Kelvin Phillips… thoughts? Clearly his form has fallen off a cliff in recent times but if he can get back to something close to the player he was he’d be one of the first names on the teamsheet for us. No doubt a risk, but could be a cut price risk that pays off…
Saints bid of £14m + adds ons rejected. With us and Atlanta offering £12m & £14m, its pretty clear no one thinks he is worth £25m. From what I have heard from those that have watched him, he hasn't really warranted that sort of money so hopefully we can get him for <£20m.
Which is better than over paying and then not being able to strengthen elsewhere. Plus Celtic may accept less than they would ideally want if they consider it to be worth it for their squad. £18m is huge money in scotland even if they'd ideally want more.
Once linked to Saints Matias Soule close to joining Roma for €30m Chelsea also close to signing Danish keeper Jorgensen from Villareal, no idea if that means a keeper from Chelsea might become available for us to potentially loan
He wouldn't be very high up on my wish list but we do need someone in that position so depending what other business was done a loan might be worth thinking about. But only if we could send him back in January if he was crap.
West Ham paid £3m to loan Phillips for half a season, as well as his full £140,000 a week contract. Man City wanted more but had to settle. Loans can be the difference between success and failure, in which case they clearly pay for themselves (though you invariably then have to pay more than you would have done initially to bring that player in permanentl) . They still need to be properly thought out and fit a financial model. It's not often a 'free hit' as some are portraying. I much prefer loans with a set fee to buy for this reason - but even that is not without risk.
Never liked him. Purely because I used to get bullied by a guy at school whose surname was Rowe. Funny how things stick with you
There is a thread on Saintsweb from last time we were in the premier league asking if the league is too rich for us. When Fulham are making transfers like this you do have to wonder. We will see of course. Last time and this we need to go and spend 35m on a striker. Or close to it. But those strikers don’t seem to want to join us - and would be too expensive for a club like us should they fail like others have in recent times
The question would be if Fulham can spend £35m then why can’t we? Revenue wise we must be similar, so the only reason we “can’t” is a lack of wanting to do so. They have sold Palhinha for big money this summer, we did the same last summer in terms of total sales. We also spent £140m the season we went down so the money seems to be there for us, we just chose to spread it thinner than buying a few £30m+ players. You are right about whether someone like ESR would even contemplate joining us at this time, but a couple of years ago we were similar to where Fulham are now (and possibly more desirable because of our reputation of developing and moving players on to bigger teams)
