Transfer Rumours JANUARY TRANSFER THREAD

A member or Saints Web called LeG has said that we are looking to bring in 3 and sell 4.
He also stated that WH has no future here.

 

Far more important postion we need to get players than to stop a obvious talent playing

 

I'm probably being really thick here but who is WH?

Edit - Got it, Wes.

 

I'm guessing William Holden. Shame. I quite liked him. I know he's not been too lively of late, but neither have some of our players.

 

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Bringing 3 in sounds more like it although whether its achievable is another matter. Will we break our transfer record and go into the next bracket of player. Anderson at 40m won WH the game against us. For that money you expect game changers. I think fulham leicester palace and west ham are all through the 30m barrier on transfer records. Of course it doesnt guarantee success (benteke) but over time the league sadly aligns to spending. Ensuring you have a game changer or two is key in this league which costs unless you unearth a gem.

 

So a guess at the 4 for me would be - Gabbi, Davis, Hoedt and JWP

 

Gabbi, Davis, Hoedt, Soares

 

It won't be JWP.

 

Because...?

 

Because Pierre.

 

I still feel he has a place in our squad under Ralph for now. The summer is much more likelier

 

Just got the feeling Ralph likes him from his interview(s) the last couple of days. Also doubt he'd have played against City if there was a chance of him going (unlike Hoedt, Gabbi & Davis, for example)

 

Maybe he`ll bring in a couple of good value players from the bundesliga that he knows all about, and can trust.

 

The players will know how much effort they would have to put into training and playing also, so if any do come in we will have good egos who will always work hard.

 

Think that’s the most likely, don’t have to spend big. We’re selling players who are not abjectly terrible, just not the right league/style/system. I’m sure the opposites are out there

Role on the next Mickey Evans, Hassan Kachloul or Marian Pahars

 

Sam Gallagher back in training on Monday apparently.

 

The problem lies in the fact that your proven game changers have to have a list of flaws for the bigger fish to ignore them despite them being proven. And the list of these 30m players isn't particularly pretty, even besides Benteke... Who I remember plenty of ours clamouring for.

Personally I'd rather try and find and nurture talent that the big teams aren't willing to, nestled amidst consistent performers and professionals, than spend 40m each on three players (and all the baggage they bring) that all perform in one in every 3-5 games and hope their brief lights burn brightly enough and at different times.

And to be honest most of the time I think the bigger stumbling block for us is wages and agents fees. And I'll take the hit for staying firm there too, especially on the latter. But that's just my personal flavour of bitterness towards today's game.

Speaking of bitterness, am I bitter for feeling that Anderson didn't do much against us given the consensus is that McCarthy was culpable for his first? Regardless of that, do think he is pretty much the exception to the rule in terms of non-'big 6' big money signings.

 

The problems arise when you start looking for "proven" 15-20m players. If a player is currently at a sizable club in one if the big four leagues and available for that price, it's because they have been deemed surplus to requirements. No one is selling players they want for that sum anymore. If you're looking for someone who has demonstrated that they belong on a big stage, yeah: you're going to have to pay 30-40m, and even then there are no guarantees.

Now, players deemed surplus can certainly come good, but they are also more likely to be on fairly substantial wages. They represent more of a gamble for the simple reason that they become extremely difficult to offload if they come up short, and suddenly you're paying four people (two of whom aren't at the club) to do one job.

It's also worth noting that our individual wages are perfectly in line (maybe even on the lower side) with the norms for an established club in the Premier League. The problem is that we've bought poorly, handed out generous extensions to older players, plus whatever the hell we were doing with Forster. If we merely trim our squad size and continue to backfill with youth, we can actually increase the wages handed to our best players without too much difficulty. That was Cortese's idea: before PL revenues exploded, we were handing out some pretty juicy contracts as an inducement to the likes of Wanyama to join a newish PL club, but our wage bill overall was perfectly reasonable. It's only after we started to pile up backups that things got a bit chancy.

So, overall, I agree: we need to get back to what worked. Target young players in the Championship, in Scotland, in the Eredivisie, in Portugal, in Switzerland, etc who are clear standouts...with the latter four, perhaps with an emphasis on players who have performed at the European level. Ones who are on the radar of the big clubs, but just a little too inexperienced to be expected to slot in there immediately. Such players are going to be more affordable in general, we'll be a more attractive financial option without spending 100k p/w straightaway, and it gives us access to talents of a level that we really have no other route to acquire. I mean, we had one of the best attackers in the PL and one of the top three defenders in the world, at the same time! Granted, it won't always work out (Elyounoussi ticks all the boxes and hasn't exactly lit the world afire) and our scouting and recruitment will need to be top notch, but those things are trivially cheap compared with the benefits.

 

Totally agree, let’s concentrate on toughening up the spine of the team especially CB and CDM