fatletiss, is this the thread your after? http://www.not606.com/showthread.php/88669-Questions-for-Nicola-Cortese
Ive heard Saints have put a bid in for Liam Ridgwell who has attracted interest from West Brom. Not sure of the bid amount but WBA had a bid knocked back of £2m. Also heard that Saints have lodged another bid of £6.4m for Hooper with Lee Holmes going the other way. Copied from the Echo.
Out of interest who would rather we went and bought Billy Sharp this window for £1.5m to ensure that we get promoted, with the risk that he may not be good enough for the Premiership - OR would you rather we made do with what we've got now and then invest in someone like Hooper/Sordell/Rhodes in the summer?
I'd rather get to the Premiership, and then worry about who in our squad is or isn't good enough, than not take any risks and stick with what we've got - and therefore have no reason to concern ourselves with who is or isn't good enough for the Premiership, because we've failed to get there. Sign. Sharp. Up.
Wouldn't want to spend several million on a player who might fall short of Prem standard, but 1.5m? Well worth it, and I'm not wholly convinced that Sharp cannot be a useful player at that level.
The likes of Danny Graham and Grant Holt are showing that, if you have your wits about you, you can easily make the step up to the Prem. Who's to say Sharp couldn't make the step up either?
Forte was signed as league one cover and to be fair helped earn us 3 points and get promotion. Somtimes plugs in the sqaud can be filled. On Sharp I expect saints to have spoken with Billy before making an official bid. You can call it tapping up but we had a bid accepted in the summer and he turned us down for personal reasons. Adkins knows him well and i'm sure would of asked whether it was worth the trouble of us even bothering. I don't think it's been mentioned but I heard Kevin Davies was uncertain of his Bolton future. He has been left on the sidelines recently and would provide decent cover for Rickie if we ever lost him again for a run of games.
I'm starting to get a tiny bit worried about are lack of activity in this transfer window. a CB is desperately needed if nothing else.
We've got a loan signing in (Falque), a potentially great free signing(Lee) and Punch back to prove a point, there's still 5 days to go in the window, so not too shabby IMHO. I agree we need centre back cover and another striker would be nice, but Saints haven't exactly been inactive so far.
We've already signed 3 players. Do you notice that other clubs are doing little or no business too so far? As Adkins said in the summer - most activity happens at the end of the window. Stop regurgitating your concerns because we don't need drastic changes, particularly as some if not all our key players will be back for Cardiff, along with effectively two 'new' players in Lee and Puncheon that will both have to settle into the squad and get used to playing each other, so drastic changes aren't necessary.
Has Puncheon said something new to get him back in the frame? Tbh it's a fair point from sotonsaint regarding a cb especially if one of the cb get injured again
Ease up a bit ! He has a fair point. Yes we have gambled on a few unproven players at this level, If they work out then great. but if they turn out to be as successful as deridder then we're in the brown stuff. Oh yeah.....CB ???