At the moment I would say we need a CB (both to replace, and as an upgrade of, Fonte), a defensive CM, an attacking CM, and a right sided winger. A striker would be very nice as well (as a Long upgrade), but if we get both of the latter two, then we could probably do without. In the event that we lost Austin or Gabby for any length of time, you would like to think that there would still be enough goals across those five attacking midfielders (ie including Redmond, Tadic and Boufal), plus Long. Similarly, based on last season, a new goalkeeper is possibly required. But I don't want to give up on Fraser just yet. And McCarthy will presumably be fit again. Then I would be throwing player departures into the mix. Martina, Caceres and Hassan have already left - I don't think any of them would need replacing. I also think we could sell Jay and not need to replace him. But I think if anyone else was to leave - and that could be a Virgil or a Bertrand at one end of spectrum, or a Gardos or a Long at the other end - then they would need replacing. However, that is somewhat fantasy. I'm not expecting us to sign six players full stop, let alone six players who would all command regular starting births (in addition to maybe one or two squad players). But as with signing Sigurdsson, it is indeed nice to dream. I will say though that I'm anticipating at least 75% of the league to spend more in transfers than they receive in transfer fees...
The trouble is, which genuine £30m players would want to join? Say we wanted to flex our muscles in the premier league. Try and create a divide between ourselves and the rest. We've been bullied by the big boys, so let's pick on the younger kids. As an example, I would say Charlie Daniels is one of the better left backs in the lower half. Would the £20m+ it might take to get him be good business?
We cannot sell Bertrand AND DVD. With the long contracts we should be able to limit it to one top player leaving this summer. Selling half the defence would be asking for problems. I hope they both stay but reckon DVD will go and Bertrand will be sorted out by the new manager.
I reckon they will both go but agree it's a concern that we'll be starting the season with 3 of the back 4 changed from a year previous.
I know we're not usually in for loans unless they have the potential for a perm, but Llorente from Real might be a fit according to random website http://www.hitc.com/en-gb/2017/06/2...oss-mauricio-pellegrino-should-target-loan-m/
Over time yes but it may take a while for partnerships to develop and with our kind start we can't afford to be leaking too many goals at the beginning of the season.
Saints will not spend 30 million on a player,in fact they ain't going to go as much as 20 million. We shop in certain shops and won't deviate from that,always have always will.
Factor in wages,bonuses etc 30 million is far too much for us too spend,30 million pound players command very expensive wages,and that over 3,4 or 5 years is too much for the club to outlay. 30 million pound players go to bigger clubs than ours where they can afford the gamble whereas we can't unfortunately.
15m doesn't buy you what 15m bought you two years ago. This is for two reasons: one, the massive jump in revenues in the PL have led to higher prices, and two, the drop in the pound versus the Euro has made purchasing abroad that much more expensive. We can shop in the same shops, but we have to understand that we aren't going to get what we got for the same prices as before.
Yes it does, you just have to look harder to find them, and have a better scouting system which for the most part we have.
They are obviously willing to outlay that gamble. Whereas we aren't. They are a club of similar size,they will naturally attract players of quality because of their location. Saints will not spend 30 mill on a player and the outlay of wages too boot it's too much for us to spend,even with 100 mill or so coming in to the club.
When we break the bank on a players wages, its because we have found a player worth breaking it for, ala VVD. Palace chucked loads at Benny & Cabaye in the hope they'd produce. I much prefer our model.
I don't think anyone is saying that they want to copy Palace's model or that our model isn't a good one (i'm certainly not anyway). It is that the figures in our model wil most likely change. Before when we would sign a Ramirez/Wanyama/VVD/Mane it was reported that we outbid teams by a little bit, meaning the selling clubs were keen for the transfer to go through to us rather than any other interested party. With money around nowadays if we go in bidding £15m other PL teams will match that in a heartbeat, the amount of money we will probably have to spend on transfers is going to increase by quite a bit and if we insist on sticking to the old model of £15m then we are going to miss out on quite a lot of players to other sides.
