So, I have a question for you, who do you think that the club should've signed last season with the same budget?...bearing in mind that established Premier League players fees and wages are hugely inflated.
It'd be better if teams struggled with his movement while we had other goal scorers in the team. The only consistent goal threat we've got spends most of his time lurking further back passing the ball about and looked less than agile in the box this season. Fortunately Morgan chipped in with some uncharacteristic scoring this season, and Davis picked up the odd opportunistic one, but the rest of them are chocolate teapots in front of goal. Cap doffed to thread title: Lovren looks like he knows where the goal is edit: oh just remembered, a nod to jason Puncheon who scored a different goal this season.
Don't make out we operated with a low budget. We blew other clubs out of the water on wages for the likes of Ramirez and we have been doing every season.
OK....so who should we have bought instead of the other duds? From your post above it appears that you are only valueing a player's worth to the team by how many goals they score.
Your last point here simply isn't true. When Pardew came to the club our squad was a depleted shambles largely made up of kids and very poor players. Pardew mainly picked off the best League One players and was able to do so because we were League One's Man City.
how does that make what I said not true? our record since we were league one's man city isn't great and the vast majority of signings we made then became first team fixtures on merit. danny seaborne and harley dean notable exceptions.
I value strikers who score when the rest of the team are **** at shooting. So i expected a goal scorer, not a guy who makes space for jack cork to pass it to someone else. I like Corky, but FFS. I expected a centre back with PL experience. I expected a GK with top flight experience even if only as a sub, but for god's sake not Kelvin. I expected not to start the season with Danny Fox. I expected a goal scorer given we'd ****ed off Billy Sharp. I expected an Experienced if unexceptional prem central midfielder in the mould of a danny murphy type to help Cork and Morgan along. Davis was probably close enough, but he was deployed further forward and was a few years out of the top level Finally I hoped for a quick winger because Adam and Jason are no speedsters and De Ridder has been hopeless. I actually expected Jos to be OK as one of the centre pairing but I was hilariously wrong.
Oh and yeah unfortunately incompatible with the unexceptional part, but we needed goals from midfield and I didn't expect them from Morgan, so i'd have wanted wingers and a CM who score. We could really do with someone who can ping it in from outside of the box. We're sorely lacking in that. I don't know if the Wales goal was a fluke, but Lovren has done it before. Yoshida came to us with a reputation for bicycle kicks though and although he tried he couldn't pull one off for us.
I'm glad we are signing players prior to preseason. A proper preseason is so important. I think our scouts have done well so far. Not everyone is going to be a starter every game. I also like we are going for younger guys who can be taught and moulded rather than "experienced" ones which may not have any upside left. MP being a CB gives me confidence there is something to Lovren. He obviously thinks he knows what he needs to get him to play the way MP wants. Red cards and bad tackles typically mean bad positioning. That is something that can be taught, especially to a young hungry player. Older ones (like Fox) are much harder to teach.
And yet, despite the team neglecting to sign a bunch of unexceptional veteran PL players (read: high wages and declining value) we still survived. And we're now in a far better position to kick on than if we'd followed the direction that you suggest.
High wages and declining value over Kelvin, Jos, and Danny any day. Radhi didn't do us too much harm. Until he brought us Mayuka. Yes we survived. Despite some ludicrous risks taken in the summer transfer market and in timing of management changes. We also managed promotion the season before despite running out of steam after the first third of the season was done and our momentum subsided. We've seen a fair bit of fortune and flown by the seat of our pants at times on our way up. A far better position? Debatable. I don't subscribe to the "They will only improve" mantra people trot out about young players. There are two other options. Stagnate or fall to pieces for any number of reasons. We still paid a fortune for players we didn't use and have plenty of players on the books who played no part last season and may not in the coming season either.
Yes because goals scored was our real downfall last season..... Oh no, hang on a minute. Didn't we lose a spectacular number of points from winning positions due to defensive errors? Yeah that was it, I think. Wish we could have bought a striker, someone with experience. Maybe sombody who could score, say, 15 goals a season. Damn missed a trick there, especially as we let Sharp go- he's literally set the NPC on fire at Forrest. Oh no, hang on a minute. Yes it would be lovely to have a pacey, goal scoring from outside the box winger. Maybe you should write to Cortese? I'm sure nobody has thought about that kind of player. I hadn't. Buying players is not just like closing your eyes, wishing really hard and BAM there he is, ready to start training. I'm pretty sure certain conditions must be fulfilled before a player is signs; 1. The required player must exist and be available ie on a free or handed in a transfer request 2. The player must want to come to your club- he won't sign otherwise, will he?! 3. His valuation must be met- because as much as I would like the Leibehrs to pour infinite cash into saints, it won't happen 4. His wages must be acceptable (because we have to pay the player- it's not just about handing over the transfer fee!) 5. Must not be poached by a 'bigger' team. I hope this helps you come to terms with why the saints squad does not look like your team on football manager. Sorry if that was a bit patronising but your child like view of our transfers really does suggest you have no idea how difficult it must be to assemble a team.
I follow three teams regulary; Southampton, Olympique Lyon and AC Milan. I nearly never miss a game from these teams. I will try to put things in perspective; he is definitely better than Hooiveld and Fonte, so he is an improvment of a kind. He is also probably no worse than Yoshida, at least. I am a bit disappointed i guess because i expected someone really top notch. Lovren is good, but I know all of his flaws, so i can't be as excited as others. We are getting a good player, but also a flawed player. Physically, he is great; fast(for a CB), strong, agile. He is also very good at man marking and defending one-on-one situations. Those are his virtues. His main problems are of mental nature. He seems to be unable to remain concentarated and composed troughout the match, he has lapses in concentation and is known to make some wrong/hasty/rash decisions which can be very costly. If he could elimnate those mistakes from his game, he would really be class CB. This way he is just an average Prem defender. But hopefully he can still improve. And Pochettino's way of playing will probably suit him, it seems he is more suited for an aggressive pressing game than conventional 'sitting deep and waiting' defence. That's probaby the reason they went for him.
Yoshida has been good. Others would consider him to have experience now, and be a good signing, especially those mid-table/lower-table. Basically, we didn't sign any of these players you wanted/expected, but we finished 14th. I think I will continue to trust the club, thanks.
Actually, we didn't have a fair bit of fortune. We were tied for the twelfth-best goal differential, which is a decent indicator that we did not luck our way to survival. We generally outplayed our results, in point of fact. And take a look at the players you wanted replaced...they are the older veterans. Fox/Jos were players brought in to fill gaps, not to push on. Of course, they were brought in to fill gaps at the Championship level, not the Prem. Of course they can fall to pieces. So too can supposedly seasoned veterans. We didn't spend a fortune. For one, substantial transfer fees are a reality at this level. For another, because our wage bill is below-average, the sticker shock of transfer fees is offset by the fact that we aren't spending ourselves into oblivion in pay packets. Thus, we broke even or turned a profit despite the outlay, which is the advantage of buying young and/or foreign. There is a reason that, when Cortese was making noise about wanting backing, there was a tonne of talk from journos about how well-regarded he is around the football world, and how he'd find a new job within minutes if he left little old Saints. There's broad recognition that he's doing an impressive job of identifying and acquiring players that, if not for circumstances, we'd have no hope of getting. And he gets credit for taking those managed risks in the hope of pushing beyond our station rather than settling for the treadmill of mid-table, acquiring older players with no upside...a treadmill that most teams eventually fall off.
