problem with clubs like us and Brighton is, when we buy a player and it doesn't work out, we're stuck having to try and make it work for the next few years or till we can get rid, we can't do what the bug clubs do and say fuck it, lets just spend another £30m to replace him and stick him in the reserves.  This is what leads to the downfall and every club will buy players who don't work out.

Fair play to Brighton I say, but let's see where they are in 2 or 3 years time, I guarantee they'll sink back into the pack like we did.

Brighton has a distinct advantage over Southampton when it comes to attracting players in that it’s a cool place to live and has more to offer than Southampton as a result, whether that’s food, shopping, more events, more sophisticated bars, general lifestyle, famous residents etc. if you’re young and choosing between Saints and Brighton, it’s an easy choice to make, and if they’ve got better coaches who get the best out of them, even more so. 

[woodsaint1]

31 minutes ago, Ivan Katalinic's 'tache said:

More Jackson news:

 

Other stories suggested we already bid €11m and it was rejected. They wanted closer to €20m. Not sure this guy is as informed as he would make you believe

[Saint Matty 76]

1 minute ago, woodsaint1 said:

Other stories suggested we already bid €11m and it was rejected. They wanted closer to €20m. Not sure this guy is as informed as he would make you believe

I agree. The Jackson "update" is uh... vague to say the very least as well.

Think he's just enjoying some attention from Saints fans and running with it.

[Ex Lion Tamer]

1 hour ago, Wade Garrett said:

I’m fucking sick of our ‘model’.

We’re more like a stock exchange for players than a football club.  It’s been doing my head in for years.

Personally I hated the model where we bought crap, injury-prone older players like Ripley, Kanchelskis, McCann, Hirst, Speedie, Groves, Dixon, Howells

Edited 22 January, 2023 by Ex Lion Tamer

[Millbrook Saint]

11 minutes ago, Daft Kerplunk said:

Brighton has a distinct advantage over Southampton when it comes to attracting players in that it’s a cool place to live and has more to offer than Southampton as a result, whether that’s food, shopping, more events, more sophisticated bars, general lifestyle, famous residents etc. if you’re young and choosing between Saints and Brighton, it’s an easy choice to make, and if they’ve got better coaches who get the best out of them, even more so. 

Irrelevant, they will eventually sell their best players and replace them with lesser quality, they might get lucky a couple of times, but eventually their luck will run out and they'll get a dud and won't be able to afford to replace them like the big clubs do when a player doesn't work out.  If a player is choosing between Saints and Brighton, the first thing they'll look at is wages, followed by whether they think they can be a success and it's good for their career, right now a player would choose Brighton over us, I really don't think players care about the local bars, they can afford to be chaufered anywhere in the country for nights out

[verlaine1979]

Brighton's recruitment seems a bit more far-sighted than ours did in our glory days. Over the past two seasons they've sold big players in White, Burn, Cucurella, Bissouma and Trossard, along with losing Mwepu to early retirement from a heart condition (while also getting good money for the likes of Maupay, Knockaert etc.).

But in addition to buying a few 20m+ replacements, they've also been speculating with cheap buys from non-European leagues and then sending them on loan for a season. Caicedo is already being linked with 50m+ valuation, and it won't be long before Mitoma is similarly rated - both arrived for relative peanuts, spent a year on loan, and then returned to the first team. In contrast, even during the height of our sales we generally only replaced 1 for 1, which meant when the likes of Lemina, Boufal and Elyounoussi failed to step up, we had no other options.

In that respect, Brighton are making a much better attempt at copying the Dortmund model than we ever did. It's a numbers game - not all signings work out, so you need to spread the net wide. If you can afford to.

[saintant]

55 minutes ago, Dellman said:

But if it happens,, will they be selected or sit on the bench with Alcaras and Orismo?

Probably because it takes any new player a few weeks to get up to speed with the scintillating football we produce - you can't just walk into our side as the current players are all brilliant. Fight for your place and wait or an injury because there'll be no drop in form.

[saintant]

41 minutes ago, Daft Kerplunk said:

Brighton has a distinct advantage over Southampton when it comes to attracting players in that it’s a cool place to live and has more to offer than Southampton as a result, whether that’s food, shopping, more events, more sophisticated bars, general lifestyle, famous residents etc. if you’re young and choosing between Saints and Brighton, it’s an easy choice to make, and if they’ve got better coaches who get the best out of them, even more so. 

It's all about who offers most money - everything else is just noise.

[CB Fry]

27 minutes ago, verlaine1979 said:

In that respect, Brighton are making a much better attempt at copying the Dortmund model than we ever did. It's a numbers game - not all signings work out, so you need to spread the net wide. If you can afford to.

Jesus wept.

They've finished 9th, once. 

Just like Steve Coppell did with Reading, Hodgson with Fulham and West Brom, Big Sam's Bolton, Mark Hughes Stoke (and Blackburn) and Sean Dyche at Burnley and of course us over a few seasons too.

Most of those were actually 8th place finishes - Dyche took Burnley to 7th.

This manager has got Potters team for now. They're in a good spot but even Potter could only finish above Ralph once.

Let's see how this new guy gets on over time. The idea that Brighton have cracked it and off they go to be perpetually challenging for Europe forever now, do me a favour. 

 

Who remembers when it was Leicester that had the magic potion and had it all worked out? I remember, it was last season.

Edited 22 January, 2023 by CB Fry

[CB Fry]

56 minutes ago, Daft Kerplunk said:

Brighton has a distinct advantage over Southampton when it comes to attracting players in that it’s a cool place to live and has more to offer than Southampton as a result, whether that’s food, shopping, more events, more sophisticated bars, general lifestyle, famous residents etc. if you’re young and choosing between Saints and Brighton, it’s an easy choice to make, and if they’ve got better coaches who get the best out of them, even more so. 

Behave. Footballers live in big closed off mansions and spend their time on their PlayStations, Netflix, committing sexual assault or betting on horses. 

Whether their mansion is Hampshire or Sussex (or Cheshire or Staffordshire or Worcestershire) not that much of a difference. London clubs more attractive than playing for Middlesbrough or out of the way Norwich but between Hampshire and the county next door? No mate.

Edited 22 January, 2023 by CB Fry

[swannymere]

1 hour ago, Lord Duckhunter said:

Fucking hell, Brighton have a couple of decent seasons, sign some good players and all of a sudden some of our supporters are in awe of them.

 

People seem to forget these things are cyclical, our system was the best for a 10 year period, arguably then Liverpool's and now Brightons turn. We stood still and better methods were found. Should we have dumped the system we had when it stopped turning out regular squad players? possibly, but it would be a brave person to do so. Now the time is probably right to restructure.

[notnowcato]

4 hours ago, OttawaSaint said:

That's exactly stay these dork prats are doing. 

Player 1: 22M for 8.85xG = 2.48 goals per million quid

Player 2: 17M for 6.15xG = 2.76 goals per million quid.

Ooooh player 2 is better value. Gets here from the French league, takes 2 strides gets immediately dispossessed and bullied off the ball. Then gets the ball and panicks because he doesn't want to get rocked again, loses ball.

Hmm, I guess xG means something different in the EPL compared to France...

Yep I’m sure this is exactly what happens, every single time. Without fail. 

[notnowcato]

2 hours ago, Lord Duckhunter said:

Fucking hell, Brighton have a couple of decent seasons, sign some good players and all of a sudden some of our supporters are in awe of them.

Brighton aren’t doing anything we didn’t do a decade ago. We were the “model” club then, and somebody else will be in a couple of years. They’re having to sell their best players and at the moment aren’t missing them, remind you of anyone? They’ll end up selling too many, & making some shite decisions and managerial appointments and in a few short years their supporters will be pointing at another club wailing “why can’t we be like them”. When they’ve got into Europe, a cup final and had 4 top 8 finishes running, perhaps you should lay off the “Reed only talked about it” pony. 

So far, when Brighton have sold a player they’ve had a ready made replacement and they hit the ground running and quite often have improved the team.  
They are hugely dependent on their recruitment. The success of their recruitment may or may not continue in the long term, time will tell. Just because we fucked things up, doesn’t mean they will. 
 

A key difference between us and Brighton is a fully engaged owner, proper chairperson. We’ve not had that since Cortese not convinced SR / Kraft are fulfilling the role in the same way Bloom does at Brighton. 

[SotonianWill]

1 hour ago, Daft Kerplunk said:

Brighton has a distinct advantage over Southampton when it comes to attracting players in that it’s a cool place to live and has more to offer than Southampton as a result, whether that’s food, shopping, more events, more sophisticated bars, general lifestyle, famous residents etc. if you’re young and choosing between Saints and Brighton, it’s an easy choice to make, and if they’ve got better coaches who get the best out of them, even more so. 

players are thick braindead individuals 99% of the time and don’t give a shit about stuff like that. like when robinho signed for man city but thought he signed for united instead. I do have to agree though brighton is very nice, here are some of my favourite brighton pics.

[Chez]

3 hours ago, John B said:

So what is the point of the Academy 

You've heard of JWP, right?

Sure, we haven't developed too many absolute top class players in recent times, but Jan Valery, Michael Obefemi, Harrison Reed, Matt Targett and Sam Gallagher have all be sold for a few bob. Part of the reason we have struggled is the likes of Chelsea and Man City have taken the youth development to another level over the last decade, spending a small fortune and offering huge contracts to youngsters, which has helped them to attract the very best young players. Luke Shaw went with Saints back in the day, despite being a Chelsea fan, because of academy reputation and quality at the time. If he had come along a few years later, with the reputation of Chelsea's academy much enhanced, then he'd of joined them.

The academy lost its way. People moved on, and the club was unable to find and attract the real stars. Without those star prospects entering the academy you don't get the very best talent coming out the other end. In more recent times we have spent some serious money bringing in young talent and in the next two or three years we could well reap the benefit. JimmyJ, Ballard and the two Spurs fellas Sam Amo-Ameyaw and Jayden Meghoma may well make it at the top level.

 

[Pilchards]

2 hours ago, Chez said:

You've heard of JWP, right?

Sure, we haven't developed too many absolute top class players in recent times, but Jan Valery, Michael Obefemi, Harrison Reed, Matt Targett and Sam Gallagher have all be sold for a few bob. Part of the reason we have struggled is the likes of Chelsea and Man City have taken the youth development to another level over the last decade, spending a small fortune and offering huge contracts to youngsters, which has helped them to attract the very best young players. Luke Shaw went with Saints back in the day, despite being a Chelsea fan, because of academy reputation and quality at the time. If he had come along a few years later, with the reputation of Chelsea's academy much enhanced, then he'd of joined them.

The academy lost its way. People moved on, and the club was unable to find and attract the real stars. Without those star prospects entering the academy you don't get the very best talent coming out the other end. In more recent times we have spent some serious money bringing in young talent and in the next two or three years we could well reap the benefit. JimmyJ, Ballard and the two Spurs fellas Sam Amo-Ameyaw and Jayden Meghoma may well make it at the top level.

 

Such a shame we are not seeing the likes of Ballard, Doling, Morgan and those Spurs boys in the first team squad.

With Nathan Jones record of playing youngsters I doubt we will either which is a shame as local talent gives any fan more pride when they do well.

PS I would take Ballard every time over that lazy Rangers player we bought at the start of the season.

[ecurnew02]

37 minutes ago, Pilchards said:

Such a shame we are not seeing the likes of Ballard, Doling, Morgan and those Spurs boys in the first team squad.

With Nathan Jones record of playing youngsters I doubt we will either which is a shame as local talent gives any fan more pride when they do well.

PS I would take Ballard every time over that lazy Rangers player we bought at the start of the season.

Brighton’s Evan Ferguson who’s a late 04 birthday has 3 goals and 2 assists in 5 games for Brighton and scored the equalizer vs Leicester this weekend. Would be nice to see what some of these kids are made of, even if it just starts off as cameos in the cups. 

Edited 23 January, 2023 by ecurnew02

[verlaine1979]

7 hours ago, CB Fry said:

Jesus wept.

They've finished 9th, once. 

Just like Steve Coppell did with Reading, Hodgson with Fulham and West Brom, Big Sam's Bolton, Mark Hughes Stoke (and Blackburn) and Sean Dyche at Burnley and of course us over a few seasons too.

Most of those were actually 8th place finishes - Dyche took Burnley to 7th.

This manager has got Potters team for now. They're in a good spot but even Potter could only finish above Ralph once.

Let's see how this new guy gets on over time. The idea that Brighton have cracked it and off they go to be perpetually challenging for Europe forever now, do me a favour. 

 

Who remembers when it was Leicester that had the magic potion and had it all worked out? I remember, it was last season.

Whoa there, horsey. I didn't make any statement about Brighton's league prospects, just their recruitment. We managed one successful squad turnover in 2014/15 and signed VVD a year later. But for the most part, every major departure since then has seen a deterioration in quality until the most recent window (also, I'll give you Ings, though that was more of a punt on reviving a well-understood but injury ravaged career than smart scouting). 

We were cash constrained, so maybe we just could afford an heir and a spare like Brighton apparently can, but I've seen saying for years that our transfer strategy is flawed if we want to pursue a buy to sell model. Going one in, one out just carries to much risk of a single bad signing disrupting our finances. 

Football is a results business, and we had some good years under Poch and Koeman. But it's an entertainment too, and to be honest, I'd much rather we finished every season 15th playing attractive football than finish 8th playing the tedious dross we've endured the past three years. 

[Kenilworthy]

10 hours ago, Ex Lion Tamer said:

Personally I hated the model where we bought crap, injury-prone older players like Ripley, Kanchelskis, McCann, Hirst, Speedie, Groves, Dixon, Howells

Right now I would love a David Hirst to score 9 goals in 28 games in his first season with us

[LeBizzier69]

10 hours ago, Daft Kerplunk said:

Brighton has a distinct advantage over Southampton when it comes to attracting players in that it’s a cool place to live and has more to offer than Southampton as a result, whether that’s food, shopping, more events, more sophisticated bars, general lifestyle, famous residents etc. if you’re young and choosing between Saints and Brighton, it’s an easy choice to make, and if they’ve got better coaches who get the best out of them, even more so. 

Apparently the fans always hold hands when the come to SMS too, so the fact that it’s a very friendly place to live must be a big draw to players.

[John B]

8 hours ago, Chez said:

You've heard of JWP, right?

Sure, we haven't developed too many absolute top class players in recent times, but Jan Valery, Michael Obefemi, Harrison Reed, Matt Targett and Sam Gallagher have all be sold for a few bob. Part of the reason we have struggled is the likes of Chelsea and Man City have taken the youth development to another level over the last decade, spending a small fortune and offering huge contracts to youngsters, which has helped them to attract the very best young players. Luke Shaw went with Saints back in the day, despite being a Chelsea fan, because of academy reputation and quality at the time. If he had come along a few years later, with the reputation of Chelsea's academy much enhanced, then he'd of joined them.

The academy lost its way. People moved on, and the club was unable to find and attract the real stars. Without those star prospects entering the academy you don't get the very best talent coming out the other end. In more recent times we have spent some serious money bringing in young talent and in the next two or three years we could well reap the benefit. JimmyJ, Ballard and the two Spurs fellas Sam Amo-Ameyaw and Jayden Meghoma may well make it at the top level.

 

Of course I know all that but you have not answered my question 

 

In the past we regularly produced players from the Academy to play in the PL  contribute to the success of the team and then in some cases move on for large transfer fees 

 

The ones you mentioned apart from JWP who started playing years ago have not contributed much to our PL team

 

As Pilchards alludes to in an earlier post the lack of Academy players  is causing us to buy sub PL standard players to fill up the squad making the team uncompetive.

 

You may well be right that there are young players who are going to make it but I have heard it all before and they may not 

 

Our club was well known for producing PL players which made us relatively successful keeping us in the top flight for such a long time now it does not and is contributing to our decline and our eventual place in the Championship

[derry]

Our Academy has also got it wrong sometimes after the recruitment was right. Releasing too early Ings, Ben White, Twine, Mings to name a few.

[East Kent Saint]

Saints academy was held up on Motd and the media in general as a shining example . Big clubs have latched on to that by using their buying power/big name to hoover up any young talent . Very few of those youngsters seem to make it to the first team . Saints success was blunted by the need to sell any half decent products of their Academy to survive financially .

[CB Fry]

17 minutes ago, John B said:

In the past we regularly produced players from the Academy to play in the PL  contribute to the success of the team and then in some cases move on for large transfer fees 

But did we?

The was huge chunks of time when it was just Wayne Bridge and Matty Oakley. Season after season went by.

If we were a Prem club in Lallana's key development years I doubt he would have made it into the first team.

I think people's memories are being hugely distorted by the fact that we were Championship and L1 which allowed players not good enoughfor the Prem to get game time. 

You've put "PL" so do not reply with Le Tissier and the Wallace brothers etc etc. The fact that the same names get trotted out show that its never been that many.

Its not been a great spell but the team has been struggling so probably not the best conditions for it. And as Chez says, our actual output (Reed, Targett, etc) is not too shabby.

Edited 23 January, 2023 by CB Fry

[bangkoksaint]

14 hours ago, Hodgey said:

It infuriates me when people buy the clubs nonsense around ‘we can’t compete’ and ‘we can’t find someone better than out championship standard players’. We’re the 30th richest club in the world, we play in a division 90pc of players aspire to, we pay well, it’s a decent place to live, we’ve produced or helped world class players like Bale, Van Dijk, Mane. And if anyone still wants to argue - can I suggest they take a look at Brighton who seem to be able to spot and get the next superstar with regularity, without having to spend 30m plus. Someone should be asking big questions about our scouting network and not making excuses for them.

Probably one of the best posts I’ve seen on here

[Saint Garrett]

Another Monday, still no striker…2 cup semi finals and nope, still got Adams Armstrong and Mara…so disappointing 

[Convict Colony]

1 hour ago, bangkoksaint said:

Probably one of the best posts I’ve seen on here

agree but