Toby signs for Spurs - official.

And here lies the problem. If we truly have ambitions for regular European football/CL challenges then if we find players good enough to achieve this (unless all at once) then they will leave. The reality is that for a player to be happy here long term then he probably isn't wanted by the top teams, which most likely means they aren't good enough for our alleged ambitions.

 

McCarthy is being seen as our long term cb option.

 

How do we know Fonte's replacement will leave? How do you know a player won't be good enough just because he would like to stay? Some people choose to worry over things that hasn't happened yet. I think there is enough things to worry about in normal day life then to try and predict or guess the future.

 

He must have trained with Forren too.

 

Forren's training crowd was the pub.

 

Better to sign a CB that is so good he is sold, than to sign a CB no one wants. Fonte may not be the best CB we have had, but he has proved that he is nigh on irreplaceable....luckily no other team noticed.

 

I don't know, and I'm not worried about it either. It is football, it is what happens. We are unlikely to find a player who would be happy to stay here if there was genuine interest from the top clubs

 

Top clubs can't sign every player in the world.

 

How many games did our back four of Clyne, Fonte, Toby and Bertrand actually play together? My guess would be that we played as many with a different back four. I'm probably wrong but my point is that we have some decent players even without Toby (and Clyne, oh and without Bertrand for a few games). Ok, beginning to worry a bit now!

 

No they can't, but they seem to have a fondness for ours

 

That's the Southampton sparkle for you

 

One has gone this season that is all and that one player ran down his contract so had to be sold.

 

Yeah and one looks very likely to go and another we couldn't sign after his loan. So from last years team that is at worst our 3 best players, and at best 3 of our strongest 11. A similar number (player wise) to last year.

 

Alderweireld wasn't our player tho? Yes he was on loan to us, but he wasn't technically our player. Clyne second half of the season wasn't one of our 3rd best players either. As with Morgan we got a extra year out of him that we didn't think we would.

 

Problem for me is that it's not so much hindsight or looking back and replaying the mistake as I've been uneasy with our approach the whole way and just wanted us to do what it takes to get it done, I said a while ago I wouldn't have batted an eyelid at us spending £25m on him and now it's clear it wouldn't have even taken near that. The fact that I didn't particularly expect him to return if anything makes it worse that we didn't press our opportunity to do so, not really lamenting it too strongly but just the way it is. Even if a week or so ago when it became Spurs were starting to really push if we bid say, £15m, we can't be sure we would've got him but it would've given us a better chance that we declined to take. I can respect why we didn't but now we have to get our next move right.

Think this is going to be a big test of our strategy, up until now we haven't been allowed much choice with our approach. Our plans have all been about operating as efficiently and effectively as we can with what we have at our disposal, our methods haven't been tested because we were just doing the best we could - we can't keep all our best players for long, we can't attract the very best and we can't pay the wages of others so we find the best ways to work around that. But in this case, it does seem like we could have really pushed through and sacrificed efficiency and our principles of business to try and get our man, but we stuck to our guns, didn't panic and just let it play going about it how we thought was right. We had a choice to break from our usual protocol but we backed the way we do things, more turnover of players and another sign to other possible recruits that we are a great stepping stone, I don't mean that in a negative way but just means we're really committing to breaking the mould and trying to continue to move up the ladder whilst we have these limitations on us. I hope it's not over-confidence, I want to believe it's not but hard to trust myself and that I'm not just dreaming of the fairytale.

 

Yeah, we have to be pretty decisive now; while there's still quite a bit of time remaining in the window, we still have an awful lot to do to improve the squad, and we need some high-end players if we're aiming to finish in the same part of the table next year. If there are players we value highly, now is the time to meet their clubs' valuations and get them in...we really don't want to be sitting with a big wedge of money in July and a bunch of needs, because the prices (or players available) aren't going to be getting better from there.

 

I trust Les and Ronald to surprise us with a couple of surprise signings within the next week to 10 days. We are to organised nowadays to leave things to chance, and they'll want to get it sorted before the Europa games, though we may have to wait a tad longer as most of the Big Clubs have not done much yet in the transfer window.

 

That's fine (providing he reaches the level needed) but even if he comes good we still need someone to partner Fonte now and someone to partner McCarthy when he's ready. Ideally it can be the same person. Do you think McCarthy is likely to get a game or two this season? Maybe in the League Cup?

On a separate note, as much as we like to say Spurs and Liverpool are who we should be rivalling, we first need to solidify our position at the level Everton have occupied for most of the last ten years or so.

 

Bang on. Everton have been my inspiration/target for a little while now. They are what I aspire us to be. If, in the future, we can go even further than they have managed to date, then all the better.