Transfer Rumours The January '16 transfer rumour thread.

Stoke are on the rise and they are spending. I can't see us being on par with them again for a while - so, yes, we will probably lose players to them in the next few years.

So do I, but not playing like this. I'm not even sure what "this" is. Apart from bad.

 

You do realise we have to pay the players we buy and fund wage increases for the existing players from the Transfer funds we receive I presume. I'm pretty sure taking this into account there's not much if anything to spare.

 

All fair points Spaced and well discussed (nice to have that from time to time, without name calling and nonsense). How much did Stoke spend? 12-14M on Shaquiri? Not sure how much on Bojan - 10m? Just so happens this time around there's have worked out well so far. We spent 11M on Virgil, 10M on Fraser, 10m on Tadic, 11M on Mane in the last two years and 12-15M on Ramirez and Osvaldo previously to that. Some of those worked out, some didn't. There isn't a team around who gets 100% right.

 

Well I for one don't like watching car crashes and I certainly wouldn't pay good money to watch such a spectacle.

 

I suspect there is...

 

Soooooo any saints transfer rumours?

 

There's the choice saintkeef. You don't have to pay to watch it.

 

The thing is, it's extremely unlikely we will go down. We are easily good enough to get four wins. So everyone needs to take a step back and assess it as if it was your own money. If I was in charge, I would be thinking "Why waste millions in January on panic buys?".
For me, I think we should look to spend smaller amounts on someone like Byram/Gray/Joe bloggs as someone to come in with next season in mind, and then strengthen properly in the summer.

Right back looks bad, but I'm convinced Cedric will improve. Clasie will improve. I rate Romeu. JWP needs time, but I think persisting with him will pay off. VVD will improve. The only change I would be thinking about to the first team at the moment is the manager - and whether he can get the team playing again. But again, he has earned himself the right to be given time to sort it out.

So, as a club it does sort of feel like we have stalled this season, but I think a lot of people need to relax a bit. It's okay to have a slight regression after the last few years of immense improvement. Plus - If we win our next two or three games everything will look rosy again!

 

Club spin. Everyone else made it.

 

A few reports on Twitter from an interview mane gave in French that he has said
"I do not want to be at Southampton"

 

I'd like us to get rid of Caulker, Juanmi, Ramirez, Wanyama and Mane right now.

That should give us more than enough money to buy a pacey goalscoring winger and/or goal scoring AMC (both ideally). I don't see the point in letting Ramirez' contract expire and not trying to at least sell him for something. Especially if Koeman's hardly going to use him. I don't see the point in keeping Wanyama and Mane if they are disrupting the squad either.

 

Leicester shouldn't be held up as an example or comparison case. If anyone thinks this is the new Leicester going forward, they're naive. We were that team last year, if less spectacularly up to this point. We are on a different part of the curve. There have been a number of teams who have had hungry, over-performing players at that price - Swansea, Saints, even Newcastle, who got closest of all to the Champions League. It's part of the developmental process, and Leicester will struggle just like we are, with replacing those players like for like when they're bought in the summer. Anyone who thinks Jamie Vardy - a player who turns 29 next week, and who will be 30 during next season - won't be taking a payday and big club move if offered it during the summer does not know modern football. And yes, he won't be as good as he was at Leicester. And yes, Leicester won't find anyone as good as this season's model to replace him. The replacement will probably cost quite a bit, and will likely be more concerned with making the most of the opportunity handed to him by the new level of attention on both the club and his position than putting his heart and soul into a scrap when things don't go so well. Apply that to a handful of others in their team, and the level starts to drop a bit, and they'll lose games at the margin that perhaps they should win. They may also be disappointed that all their hard work this season came to nothing, after only making the Europa, and find it difficult to dredge up similar levels of effort and spirit to try again, when already such peaks have been scaled.

Point is, Leicester are this season's surprise club - nothing more - so we shouldn't continually think that they and others are actually developing beyond us. They will stumble on the same obstructions in the road as we have/are. They're just enjoying their time in the sun.

 

I am tempted to agree.. and I can understand the reasoning on all of the above, except for perhaps Juanmi. A bit harsh to dispose just yet, he was always seen as one for the future wasnt he?

 

Do you not think we've been trying to offload Ramirez for two years?

 

Sticking your neck out there, FLT!

 

Well we obviously haven't or he'd have been sold already

Either that or we are asking for a ludicrous fee compared to what he's actually worth.

Actually I guess his wages might be the real problem. He's probably happy to see his contract out on his current wage, rather than finding a new club for game time

 

I think you also need to consider that Stoke have been allowed to develop their forward line, under the radar. Arnoutovic signed in 2013, but is only now making headlines. Bojan had all of last season to develop, and did I read (on here maybe?) that Shaqiri only signed because he couldn't get a better offer elsewhere?
The true test will come when Stoke miss out on Europe, with Bojan and Arnautovic possibly looking to move on.

 

If Ron goes, Clasie will be sure to follow, Pelle will almost certainly go, and wouldn't expect VVD to want to stay much longer either.

 

Can't see us selling to Stoke in the next few years, unless we're trying to offload players. Doubt they pay enough more than us to attract a player from us who is out of the tranche of premium players that the top four regularly want from us. Without the big four carrot, no player is going to agitate and force a move to change Saints for Stoke. Think we've seen the end of the red and white transfer triangle days (Stoke and Sunderland recycling ex-Saints) - and that in itself shows we have made progress.

 

TinTin, no need for the face slap. It was a valid question. Let's try and be civil. We have been trying to off load him, hence the loan to Hull. I do believe his wages are probably the issue.