I’ve updated figures as the athletic reporting £38 million up front with £3 million in incentives. So bit of a better deal for Southampton.
I did suggest this earlier as my old boss (WBA ST holder) has told me he’s heard we have made an inquiry.
This now takes our sales to approximately £111 million this summer ex any % we owed on sales made. This also means that over the last 3 transfer windows we are currently running at approximately £29 million in profit again ex any sell on fees we will have to pay. So basically, no reason why SR really can’t have a massive go for incomings over the next 4 days. Our senior squad is also now down to 25 players that still includes Aribo, Edozie and Smallbone who have big links with leaving. The wage bill has also now been drastically reduced to around £30 million per year from around £55 million in the premier league, with the recent sales of Fernandes and loan of ABK and Sugawara.
He would have something close to the dream signing this summer. But the moment we signed Downs, that pretty much ended any hopes of a new striker being signed. Armstrong, Archer, Stewart and Downs I assume will all expect to be playing regularly for us, so little chance that we go and add a fifth one to the mix. Not unless someone offers us decent money for Archer. Instead, it's down to Still to work out a way of maximising the goal output from those guys. (And here's a hint, Will - it won't involve playing Armstrong as a lone striker, or bringing Archer on with 15 mins and sticking him out wide.)
Why? He's the same as our other strikers: decent record in this division, done nothing at the level above. Norwich are looking for £25m for him and I don't think he moves the needle all that much, for the price you'd be paying
Exactly. If we get Azaz and Fellows combined for 30mill or so that would be much better business and would have a greater impact on the pitch.
Without getting carried away this is starting to feel a bit more like the approach we took in 2009 when had big money in League One and tried to sign the best players in the division.
It’s almost like at the start of the window we put a bit of a daft number up, to see if anyone is silly enough to match it, then once the business end of the window comes about, we think about selling them for around their worth…
Hopefully if any new players get called up for their national teams, (mainly u21), they can get a little niggle as would be much better to spend 2 weeks training with Still.
Just feel he’s better finisher than we have currently, AA is done, not convinced RS will ever click since injury, DD needs time and not a lot of pressure, BBD is not a credible footballer, CA is getting there slowly….