Fraser was in Southampton yesterday, could be close. We have missed a trick not getting him before the Newcastle game as he would have be certain to score against his old club that hate him. On that note, there is no way Newcastle let him go before the opening game.
Look, we've given plenty of warnings about posting political stuff on the wrong threads so people can't complain about getting their posts deleted if they do so. So now I will make it clear, I will remove any political content that I see that is not on the Politics thread. Hopefully that clears the issue up for everyone.
Anyway - so goalkeeper this week, who can stop shots regularly and only has a couple of judgment fails a season, but could play in midfield easily, A centre forward (do they even exist anymore or are they called something different nowadays) who can rattle home between 12 and 20 goals and about about 9 assists. A creative midfielder who only doesn't play for Brazil because he was born in Barnsley or similar. Oh and an epiphany from lovely Russ that passing the ball across and around our defensive quarter with players marginally comfortable with it against arguably some of the best players in the world is not perhaps the best thing to do in this division. Am I expecting too much for this season? Slightly more sensibly I'm not overly optimistic about how it will all go, I never usually am to be fair, but the overall feeling I get from most 'online' supporters is expecting the worst, really top level worst, and hoping for a scraping by.
Here’s an idea. Why not try and get Datro Fofana on loan/buy from Chelsea? Would prefer him to Broja tbh.
My wife said she laughed so hard it felt like she was going into Labour. I told her she couldn't say that on this thread
Good shout, how’d he get on last year with Burnley - played similar style to us and likely we will face a few of the same issues? Still think we will be looking at the loan with obligations route, more our model of getting something at the end of it, rather than just paying/developing Chelsea or whoever inflated squads. Also wonder if we try to get Endo from Liverpool to sit with Downes…
Apparently agreed to join Leicester on loan, that report is almost a week old though. Galatasary also interested allegedly, no mention of us.
Adam Hlozek to Leicester on loan with obligation to buy. Fm players should know who he is, no idea what he’s like in real life
If they are able to get him and Hlozek on loan it does make you wonder what on earth we are doing / how bad off we are financially / how little any player wants to come to us
I assume they are not giving Leicester a points deduction. But it’s not exactly a stretch. Worst performing of the three promoted sides with a terrible defence, no goal threat and not having strengthen since last season We seem to be bumbling into the same problem as Ralph had when he tried three at the back. If we don’t have dangerous attacking threats to worry the opposition (and we are so far from having those its laughable) then teams can just pile on pressure against a back three system until it inevitably breaks
Romano reporting Hlozek so that one sounds like it’s done/very close. I think it’s probably the last of your options. If another PL team is interested then they will be ahead of us if everything is equal, with the exception of Ipswich possibly No idea if we were interested in Hlozek, he’s not British so maybe not. Regardless you’d think most players would rather Leicester than Saints anyway
I know why there's a lot of pessimism out there but let's keep positive until the end of the window. There are still a lot of very very good players who will be looking, above anything else, for first team guarantees and to be part of a team who try to play in a certain way. I see it as a positive that we haven't yet filled the loan spots. If we reach August 31st without having 4 or 5 new players of real quality on board then permission for all our pessimism (but I think we will have added a handful by then and that some will chose Saints over other good sides)!
We do need to wait until the end of the window to judge the squad, however I think it's fair to say that we need almost everything we do to go our way to have a chance of staying up. Whether that's signing a 'known quantity' and them being a success, or signing an unknown player and them doing great. We also need tactics and luck. We need all of those things to go our way as I don't think we can get away with hoping there are three worse teams, as we did in previous years. As others have said, we've spent a fair amount on Downes and THB, and that's just to stand still from last season. I think we're yet to strengthen and that's a worry given last year's defensive record.
