This is true, but he's still a body and an option. Unless Ralph thinks the likes of Ferry or Robise are ready to take on a fringe role, of course.
He made 25 appearances last season and was a regular in the matchday squad. You think that doent need replacing?
Not at all. He made 25 appearances, and was a regular in the matchday squad. He played in over half our matches last season, but he wasnt a vital player for us in terms of minutes or contribution. Hes still a body and an option that needs replacing. Otherwise we'll be relying on 18 year olds who aren't even training with the 1st team As I said, you think that his squad place doesnt need replacing? Of course it does ...
i don’t think it’s critical. Any player who only played bit part roles suggests he was literally there to make uk the numbers in the managers eyes. If that’s the case, use a youngster to develop them. Boufal was clearly not considered important
Which goes back to my point ... the young options are really Ferry or Robise (with Sims and Hesketh deemed surplus to requirements), none of whom are training with the 1st team so are they ready to play 20-25 games/appearances of first team football? Probably not. CM is more critical 100%, but a Boufal replacement would be needed as well.
Real Betis are the ones showing interest at £4m. Shame,he has bags of talent, it just doesn’t seem to be working here though.
For what little we used Boufal last season, I'd be fine with a cheap no frills loan to cover his loss for a season (assuming that we do sell him). See how Djenepo goes in his second season, before making a decision next summer on whether we make a "proper" signing in that position. I wouldn't suggest that we're in a position to make such a signing this season - in part because CM has to be our priority - and I wouldn't want us to go out and purchase a reserve player, who we would then be stuck with.
Wide players in and around the first team: Armstrong, Djenepo, Redmond, Tella, Johnson (Smallbone has also been used wide, though his future is probably playing central) No need to replace him. Three senior ones is enough, Smallbone will play wide on occasion and Tella and Johnson have been around the first team and on the bench at times since the restart. We keep coming back to this conversation, but for most positions we do not really need two senior players. It’s hard to really justify. By that logic we need to buy two more CMs to have ‘bodies’. Why? If the plan is to provide a more open pathway for the academy, signing players just to boost numbers directly opposes that. We can either fear injuries or just manage the squad we have. What’s the damage if we got a long term injury to one of them? We finish 13th instead of 10th? We’re also not likely to get a transformative winger that would take us from 10th to 7th either, so why rush and spend money we don’t have to? Tella in particular is a prime case here. He left Arsenal to join us in order to have better opportunities to pay earlier in his career. Start padding your squad and those hungry young ones don’t see us as so attractive anymore.
My apologies. So just the five players for two positions then. I just looked Boufal’s appearance data and frankly it doesn’t reflect a player we need to replace. He played a lot at the start of the season, when we were ****. Then his amount of minutes decreased rapidly, becoming a late sub or not selected most games. Until the Newcastle game where he played most of the match. He’s not been seen since a minute at Norwich. Ralph clearly doesn’t need or want him.
Probably was a better goal as it goes. But I wasn’t there to see it. Dani’s against City, and Cuco’s against the Goons, are among the reasons I still love football.
This was my favourite. The distance, the dribbling, the players crashing into each other like a cartoon. There’s a slow, building sense in the ground that nobody could stop him as he gets closer and closer. It’s poetic.
I was bang in line with it, though it was the first touch more than anything which made it so good. Not sure it was actually a better goal, just that it was part of a cup final run why I remember it that way.
Boufal is definitely my favourite Saints player to watch, so hopefully he goes to Betis as I watch most of their games as well.
