Branden Williams, Taylor Harwood-Bellis and Rico Lewis are some of the most promising kids in football. Man Utd’s Williams is a bit older and been around since 2019 when he made his debut for Man Utd where he played 21 first team games. He was loaned out to Norwich where he played 20+ times for FARKE and he’s still only 22. It would seem that the club are still looking at recruiting young players who would have a big sell on value, but with Man City kids there is usually a sell on clause involved. Gyabi came from this academy and he and Romeo Lavia were forecast to be high value players in the future, indeed Lavia now at Southampton is wanted by Liverpool and £45m has already been mentioned for the 19yo. With Charlie Cresswell signing a new deal until 2027 can we expect him starting for the first team this season, or will we be loaning him out and bringing in better CBs?. It would seem that Farke is trying to put the old band back together by signing Sam Byram and Branden Williams as full backs. Williams is a tough tackling flying left back which we have needed for ages, and even the Man City kids are both ball playing defenders with pace. With Ampadu already signed and having a solid keeper in Darlow just maybe we can see some daylight in how Farke wants this team to look. Also seems that the club are backing the manager. Slowly! Saudi Arabia has a transfer window that closes a month after ours closes. This is going to be a nightmare for any club over here who could see a player leave but not be able to replace him until January. Problems this window have been highlighted in a big way around player power already, and some of the craziness around Mbappe £235m salary offers and buy out clauses like the £50m for Dembele. Lets remember that last season Man City were able to get Haaland for £55m when he was obviously worth 4 times that, but his advisors managed to do a deal when he went to Dortmund that had a low buy out clause to ensure he could negotiate a massive wage at Real Madrid or Man City. This summer the Saudi’s have pumped billions into the football system and have now managed to close down the debate around money washing, clubs like Man City cheating with the way their owners declare huge sponsorship deals….. but now the Saudis own Newcastle Utd and have so many clubs picking up larger than usual transfer fees, it closes down call for investigations. How did Chelsea manage to beat the system of FFFP as their new owner has spent a fortune on players last season and doing it again this season and 2 more players signed today alone, and funny that the Saudis seem to have bought many of last seasons buys for crazy money. La Liga is skint yet the Saudi transfer fees is pumping money into it and rejuvenating it. Same in Italy and France and Germany. I am still hoping Bamford is snapped up and goes to some desert club, but are the Saudis crazy enough. Fulham we’re losing Willian on a free transfer so they offered him a huge pay rise and got him to sign a new deal just 2 weeks ago. The Saudis came in this week and offered a massive wage and he accepted personal terms and now Fulham are trying to fight them off. Player power yet again killing football. Liam Cooper offered huge tax free wage ….. AC Milan are getting rid of CDK knowing they won’t get back what they paid for him. The player who knocked us back and who was maybe the catalyst for our downfall going out on loan. We wouldn’t have bought Rutter if he had joined and maybe a lot of other decisions wouldn’t have happened if he had joined Leeds as we tried to get him early and wasted weeks trying… Another month before we find out our first team squad, it’s crazy and not a chance of promotion unless the players coming in are top players. I reckon we will lose another 4 players yet. On top of this Southampton and Leicester who were relegated with us are bringing in over £100m each in transfer fees whereas we are getting a couple of million in loan fees
Starting with the Manchester lot.... Williams is the only one I see us getting. The Man City CB fee is stupidly high. The Saudi story is interesting. I'm guessing these clubs are owned by members of the Saudi Royal Family. The fact that the Saudi league has been able to vacuum up talent from Europe and South America is mind boggling. These aren't cheap fees either. It's like the MLS but with money. CDK should be a cautionary tale of seeing stars. If he'd come to us we might have stayed up and not being loaned our. When Cooper leaves up and we don't sign anyone then we've shot ourselves in the foot. I'm getting impatient now. We we're meant to have players waiting in the wings and only Darlow has materialised l.
Selling Cooper for a half decent fee would be great business. 10 mill for Meslier, 5 mill for Cooper, 17 mill for Harrison and 20 mill for Gnonto. Go get Hamer, Piroe and Harwood-Bellis for a combined 45 million and then throw a cheeky bid of 7 mill for Charlie Taylor and that would be a league winning chunk of business and we'd be breaking even.
Wolves don’t forget the Saudis have just bout out golf this year as well “The Saudi story is interesting. I'm guessing these clubs are owned by members of the Saudi Royal Family. The fact that the Saudi league has been able to vacuum up talent from Europe and South America is mind boggling. These aren't cheap fees either. It's like the MLS but with money.”
Thought you'd all like to know that following all the injury udates and players potentially leaving we are still 2/5 to win on Sunday. Perhaps some of the doom & gloomers would like to cash in on the very generous 15/2 available for a Cardiff win if you're so sure we're goosed.
So Costa will be gone soon and Pineda and Shackleton get squad numbers, scary. Sounds like the 49ers big plan is to spend fk all and use the kids and the old lads
Why wouldn't Shackleton & Poveda get squad numbers as both played Championship football last season ? You may as well say why has Joffy been given a squad number. Come on Doc you need to have some faith that our players can do the business and in Farke we seem to have a brilliant organiser who doesn't bullshit us or the players.
Yes some of our kids were in the championship last season but that’s not a biggy that guarantees promotion is it. Please tell me how many of these kids are good enough for the prem….. we need some quality in not kids who couldn’t cut it last season and some guys who got us promoted 3 years ago. I will stop complaining when I see the level of investment from our owners and so far it’s real slow, real slow
Yeah, I'm on it. Can't wait to see just how good this super human Southampton side really are. Interested to see how Shea Charles goes in this league. He has a good future. Would have liked him on loan with us.
Don't like the kit. Saints should be in red and white stripes. Looking decent so far though. Be interesting after 20-30 minutes if they slow down enough for Wednesday to clog them all over the pitch.
This is exactly how we need to play. Make the pitch big and pass before they can get physical in the challenge. Great stuff from Saints so far.
