Unless the rules have changed, you aren't allowed to ignore eligible players who are on your books. They take up a squad place....which is one reason why clubs loan them out (as well as for the money).
That was why Ralph said he was never absolutely certain on uncertain things when asked if VVD would defo play for Saints again. You just never know.
https://www.clubcall.com/southampton/saints-set-to-return-for-scottish-defender-1861591.html Saints said to have an offer refused for Dundee's Jamie Robson.
Only if you have a full 25-man squad are you allowed to ignore them ... saw a post on SW that we have a 25-man squad WITH Gardos/Jake Rose both taking up a place.
Tadic looks a shadow of a player that he was with Pelle to work with, they just complimented eachother perfectly. Tadic and Gabbi haven't looked like linking up effectively in the last 6+ months, how much longer do we wait? I wish we'd give Boufal a chance to cause mayhem. But we'll probably end up continuing to suffer watching Davis trying to be creative.
I read the Dundee times or something. They seem to think he will join us sooner or later as we are very keen.
Not necessarily going by your particular criteria, but I guess I would say that a C is about right. Maybe a C-. For all the good we have done in the window - and there is a lot of it (which makes it so galling that I can't give the window something like an A) - that one, huge glaring negative overrides it all. That is not me choosing to just focus on the negative; that is me believing that it was so vital that we did something about our offensive problems; even more so after we had already got the same thing wrong the previous summer (and thus have failed to learn our lessons, in my view - pretty unforgiveable). To paraphrase Lady Bracknell, to fail to treat the problem in one transfer window may be regarded as a misfortune, to fail in two looks like carelessness.
Not at all. Biting us in the arse just means a season very similar to last. Confirmed mid-table with a low scoring (low excitement) product. 0% chance of Europe, maybe 3-5% chance of relegation. We've missed an opportunity to build, and in turn influence the chances of our best players wanting to stay next summer. Sure, I love the stance on Virgil, but we either didn't try, or certainly didn't rate the value in getting some decent attacking options in should we have sold him. The only difference in our opinions is that I would've taken the option to sell Virgil to fund attacking options if we felt we couldn't compete for them otherwise.
I agree beddy, I'm not sure which season you're talking about though? Our best player wants out if my memory serves, and will be guaranteed a move next summer on the basis of what was originally agreed when he signed his extension.
I'm talking about in general, over the last 4 years we have had 3 managers all of which has had to come in with new ideas at the start of a season, only one has had what you might call a settled side (Koeman's second season) although in truth he still lost a couple of his best players. Hence why he left..........It would be nice to just start the next season without want away players so the prime target would be to strengthen rather than replace.
Yeah, I'd rate it above a C (probably a B or B-), but this is multiple windows where we've gone in knowing that we had an area that badly needed shoring up, were credibly connected to people who'd shore it up (thus indicating that the club agreed that it was a problem), and still exited the window with the same hole. As a result we've been a window or two behind in filling gaps; I certainly understanding wanting to get in our targets, rather than any old stopgap, but if one consistently comes up short on targets at positions of need, it might be necessary to give the black box a firmware update. Second, part of my concern is that our lack of cutting edge will be somewhat unfair to Pellegrino, as it was to Puel. They aren't miracle-workers, no matter their qualities as managers; a great display of coaching would be upgrading some of our mids from "atrocious" to "bad" in the finishing department (and that alone might buy us a decent uptick in goals scored). And whatever the reasons for Puel's departure, implicit in it was the suggestion that Pellegrino would make us a more exciting proposition; we have shown a bit more attacking intent, but I'm not sure that more-exhilarating 0-0s would keep the crowd from growing frustrated as the season progresses.
You got there first. If we've learned anything from this window, it's that it's pretty hard for any club, even Barca, to secure their preferred targets. We're not a club, thankfully, that rushes to panic buy either.
No, I've assumed that we didn't sign one, and that money would most likely be the reason we didn't. We had options to resolve the attacking problem if we'd prioritised differently.
Ok, you assumed it was the money. No evidence at all for that, And you said this: "but we either didn't try, or certainly didn't rate the value in getting somedecent attacking options in" Seems Like an assumption to me. just because we haven't got one doesn't me we didn't want one. None of us know, so why assume? Not having a dig at you but I find it odd when fans make statements like yours when really they just don't know.
Indeed. There's absolutely nothing wrong with looking at a situation from all angles, not reaching a logical conclusion and declaring, I just don't know.
Fats you clearly consider yourself to be the biggest master debater on this forum, so perhaps I'll leave you to that crown. It's quite obvious that I believe that the club had the ability to sign some attacking reinforcements but didn't. It's clear that I've taken a balanced view to the transfer window as I've not said the club has completely failed, as I have praised some aspects. It's also clear that you've intentionally chopped my quote mid-sentence in your last message. My question to you is: Do you believe that the club had NO ability at any point during the window, regardless of all options available to them, to sign any attacking reinforcements? If you believe that then you're either a) Incredibly naive, or b) you're defending the club on the basis of some unforeseen last minute "we couldn't possibly have seen that happening" hitch to a deal that was previously 100% across the line, which funny enough there's no evidence of. The other option is that you agree that they did have the ability, but chose not to. In which case, that's fine, but you can stop telling me that I can't have an opinion based on what's clearly by far the most logical option of the two.
