Saints January Transfer Window Thread - Part II

I wouldn't be too happy about it. Objectively he's not worth £8m but this isn't Football Manager, we'd not be able to find someone who can play his role as well as he does for any less, and as ptf said we're not exactly strapped for cash to the point where we need to take every fair offer that comes our way.

 

I agree, and there's so little to choose between the three that hopefully we can rotate them a bit.

 

We've not had an Astori Update in a while - Cagliari have turned down a 1.5m loan bid from Galatasary.

Apparently Juve coach Conte is a big fan of Osvaldo and is keen to see the deal done. Doesn't look like our new arrival is coming from Italy. As the loose lipped Italians are not connecting us with anyone.

 

We might have someone though, in Harrison Reed. Assuming Wanyama is healthy, we would just go back to Wanyama and Schneiderlin for this season. If we got in a pinch JWP, Davis, or Guly could probably play midfield with Schneiderlin. Or maybe we just deputise Reed at that point. It wouldn't be as good as Cork but arguably we don't have that much to play for. Not sure we can get to Europe and Pochettino has indicated he doesn't think Euro Cup is that great anyway. And I highly doubt we will get relegated.

So IF Saints think that Reed is the future, then trading Cork for more than he is worth (and perhaps more than he ever will be worth if he stays on the bench or just a rotation guy) might not be a bad idea. You can put Reed on the bench instead of Cork and let him get some second half minutes this season and next season maybe he will be a backup/rotation player just as Cork is now. And the season after that maybe he turns into Paul Scholes II and forces Wanyama or Schneiderlin out of a job.

Having said all that, I wouldn't sell Cork for 8m but that's getting awfully tempting. 10m and you might have a deal. Although it's not going to happen anyway. 3m is a joke.

 

Cork's only 24, still relatively young, and certainly not yet at his peak, and you're talking about putting him out to pasture and replacing him with an unproven 18 year-old. Consider me unconvinced.

 

This.

I also don't get the posts saying £10m etc is getting tempting, I don't know about you lot but I don't see a ****ing penny of it when we sell a player!

In seriousness we don't know how things are going to pan out investment wise at the moment, I derive a lot more pleasure from seeing Jack play than I do from a wedge of money being sat in a bank account that isn't mine!

 

You're worried about Saints' ability to judge and develop unproven teenagers? Seriously?

 

You can all the confidence in the world in a player, but an 18 year old yet to fully break into the 1st team (other than a couple of cameos) is a gamble. Cork is extremely solid backup and provides genuine competition to keep others on their toes.

 

18 year olds like McGoldrick, Lloyd James, dexter Blackstock..... They don't all turn out to be Bales and Shaws, it's a percentages thing. Cork is class and we need him for the foreseeable, a replacement would cost as much as we're likely to get and then have to settle in.

 

For goodness sake Dan, leave me to my flight of fancy!

 

Three million for Cork....they're having a giraffe. That's the price of an unproven youngster who is surplus to requirements...not the price of a young, proven PL-quality player who hasn't peaked yet. How much would we have to pay for a replacement who might not even fit in? We are known for giving kids a chance, but there is no point in moving on a good player just to give a youngster a chance. If they are good enough, they get opportunities or they can force their way in, but Cork isn't exactly Methuselah. All a matter of balance.

Can't see that our travelling to Fulham precludes a player being signed on Friday. If that was true, most away teams would lose a day of the transfer window. The day when the manager was the major person for signing a player is over...MP will have been involved at the selection stage, but then just awaits the photo opportunity. We won't just take anyone...I'm afraid I can see us losing Dani without being able to get anyone in...we are hardly desperate enough to take our fifth choice, are we?

 

But those were players elevated to the first team under a previous regime, due to all sorts of extenuating circumstances.

I'm not under the impression that every 18yo will turn into a star player. I just have faith that we are better at picking out winners and developing them than other clubs. That is the point of the academy, it seems to me-- that we have a conveyor belt of talent which allows us the luxury of selling players because we can produce them cheaply and other clubs cannot.

I have no idea what the club thinks of Reed. If they don't think he's got the goods then obviously they should hang on to Cork. I'm not saying we should sell him, just that I wouldn't have a problem if we did. And keep in mind I am postulating a situation where someone offers us an outrageous 10m for Cork, which is way more than will be realistically offered. And only under the condition that we feel like Cork is going to be surpassed by Reed in a season or so anyway. So I don't feel like I'm going out on a limb here by saying that if we were to sell Cork for a ridiculous sum of cash it might be because we know exactly what we are doing, as opposed to us being a selling club or just profiteering.

Our market advantage is that we are better evaluators and developers of talent and therefore we can bend the rules and take what would be for other clubs big risks. But they aren't risks for us because we know what we are doing. We just started Callum Chambers over Nathaniel Clyne and and gave Gallagher a debut plus you coud throw in Shaw as well. And we still outplayed Arsenal. That would for most clubs be an absolutely crazy proposition. For us, it wasn't.

 

Sky Bet suspended bets on Osvaldo's next club. They have either had a **** load of bets laid on so worried about inside info or deal is done.

 

Not saying you're wrong, but sky bet suspended betting on Paul Hart to be our next manager once. It doesn't take much.

 

Unless Our Kate is loading on the bet to offset any potential loss

 

Cork is a "backup"!!!??? Currently he he THE player that everything revolves around. It is no surprise that, for example, Schneiderlin is now showing form again. He wasn't the same player without Cork. I said on another thread that if there was a stat for how often a player got passed to, I bet Cork would top it.

 

Aargh

 

and we keep the ball!

 

Some people on here have red-and-white tinted glasses, you've just got Cork tinted glasses. There's no stat for passed-to per game, but touches and passes made would be a fair indication, right? Especially with someone as good as you say Cork is, who starts every single attack, and thus is always passed the ball so he can get the attack going himself. In which case, it's a bit of a surprise that he's only 8th in our team for passes attempted per game, behind Fonte, Hooiveld, Lovren, Morgan, Victor, Davis and Maya. Strange that, given that he's always given the ball while Victor is avoided, yet somehow Victor manages to make 10 more passes a game.

 

Rumour Fox going to Forest in this window.