Defence Midfield Striker Even Goalie The Gorilla can play in them all, and better than the players who are supposed to be in those positions #clublegend
Ryan Finnegan is also considered a talent. I think they see Smallbone as CM too. They have options for the position and a purchase is a waste of money when those young players need a pathway. We could do with a loan but if you’re Choudhury or AMN, I don’t think we’re an attractive destination on loan. There’s three first team players already and we’re not in Europe. There’s not really a guarantee that you’ll play enough. I think we’re realistically stuck with what we’ve got.
7 out of 10 window for me. Got rid of a load of players freeing up wage bill Some decent signings Didn't get that no6 (unless late loan happens) I still feel we need to add more quality in attacking midfield - plenty of players but of similar ability.
Agree with you completely. But given we haven't a pot to piss in, I'm pretty happy with what we've got. Every clubs fans would love every bit of talent they can get but we've got to be realistic here. Our owners aren't going to be financing it! Hopefully a little bit tucked away for Jan if we start tanking
Obafemi fee said to be £1.5m, we probably have to give some of that to Leyton Orient so peanuts really. Good luck to him
I've got to say it's a 9 out of 10 for me. We've recruited brilliantly, offloaded brilliantly and I simply couldn't see us getting much more done in the one window. We achieved faaar more than I ever expected. CDM is the only negative but I suspect we have cover planned from the existing squad.
For the first time in a while I have seen very clear references to FFP at clubs other than ours Both Everton and Newcastle are apparently very constrained (with FFP and not covid mentioned) and I am sure there are more Even Villa for all their big talk spent what they brought in And yet somehow , like every year West Ham seem to completely ignore it . They seem to never really need to sell anyone - especially not at a profit and always make multiple big money signings. How does that work? Their net spend over the past three years is mind blowing for a club that is constantly around mid table
Football365 have released their “winners of the transfer window” and somehow claimed every club below us in the relegation odds except Newcastle deserve a spot on that list All 3 promoted clubs , Burnley and Palace have apparently all had “winning” windows What do people think? On paper that spells trouble for us - who will almost certainly be on the losers list along with the aforementioned Newcastle and most likely Arsenal But there were some weird takes in that article. A mix of good takes and bizarre ones. Apparently selling your best player and signing 12 players that no one has ever heard of is a good window. Didn’t Norwich do that before when they “won” the window and loads of Saints fans were jealous ?
https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/00053301/filing-history The notable bit from our 2019/2020 accounts is where, on page 5, they state that -- if not for COVID -- we would have merely posted a loss before tax and interest of of £44.2m, which also includes mention of the difficulty we'd have covering those losses through our traditional method, the sale of players. Also notable is that we owed a net £44m for transfers already made, and on a cash basis we moved from the healthy net cash position we'd maintained for years to a net debt position, and all of that was before the season where there weren't any fans.
Getting the tax payers to buy you a new stadium in a feat of overt corruption that would make a Banana Republic blush, tends to free up a few quid
I was intrigued that both Obafemi and Valery were identified as departures. Both players struck me as having massive potential when they first started appearing for Saints. Losing the former is still a bit of a shock for me. I had envisaged him being the next break through player but it seems to me that there must be something beyond his injury that Ralph thinks he will not deliver. There seem to be touches of Nathan Dyer about this insofar that he similarly did not "fit" due to discipline issues and that he has similarly gone to Swansea. I hope that this is something we do not regret even if there seems to be some logic with this descision. Similarly, I feel that keeping Valery was a good choice. Loaning him out last season could have had dire consequences and I sense Ralph has appreciated that the Frenchman is someone who does have benefit to this club. All in all, I feel that this has been an excellent transfer window.The squad now has depth and it also looks like we have the quality within the academy squad that has been absent over the last few seasons. I am really pleased with the business we bave done.
So PL spending topped £1bn again. But I wonder how much was by the top few clubs and how much was spent by the rest. Disappointing that we coudn't get Long out on loan somewhere because as nice as he is, he's not going to play and is just taking up wages. Suppose he might be used as a confidence booster for the GKs in training Overall it's probably the best window we've had for a while, and about as good as we could get given our lack of money. We have managed to shift quite a few of the deadwood and have considerably more depth than last season, but still lack quality in several areas. We basically need to consolidate, stay in the PL, and hope these young talents can produce for us. Then a few seasons down the line provide sizeable profits, allowing us to build the quality in around the young guns as you would assume that so long as we stay in the PL this season, trying to hoover up the young talent trapped with no pathway to first team football elsewhere, will be a strategy that we will look to continue.
Also PSG really saved Real Madrid by rejecting their bids for Mbappe. Where are they getting the money from? Thought they were broke and in massive debts. £189m for a player they could pick up free next season is just insanity. You would expect that any other club in world football would have bitten Madrids arm off for that given the alternative is one more season from Mbappe (and it's not like they are short of star players...) and then lose him for nothing. But PSG are so awash with cash 220m euros is meh to them.
