I just checked and the Oxford English dictionary have added our January 2023 transfer window as the definition of 'panic buying'. We spent £50m on Sulemana, Orisic and Onuachu - two of which were not exactly young...and none of which really fit the system at the time or since... ..they all flopped and we are still going to recoup over half of it. That's decent in my book.
Fernandes; “It was a tiring season for me, I’m completely fed up with football. Many defeats, it was a year of learning, and that’s it, learning from football. 100% away He couldn't fully shine, so in and around £30m I think.
One way of getting over “many defeats” would be playing in the championship as part of one of the strongest squads
It would have been especially galling for Matty to see his ex-teammates win Primeira Liga last season… I’d be feeling depressed too.
He’d had to have known he was trading a shot at a title for a relegation threatened team. Granted he probably didn’t expect us to not even put up a fight
He's got what he needed. Backed himself to make an impact playing regularly in a top league and it's worked. He's tripled his value and has some of the biggest teams in the world on high alert. Great signing who I hope stays but im 100% not going o to feel sorry for him for joining us and hope/expect we'll stick to a valuation come what may. Good that he cares about winning but that's all I take from it.
yeah, I doubt for a second he regrets leaving. Whilst it was considered a bit of a coup when we signed him, he was attracting interest from relegation battlers for £12m. Now he is attracting interest from top sides over the world like Juventus for £40m+. Hopefully others look at him, Tino, Lavia and take note.
All depends if he would’ve played regularly for Sporting or not. Pretty sure the rumour at the time was they needed to sell somebody for decent money for financial fair play reasons, and they chose Fernandes over selling some of the first team who were also attracting attention. Ironically I think one of the players was Marcus Edwards who they loaned out to Burnley in Jan anyway, and now have sold him. I’m sure if Sporting could go back they would have kept Fernandes, and if he played no reason he wouldn’t have attracted attention like he is now. But yeah I’m sure he’s not regretting his decision as personally it’s definitely benefited him
I was thinking about whether any Lyon players might be on our radar, Still should be familiar with them. The glorious return of AMN?
One of their best players when he played. Made a huge difference to them, but only played about a quarter of the season.
One of the opinion sites on Newsnow has come up with a transfer triangle based on various rumours out there Armstrong to Norwich Sargent to Leeds Piroe to Saints Not really fussed if it happens or not, don’t see Piroe as a huge upgrade on Armstrong and don’t think he’ll score much in the PL for a struggling side
Haven’t read Saintsweb and assume they are having a meltdown, but surprised there isn’t more of one on here. All the talk about wanting everything done early as we’ve had months to prepare and we are at the start of pre season having made one signing and nobody has left (apart from the out of contract players). Obviously Sulemana and Onuachu look likely to go, but I thought people would be expecting more by now.