Gabbiadini: Southampton can be my turning point

He was about to be subbed when he scored yesterday. Puel needs to be told that he has to leave Gabby on until he scores....can't stop his run...he may pine.

 

That's all very well, but you do realise that the first time Gabby completes 90 minutes, fails to score and we lose this board will go into meltdown.

 

You're talking about an impossible situation here. One does not simply stop Gabbiadini from scoring.

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I will be very sad and cry.

 

Perhaps we could misquote Ferguson: Gabbiadini did not fail to score, he just ran out of time.

 

If I hear or read one more so called reporter refer to Gabby's tap-in yesterday I'll scream!

He has many strengths, and the one he showed yesterday was a poacher's mentality. A lot of forwards would have watched Sofiane's shot bounce off the keeper and thought - damn, I could have got that. Watch Gabby. He stays onside, then follows the shot. This pressures the keeper and then he is right there when he doesn't hold it. Reminded me of Suarez at his best. Over the top. Yep and what the hell. Is it time to start the crowdfunding to sign him for another 5 years?

 

Absolutely 100% agree. Absolutely every bloody syllable. I have a phrase you could trot out: If it had been Rooney... [other overtly celebrated players are available]

 

Filippo Gabbiadini

 

HEALTH WARNING

Do not read The Daily Mirror today (generally good advice). I picked it up in a waiting room this morning. Our match report is simply speculation on how long we can hold on to Gabby. One of the Watford players opined that Gabby would soon play for Real Madrid.

The quiet of the waiting room was disturbed by some mad old geezer setting fire to the Daily Mirror and shouting "**** OFF" at the top of his voice. Bloody difficult typing this while restrained.

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

 

Our plan is to get unsuspecting players to sign long contracts, happy in the belief they will get an early move to a bigger club, then Les announces that our plans have changed and no one will be allowed to leave until we win the Champions League. Read the small print, lads. Yes, we know you don't speak English, Gabby....but that's just tough lasagne.

 

It's this stuff where I start to froth at the mouth. Why is it that every time we buy a good player everyone and his dog wants to transfer him out ASAP.? Even when Shane Long [about as 'ordinary honest Saints level' as any player could be] got some top form together he was being shipped out to Liverpool. ****ing well leave us alone. The other week/month Mark Chapman talked about Saints fans getting twitchy about transfers out. What the **** does he expect.? It's relentless.

 

Just to add... Are Llorente and Sigurdsson too good for Swansea.? Negredo and Ramirez too good for Boro.? Benteke for Palace.? Any number of best players for their clubs.? Not a sniff. Nobody transfers them out of their clubs. With us it's like they pick the player most in form and then transfer him out. I know I should ignore it, but these whispers and suggestions sometimes gain ground.

I think we should sign Sanchez. He'd get a game with us.

 

Its because we do sell our best players every year. Maybe if we hang on to VVD this season then it may die down a bit. Stop being so sensitive about it. Its what we do and the papers wouldn't sell unless they speculated a bit, lets be honest there is a 99.9% chance that there speculation will become fact at some point.

 

Cheap journalism at its worst. They could speculate that, if young Manolo keeps scoring like this, we could be top 4 next season.

 

Gabby has only been here 5 minutes, but I would organise a march on St Marys if we let him go too early* whatever the price.

*You will note I said too early...I am not unrealistic and I know players leave, but we have to keep him for a few years.

 

Indeed. In 18mths if he is in the top five strikers in europe and not enjoying his free time floating in the channel, then we may well grant him a £150M transfer to Madrid.
But until then, I want him to score in every game till Greame Souness's head explodes.

 

Thats for fans. Maybe when we finish in the top 5 they will speculate about it. As long as we sell our best they will continue to write about it.

 

Oh, I can't wait.

 

Water off a duck's back to me. The narrative is that we unearth previously unknown gems, but acknowledging the reality of the modern game are prepared to sell them at a huge profit if the player allows his contract to run down. Would we sign some of the players we have if we had a reputation for cutting of our noses to spite our faces? If the player wants to go, we have already shown that we are prepared to play hardball if there is enough contract left to make it possible. Once the contract is down to 18 months, we are no different to many other clubs in that we have to make the best of it. Other clubs don't sell, you say? Well those who pay insane wages perhaps, but we all know how that can end. Our players who are the subject of speculation, are those who had performed really well. I would be quite happy if the press were convinced that our entire first 11 was on the top five's wish list.

 

Honestly, the bit about unearthing previously unknown gems is the laziest part of the media narrative. Gabbiadini was considered a monster talent; he made his debut with the national team as a 20 year old after dominating at the U21 level, and scored 15 league goals (sixth-best in Serie A) in 2014-15. He just got buried a bit in Napoli because they had an enormous amount of attacking talent and a manager who believes that squad rotation is what happens at halftime when you switch ends. Thus the sizable transfer fee: he was a well-regarded quantity, and if we didn't pay, someone would.

Which isn't at all a slight against the acquisition side of our transfer policy. It's merely a different story: when we have succeeded in the market, more often than not is has been because we targeted highly-regarded younger players who were a good season away from being hoovered up by the clubs bigger than us, and we were willing to pay to get them. Mane, Wanyama, Forster and Van Dijk were all well known and frequently linked to the top six clubs, but they played in weaker leagues and their clubs were (understandably) asking for atypically large fees for players in Switzerland or Scotland.

So, in short, the success of our transfer policy hasn't been in finding players; we are no longer signing players out of the Latvian league because serendipity led to his being recommended to our manager at a time of need. Rather, we've been willing to gamble large sums on players who we deemed to have value-added owing to their circumstances, while many of our compatriots in the mid tier were linked with the same players before they ultimately went the supposedly safer route of signing known Premier League quantities, often at higher prices.