That's the first time in 4 years that we haven't sold a single key player. Oh my god we actually did it.
We seem to be getting the ball forward much more quickly under Pellegrino though. Still an issue of being able to link together attacks but hoping now with Lemina signed Davis and Ward-Prowse can push each other in that number 10 spot.
I don't think it's a lack of pushing with Davis and JWP in that number 10 spot. It's a lack of number 10 qualities in Davis and JWP, heh. Both solid players; neither are nor will ever be creative engines. Again, doesn't mean we're going to be bad...we should be a solid overall team. Just one that'll play an awful lot of 0-0 and 1-0 games in all likelihood.
Because we never signed Gabbi until January and Charlie was out injured for much of the season. Puel never had much luck at all with injuries.
Not sure how I rate Charlie since he has been with us. His goal tally for last season when fit was boosted by him taking over the penalties. I think he had 4 pens out of his 9 goals but I could easily be wrong. At least he can score from the spot unlike Tadic
Glad I was right all along, wish I'd placed a bet on it now when the odds were good! I think what Saints have realised is that because VVD has 5 years left on his contract and the value of players is increasing to crazy levels year on year, it wouldn't make sense to sell now. We can keep him for 2-3 seasons if we want and then sell him for double what we would have got this season. The ox went for £35-£40million with 1 year left on his contract, that is bat **** crazy money! So what price VVD in 4 seasons when he has 1 year left? He was happy enough to sign the deal and now needs to knuckle down and play until we are happy to sell. I tell you what it's like we have signed him ourselves in a 5 year deal, as long as he gives his all which I'm sure he will, this has been the best transfer window for a very long time, well done Les and co!
Impossible to oversell how big it is that we have held on to VVD. Huge step forward for the club, and signals that the board weren't lying about their intentions. Well done Les and co. We have an amazing defence! Now, all we need is the forwards to learn where the net is and we could push for the top 7 again.
An odd summer to assess. Lots of positives and one glaring negative. The first (and in some ways most surprising) positive is that we kept all our players. van Dijk's reaction over the next few months will tell us exactly how big a positive that is but even if he refuses to play I see this as a step forward. The second positive is that the business we've done seems very good, Hoedt and Lemina should strengthen the defence and midfield while clearing out fringe players like Martina, Clasie Rodriguez and Gazzaniga is also positive and I'm in favour of allowing Reed, Seager, Gallagher, Olomola etc to go on loan so that's good too. Having said all that Hoedt is effectively just a delayed Fonte replacement and Lemina really just takes us back to the days of having two quality DMs - in some ways a delayed Wanyama replacement. The negative is obviously the complete lack of attacking players brought in. I've wanted us to add an attacking midfielder who can score goals for maybe 3 years now so I'm used to that not being addressed but thinking about it, with Saints selling Rodriguez and not signing anyone else we're actually going into the new season with fewer attacking options than we ended last season with. That's remarkable for a side that's struggled to score goals for some time now. I assume Reed and Pellegrino are banking on Redmond, Boufal and the like coming good. Quite the gamble. I hope it comes off.
Pellegrino expressed a hope that we would still sign another player after the Huddersfield game and he also said earlier that we had had a couple of close calls when we nearly signed a target. So we could have tried and failed to sign another midfielder/striker...just didn't work out. Not losing players that we wanted to keep is a major move forward....so overall a good window that could have been a bit better.
I'll give you just a couple of points. We do create chances (and we were doing so last season). Both Gabbi and Charlie are goal scorers. For me, if those things line up, we'll score goals. There is of course no guarantee, however we do have the ingredients (even though I would have liked another one). These are the same ingredients that did hit a mini patch last year of scoring three and four goals in a run, so despite the apparent doom and gloom, it can happen.
Just out of interest, who is the creative no. 10 that we got rid of that is making us miss all these goals from before last season?
People are watching manxsaint....... That and I have a very good memory for uselsss information and you may have told me before...
We had that Mane character to unlock defenses. I'd happily take another Mane instead of a more conventional number 10, though the latter would be an easier fit given our current options at the position. Right now we have neither, unfortunately. And regarding our mini-patch...yeah, we did have a span of three league games where we scored 9 goals, thanks to four apiece against Sunderland and Watford (or 10 in 3 counting the League Cup final). But most teams have a couple games where everything went right, and over the course of nearly 50 games we averaged around one a match. For me, the 50 games are more meaningful than the 3 in terms of our scoring proficiency, and at no other time in the league did we have a span of three matches where we scored more than five. We were a model of consistency.
