Morning Everybody, Saints boss Mauricio Pochettino would rather let Billy Sharp rot in the reserves then subsidise Sharps Wages..... Sharp, 27 is on £18,000 per week. Whilst I can understand the Argentines point of view, why doesn't Sharp cut his own wages, down to lets say 12,000 per week? There are players without ambition who do not mind 'going through the motions', cos lets face it, he won't have to exert himself playing in the reserves, and he'll still be taking home bet part of £100,00 per month. If you were a player in Sharp's position, what would you do? The emergency loan market is open for business... What positions do we need? Who are our targets? How many loanees do we think we will sign?
Morning Elland and everyone Players don't subsidise there own wages, that just doesn't happen regardless of whether you think they earn too much or not. Would you do that at your work? especially when your asking for him to subsidise over 30% of his wages. Anyway, I don't think a striker is a priority as much as it would be nice, we need wingers. I think we probably need two to be honest but I'd be surprised if we got that.
Morning all. If Billy Sharp wants to come to us, he would cut his wages and help us get back to where we belong. He could then rightly demand a wage increase. If he doesn't want to be here, he's better off in the reserves and wait for his contract to run down. As to who we need, just a winger please to give BMD more attacking options and be able to get the best out of Hunt and Smith. Other than that, happy with the squad for the moment.
Morning all I don't understand why players sit in the reserves rather than wanting to play competitive football. It's always confused me. If a club is willing to pay him closer to his £18k and he'll get first team football, then for me should go for it if its been made clear to him that he has no future at Southampton. As for the loans, then as with the transfer window, we still need some width! Please!
Morning all. Boggers comment raises an interesting point. I cant for the life of me understand why clubs outside the pl are not using performance related contracts. Give say Byram a new contract of 10k a week increasing to 30k in pl. It would have to be more modest for the lesser players who probably wouldnt figure in the pl. It seems in the modern game, nothing motivates players only money. Maybe have a few gold bars on display in the dressing room and instead of half time talks, say something to the effect, promotion lads and this is all yours. On another note, one of our Irish players this morning basically admitting they follow Tapattonis instructions as best they can understand him. Brilliant after five or six years in charge and they dont even understand his tactics yet. Trap is paid over 1m a year and can't communicate with his players. Instead of wasting money on wingers, why dont we make the pitch at Elland Road 10 metres narrower. That would bugger up the teams that do have wingers surely
Morning All We need a winger As for Sharpe, I think he wants to play but why should he subsidize his own wage.
Disagree fella. I reckon McCormack will blow hot and cold, and cant be relied upon to bang in 25 goals, which is what we need to be serious contenders for promotion, even if its from the play offs. If I were a Prem player, I'd consider a drop in wages to play 1st team football
Eire, I understand your point, but with the millions Saints have invested in their squad, Sharp wouldn't be able to find a space on the bench anymore.
Morning Bucks, Glad you had a nice holiday. Not much changed in last few weeks. We are full of expectation in the loan market....
Why should he care though. He'll get his 18k a week for couple of seasons to jog around a training ground five days a week. Any wonder they cant be motivated
you don't need a player to score 20 to 25 goals to get promoted. Personally I think he will get an absolute minimum of 15 goals this season anyway with probably more. We need goals being created at the moment, so far I don't think we have done too badly at chances converted.
Not sure also Elland that we nee one player to get 25 goals to get us promoted. What we need are a couple of forwards to get us 15 to 20 each, the midfield to weigh in with a collective dozen or so, & even the back 4 to weigh in with 10 to 12. If we relied on 1 guy getting 25 for us to get promoted, opposition defences would soon mark him out of the game, as the case when we relied so much on Snoddy as our only attacking outlet. Opposition defences crowded him out and the supply line to the forwards suddenly dried up.
I think you mention two completely different issues. I see your point about teams marking Snoddy out the game. This, I believe, is a different issue to the 25 goal a season striker issue though. Teams were able to mark him out of the game because at that time he was our only creative outlet and they could afford to give up two men to our one. If we still had a Gradel, they wouldnt be able to do that as we would stretch them too much. What we need is more creativity in midfield, on the wings etc. If a midfield is doing its job and dictating play and creating chances then a tip top striker (with agility, skill, pace etc.) would be tucking away chances, and teams would struggle to mark them out of the game. I look at Giroud’s finish against Spurs last week as a great example. The midfield pulling apart the defence, and Giroud’s strikers instinct and movement to finish. The 25 goal striker issue then? Its mentioned above that we either need a 25 goal striker or two 15 a season strikers. To me, its simply the quality of the strikers. Quality strikers with decent support at this level would be lapping up the goals. Currently its hard to judge Varney and Hunt at the moment as they are not getting the supply, but if we had creative wingers/midfields and they still weren’t banging them in, then you would have to question their ability. We are not going to get someone of Giroud’s quality but I’d love to see McCormack and Sharp playing together as they would be a handful up top. But we’ve got Varney, Hunt and Smith now and I doubt we’d get Sharp for that reason. On a separate thought, could we not model Poleon into a new Gradel (so in a left wing role)? I seem to remember Gradel taking a while before becoming the finished article, and I see something similar in Dom…
Fair points all round Orion. This is Poleon's breakthrough season. As such, it will be interesting to see how he develops under BMD and how he is used to bring the best out of him. As things stand, he won't start too many games, as he is still a bit raw (too ready to shoot when a simple pass for soemone else is the better option). That said, he will develop and will be a real handful as time and his game develops. Interesting to see that BMD has set White a challenge and that White sees himself as a LB. The competition between him, Drury, & Warnock will be interesting. One playing, one on the bench, & one not featuring. White needs to get a move on if he's going to at least nail down a place on the bench.
Orion, we are not of the same quality as Arsenal. And what I keep saying to everyone thinking we need a 25 goal a season striker, or even a 20 goal a season striker is that look at both Cardiff's and Hull's top scorers from last season, they didn't make it past 10. Its about the whole team contributing and making it unpredictable as to where the goals will come from as wel as being strong defensively to prevent the need to score 3 goals every game to ensure you keep winning. The defence is so much better (despite the lack of clean sheets which is the next step) and if we get more creative outlets (ie. wingers) then we will become much more unpredictable in attacks. Personally, I can see McCormack scoring just shy of the 20 mark anyway which is enough for your top scorer, if he doesn't I'm certain the goals will still come from others because he will be providing.
Well, that's a given. But neither are our opposition's defenders the standard of Spurs. The championship is a poorer standard but that shouldn't stop us trying to emulate those in the division above, if that's where we would like to be. I agree with the unpredicability though!
