What made people rate Shaw higher was the fact that we didn't have good back up. Like that thread the other day about our most important player - Lallana's our best player but, personally, I feel that losing Boruc is my biggest fear as it affects the defence as well as not having a competent replacement.
I think people are really misguided to think that selling Shaw would be fine. As a player, he's replaceable, but you simply can't put a price on his value as a symbol of our academy and a declaration of the fact that we are now keeping our best prospects.
I agree. The old Saints way was to sell our best players, and "invest" the money in a host of journeymen players or players past their best. The new way of thinking is that we tie our best players to long deals, we treat them well, build team spirit and invest in the academy. The new Saints way is only to sell players when WE deem the time is right. In the past an offer of £10 million would be snapped up. Today an offer of £25 million is looked at like half a maggot in an apple. WOW - how things have changed - and that is what makes being a saints fan today so exciting!!
Shaw has never shown any sign of leaving...things can change, but my guess is that he'll be here next season.
Yes. We are so used to our youngsters leaving, this time a lot of us are preparing ourselves for him to go in the summer with the more comfortable knowledge that we are a healthy club and we'll receive x amount for him. He really might not be bothered about going yet. He is certainly happy and has a great relationship with Poch.
Who are we declaring this fact to? I thought the goal was to win football matches with the best talent on the field, not issue statements to some mythical audience. And if Targett is that good, then we wouldn't be selling Shaw out of a position of weakness. Therefore, if there's a statement being made it's that our academy is so bad-ass that what would be someone else's once-in-a-decade gem is simply another easily replaceable player out of our neverending conveyor belt of talent. That's how it works-- we produce great players, we have an excess, we sell some at huge profit, take the money and put it back in the academy to produce the next generation of great players. ehh... forget it. I actually have no idea if Targett is that good, and I don't particularly have a desire to see Shaw sold, so the point is moot. We do need depth so it's not like both Shaw and Targett wouldn't be useful if we get to Europe someday. But I just don't understand why it's bad to sell players from our academy or players who are very good and never will. Barcelona, Man City, Chelsea, etc. sell players all the time and no one thinks they are smalltime "selling" clubs. If we need players, keep them. If we don't need them and can sell them for a huge return that we can invest more usefully somewhere else, then sell them. I don't care about making declarations. I promise this is the last time I will mention this.
I think our transfer window dealings shows great faith in our youngsters. And that despite being without most of our big money signings. We`ve moved on some players who have served us well in the past, and good luck to them. And I`d rather have one Gallagher or Lambert than 10 Osvaldos.
Just curious what you mean: removing Osvaldo?? 1. How do you know he is a disruptive character? 2. Are you the right person to tell|??
He cannot have been popular or the headbutt on Fonte could have been overcome. The example I used was that Rickie would have been forgiven if he'd done it. This one incident on it's own would not have made us move on a striker midseason with the possibility of making a loss.
I don't think there's any debate anymore that the players no longer wanted Osvaldo around. From Shaw's tweets to Fonte's comments to MP saying flat out that Osvaldo could never play for Saints again, and the fact that we basically just gave him to another team for 6 months for free.
I don't think we can look at it as giving him away for free. If we hadn't then we couldn't fine his wages for the remainder of the season and he wouldn't have been used again in the squad so getting him off of the wages with Juventus paying them effectively means that we have 800k more in the bank come end of season (20 weeks @ 40k rough est) If your company bought a new machine and the old was now obsolete and someone said we'll take it off you now and pay for it at the end of the year, would you say no or would you pay for storage space to hold the machine?
Juventus did not pay us a fee. On top of that, Osvaldo purportedly took a pay cut to go there, and his wages already weren't very much for a team with their budget. He basically costs them nothing. So yes, we gave him away for free. Just because Osvaldo was literally worth less than nothing to us and it was smart to give him away, doesn't change the fact that we gave him away.
Eh? How much more evidence do you need? I'm afraid it's a little inconvenient to get Mauricio to pop round to your place for a cuppa to confirm that, but really, it's not like you need that, surely!?
Honestly, that's actually the weirdest conclusion I can think of. And I really wanted Ossie to work out.
I struggle to be too happy. Our team is objectively weaker than it was this time a month ago. I don't exactly mind, it's not like it really matters at this point given that we're basically in a midtable vacuum, but I can't exactly pretend it's been a good month for us.
Technically we are weaker for losing a striker whom we couldn't replace at such short notice, but as he had to go we did well to shift him in a couple of weeks. One of the strengths of our team is their togetherness and team spirit...no point in keeping such a disruptive character. Kelvin said as much. Quite an achievement for Dani to make enemies in our happy clappy team in a matter of months. I think he is a difficult fiery character and he never settled in the EPL...unhappiness with his football performance just made it more likely that the poor side of his character would appear as he no doubt put some of that blame on his team mates.
All of that is just window dressing so everyone looks good. Osvaldo took a pay cut to go to Juventus so if we did in fact get 400k, it's likely just coming from the money they saved on wages and giving it to us. Osvaldo doesn't mind losing the money since he could have lost much of it anyway if he were suspended 6 weeks. We get to say we got 400k and Juve is paying "100%" if his wages (even though their 100% is less than our 100%) so we don't look as bad. Maybe on some technical level, Juventus is not acquiring Osvaldo for "free" but that's what it amounts to for all intents and purposes.
