Jordan Sibley has just tweeted: "@jordansibley: That's our business done for the window, ladies and gents. No @Dominos_UK delivery for the media lads in the office this year! #saintsfc" What does everyone think? We look light up front, but we have youth on our side so my guess is Pochettino's thinking is we are almost safe, so no is a great time to blood the youth.
We look light in a few areas to be honest. In an ideal world we'd have another striker, a winger, a couple more defenders and a goalkeeper, but hey, we're safe in mid-table so it doesn't matter I guess. We'll probably end up ninth or tenth. Hope we keep our cup run going or the season's effectively over.
We're light pretty well everywhere save CM, but I guess that's for the summer. Better have everything identified very early, though, because if we're serious about the challenging for Europe thing, we're going to need a pile of reinforcements.
Yes that's a good point. It's all very well keeping our powder dry for the summer but those scouts need to be earning their corn now and we need to get deals done early, or we risk missing out again.
Also hope we don't drop form too much through injury etc - need to be in the best position we can to be able to attract the type of players I suspect we'll be wanting.
Well, I'm pretty happy overall. Wouldn't have minded a CB/ST, but if the right deal isn't on the table, then fine. We've offloaded some deadwood and removed a disruptive character from the dressing room. Most importantly, we have not sold the family silver. Now to encourage the youth and get behind the team once more.
Would have been a different matter if we had anything to play for in the league, especially relegation. We are going to finish midtable. We may yet do well in the FA Cup...we showed against Arsenal that we are still a team to be reckoned with. We have saved Dani's wages, but will get no capital back until the summer (and then paid over 3 years)...may have affected our ability to buy anyone else, but more likely is that no player that we wanted was available.
Just thinking about the summer, if Dani option is taken and Shaw goes for £30m. We could potentially buy Shaw replacement £10m, Astori £10m, world class striker £20m and not actually effectively spend any Liebherr money, which would keep them happy. That doesn't seem too ugly a scenario to me.
Rowe, Sinclair, Isgrove & McQueen(though just back from injury) have hardly been battering down the walls for 1st team football. The absence of either Adam or Jay would be tough on the side as only Guly is recognised senior cover unless we move midfielders further forward. Goals could prove hard to come by. Don't personally disagree with the tactic given our league situation and until you put youngsters into the big match situations you will never truly know how they will cope. Gallagher and the players mentioned above could come in and do a great job and save us even more £££. What I do hope from this is that we get our summer business done early. Surely we identified players as possibilities for January, but found them unavailable or too pricey. If we can get a few players signed up pre-world cup then that would be ideal.
Yeah exactly, we're perfectly sustainable already without more money from the Liebherrs and without selling any of our first team players, thanks.
Well, I'd be surprised if we could find a world-class striker for £20m, but yeah. Our wage bill is low enough at this point that I'd be shocked if we didn't turn a profit even with the outlay, so we ought to have a large pile o' money for a summer transfer pool even without any sales.
Yes, but if Shaw chases the Chelsea move in the summer, I really don't think it's by any means a disaster.
I suppose eventually we have to pay something to Katharina...after all anyone would expect a certain income from a sizeable investment like that. No one expects money back from a business in the first few years, but must be due something back now.
Few points.... 1) I would have liked a striker as I feel we are a bit light up there but... 2) It's a good opportunity to blood youngsters and see how good they are with safety almost guaranteed and not a lot left to play for. 3) If we have no fear in doing the above, the young-un's that get the chances or are getting closer to getting a chance will willingly sign extensions/full contracts before we fully break up at the end of the season. Additionally... 4) Conspiracy theorist in me says that Osvaldo's deal may mean that the permanent option will have to agreed to be exercised very early summer (loan expiry 31/5/14), and we may still be sold by Katharina Liebherr later in the summer (but after she's got some additional change back in for Puncheon/Fox/Osvaldo). 5) Point 4 above is backed up by the fact that the youngsters who get their chance will have the biggest increase in their value (thus the club's value) in the last few months of this season. We won't really know any of these answers much before August, may as well enjoy until then ;-)
I couldn't begrudge her a modest dividend of a few million a year I suppose. If she starts doing a Glazer and helping herself to all our profits I won't be too impressed however!
Think realistically the best we could expect out of potential Osvaldo/Shaw transfers would be 30-35m. Still not bad though. Just have to use Targett as the Shaw replacement and save 10m there, and we could probably still get Astori and "world class striker" in.
