Taylor Harwood-Bellis

[Saint_clark]

On 14/02/2025 at 15:29, S-Clarke said:

Yep, very true. Our CB recruitment is leading the way in crapness.

Only we can go from Fonte and VVD to Yoshida and Stephens less than a year later. The Southampton Way of doing things differently I guess.

Yoshida is a class above anything we have now to be fair. 

[BarberSaint]

Nope.

 

And he's a goalie. Look how long it took for Arsenal to offload him to us.

 

1 hour ago, hypochondriac said:

Surely Ramsdale will be in greater demand than Fernandes. 

 

[EBS1980]

7 hours ago, BarberSaint said:

Nope.

 

And he's a goalie. Look how long it took for Arsenal to offload him to us.

 

 

Ramsdale will go to Bournemouth imo.

[Sarnia Cherie]

7 hours ago, BarberSaint said:

Nope.

 

And he's a goalie. Look how long it took for Arsenal to offload him to us.

 

 

Bournemouth are rumoured to be keeping an eye on him. Kepa is on loan which will finish at the end of the season. Chelsea may be open to offers for him but Sanchez isn't a great goalie so Chelsea may want to keep Kepa themselves. I read somewhere that Ramsdale likes the South coast so Bournemouth may be ideal for him. He doesn't deserve to be dragged down to the Championship. It's thanks to him that our embarrassing GD hasn't been much worse. It will be back to the Bazunu and McCarthy days. Can't wait.

[hypochondriac]

8 hours ago, BarberSaint said:

Nope.

 

And he's a goalie. Look how long it took for Arsenal to offload him to us.

 

 

Well I disagree. Ramsdale is a proven premier league keeper and the only reason he didn't move sooner is because he was waiting to see what his options were. 

[Green]

Why did he stay so far off his man for the second Wolves goal? Surely if he gets tight then he can’t get the shot away. 

[Whitey Grandad]

On 25/02/2025 at 09:00, hypochondriac said:

Well I disagree. Ramsdale is a proven premier league keeper and the only reason he didn't move sooner is because he was waiting to see what his options were. 

If only he’d moved sooner on Saturday.

[Tommy Mulgrew]

Interesting article on pages 6 and 7 of the sport section of Saturday’s Times: all about TransferRoom and its (presumably annual) summits, which attract about 300 clubs, started by Rasmus’s brother.  Apparently, THB’s deal between MC and Saints emerged from a pitch from Citeh to Saints at a TR summit.  That was news to me; I had thought it arose through Wilcox’s connection with both clubs.  I’m not an online subscriber and so cannot give a link.  The accompanying photo shows almost 100 tables with two or three blokes sitting at each in what looks like speed-dating for middle-aged men, not that I would know what that looks like of course. 
 

(Yes, I am an old codger who reads a Saturday newspaper, not necessarily on a Saturday.)

[Gloucester Saint]

16 minutes ago, Tommy Mulgrew said:

Interesting article on pages 6 and 7 of the sport section of Saturday’s Times: all about TransferRoom and its (presumably annual) summits, which attract about 300 clubs, started by Rasmus’s brother.  Apparently, THB’s deal between MC and Saints emerged from a pitch from Citeh to Saints at a TR summit.  That was news to me; I had thought it arose through Wilcox’s connection with both clubs.  I’m not an online subscriber and so cannot give a link.  The accompanying photo shows almost 100 tables with two or three blokes sitting at each in what looks like speed-dating for middle-aged men, not that I would know what that looks like of course. 
 

(Yes, I am an old codger who reads a Saturday newspaper, not necessarily on a Saturday.)

Thanks for sharing. It wouldn’t surprise me entirely, I suspect that sort of networking probably helps recycle players on the fringes of the biggest club’s books as THB was at City. A bit about TR here https://www.transferroom.com/company/about-us

It’s not a bad innovation in itself, it just strikes me as being a more effective and successful tool when clubs know what types of players, physique and technical attributes they are looking for to suit how their first XI will generally set up. This has been Saints Achilles Heel - no shortage of deals but not thinking about building and maintaining a spine, which might not always be the same as a ‘loan THB for a season with a £20m obligation to buy and sell for £40m after his England debut’. You can have the odd deal like that but only if it fits the overall approach and needs aligning with some managerial stability with the right head coach for the level you are competing at.

Edited March 24 by Gloucester Saint

[Fabrice29]

2 hours ago, Tommy Mulgrew said:

Interesting article on pages 6 and 7 of the sport section of Saturday’s Times: all about TransferRoom and its (presumably annual) summits, which attract about 300 clubs, started by Rasmus’s brother.  Apparently, THB’s deal between MC and Saints emerged from a pitch from Citeh to Saints at a TR summit.  That was news to me; I had thought it arose through Wilcox’s connection with both clubs.  I’m not an online subscriber and so cannot give a link.  The accompanying photo shows almost 100 tables with two or three blokes sitting at each in what looks like speed-dating for middle-aged men, not that I would know what that looks like of course. 
 

(Yes, I am an old codger who reads a Saturday newspaper, not necessarily on a Saturday.)

In video form here for those interested 

[benali-shorts]

It seems like a marketplace tool, and particularly useful for the selling club - it feels like quite a reactive way to sign players though. Hopefully Spors will be more proactive in identifying players, although I'm sure Rasmus will be keen to continue using (and presumably paying commissions to) a company which he and his brother own. 

I wonder what question we asked Transfer Room for Ryan Fraser to be the answer?

 

[Gloucester Saint]

21 minutes ago, benali-shorts said:

It seems like a marketplace tool, and particularly useful for the selling club - it feels like quite a reactive way to sign players though. Hopefully Spors will be more proactive in identifying players, although I'm sure Rasmus will be keen to continue using (and presumably paying commissions to) a company which he and his brother own. 

I wonder what question we asked Transfer Room for Ryan Fraser to be the answer?

 

Where I can see the most benefits is probably the scenario we’ve got coming up after where Spors has prioritised buying and selling core players, the ones coming in for pace and strength we lack, and maximising the price for the assets we’d least want to sell. Then we’ve got the likes of Aribo who did well in the Champ, but might not want to again.
For for a club who are lacking a bit of creativity to add to a decent spine, we could leverage say £10m in the room plus a higher earner off the books, and that gets re-invested directly in a rising prospect with pace and physical power in central midfield from say the Belgium or Netherlands leagues who isn’t quite at PL level yet, but could be in a few months in a more robust league. 
Fraser based on the play off final was probably someone who was felt could cover the wings and wing-backs. Unfortunately, we saw how that panned out in the Leicester home game….

[benali-shorts]

Agree with all of that, but not sure the meat-market type venue is particularly conducive to that type of player identification / trading. It's probably quite useful to meet several clubs / agents under one roof. But mainly I'm hoping that we might identify players whose clubs don't need to pimp them out at the Ankersens late night disco.  I can see Phil Parsons accidentally coming back with 450 hoovers and another right back. 

 

[Badger]

3 hours ago, Fabrice29 said:

In video form here for those interested 

So who is Sam Stanton, Head of Scouting Operations,  and where does he fit in with Darren Mowbray etc?

The club seem to like giving grand titles, just a shame that the collective outcome from them has largely been poor. 

Edited March 24 by Badger

[CB Fry]

1 hour ago, Badger said:

So who is Sam Stanton, Head of Scouting Operations,  and where does he fit in with Darren Mowbray etc?

The club seem to like giving grand titles, just a shame that the collective outcome from them has largely been poor. 

Just guessing but I'd think he reports into Mowbray. 

Mowbray's job title is Head of Recruitment so scouting operations sounds like a department within that. Mowbray's not doing it all himself.

Edited March 24 by CB Fry

[St. Ciervo]

Sounds like another head that can roll before someone that matters.

[Badger]

On 24/03/2025 at 21:19, CB Fry said:

Just guessing but I'd think he reports into Mowbray. 

Mowbray's job title is Head of Recruitment so scouting operations sounds like a department within that. Mowbray's not doing it all himself.

Seems  likely. 

Edited March 26 by Badger

[Maggie May]

On 24/03/2025 at 19:53, Badger said:

So who is Sam Stanton, Head of Scouting Operations,  and where does he fit in with Darren Mowbray etc?

The club seem to like giving grand titles, just a shame that the collective outcome from them has largely been poor. 

“He’s Sam Stanton, yeah, yeah, yeah”

[Gloucester Saint]

4 hours ago, Maggie May said:

“He’s Sam Stanton, yeah, yeah, yeah”

🎵 With a job like that, you know it must be bad 🎵 

Edited Friday at 07:53 by Gloucester Saint

[Dman]

On 24/03/2025 at 14:05, Tommy Mulgrew said:

Interesting article on pages 6 and 7 of the sport section of Saturday’s Times: all about TransferRoom and its (presumably annual) summits, which attract about 300 clubs, started by Rasmus’s brother.  Apparently, THB’s deal between MC and Saints emerged from a pitch from Citeh to Saints at a TR summit.  That was news to me; I had thought it arose through Wilcox’s connection with both clubs.  I’m not an online subscriber and so cannot give a link.  The accompanying photo shows almost 100 tables with two or three blokes sitting at each in what looks like speed-dating for middle-aged men, not that I would know what that looks like of course. 
 

(Yes, I am an old codger who reads a Saturday newspaper, not necessarily on a Saturday.)

THB was one of the best CB's in the championship the season before we signed him. 

It didn't need hipster apps and fella's in chinos and blazers to tell you they'd be good signings for the club.