I'm not wishing him away. Just I will wish him all the best. He has been a great servant to the club. He has helped us reach 6th place in the Prem and Europe. He has inspired others around him while everyone was heaping all the praise on other players. Similarly to Lambert even Saints fans are talking about buying his replacement and that he hasn't long left. As for there being plenty of 24 to 27 year olds that the big boys are aware of. Of course there are. There are plenty of Phil Jones' that have had a good season inthe Prem but there aren't many players that will cost less due to their age that have had 4 consecutive seasons of peak performance in the Prem are there? Most of the people that are talking him down seem to be the ones who are insistent he must stay as they are now insisting he is only good enough to warm the bench at Man Utd. If that is true then we should get rid of him because we need better than top club bench warmers. Which is it? Is he good enough for us or not? I want him to stay but I won't hold it against him if he does go. He hasn't been the one that everyone notices and we all talk about his "other qualities" so he hasn't had any credible suitors like the others. Good luck to the guy whether he is playing for Saints or someone else. He has given us lots. As for what will Zlatan think? I am sure he will be disgusted that Man U are signing a player that has had top stats for 4 years in this division and has just improved his national sides defence to the point that they could win the Euros by defending well.
What were the highest bids for Schneiderlin and Wanyama the seasons before they left? I think that was more likely why they settled back down. They can't really play up at us for not selling them for derisory bids.
This may be a little simplistic but if we get in a good, younger, replacement for JF who has a good partnership with VVD and the defence doesn't suffer then Fonte loss won't hurt me and he'll still be a legend. If we miss him in a footballing sense (always going to miss someone like that around the club) then it will make me resent him a little more for leaving. Part of the reason RL is still a legend is that he hasn't been a success since leaving us. That's second nature.
Feel easier because we have VVD....we need at least one strong CB who is an organizer....though not sure VVD is as good at marshalling the defence as Fonte. May mean that Virgil has to hang back more.....that's bad news. We need Fonte...pure and simple. He may only have a few years in him, but we need those few years.
West Brom are not a club with realistic ambitions of breaking the top group. They never will be while they leave 20m+ players on the bench just to prove a point without having a different 20m+ player to play in their position. We can do that and hold all the players to their contracts and leave them on the bench but then Kat would have to find another £100m to buy replacements for them while they stew and we go over FFP targets due to the wages we have sat on the bench. This would impact on our European ambitions. Ambitions that WBA do not have. We cannot afford to stand firm on high wage players to prove a point unless we replace them with kids on very low wages.
Im not convinced Fonte will be first choice at Utd. I think Smalling is better and will improve again under the other Jose...
Yep, I reckon that they will make him look pretty average. They can be pretty good at doing that to certain players.
Just a thought. If Matt Le Tissier had been playing in this day and age with the accessibility that we have to footballers lives and gossip, do you think he would have stayed with us? He's admitted that he entertained an offer from another club at one stage and was interested in what they had to say. If he'd have been able to log online and see the amount of abuse hurled his way for thinking about it, do you think he'd have just said '"f**k it, I've lost my legendary status, may as well jump now"?
Yes I will, and I'll do it after the end of the transfer window. Not sure if FLT still has any Bombay Sapphire left after last year. It'll be gin again but Cork Dry gin this time. It'll ruin someone's life as they'll never be able to drink any other brand as long as they live. It's utterly, utterly perfect. Vin
Can see it now. We lose 2-1 at OT Jose plays a blinder & scores our only goal. You all know what happens next ....
This from a man who is ITK so doesn't it carry m,ore weight than all the other speculation. I worry about football, there's more time fretting over rumours than watching the team kicking the ball. I wish we were in Div 1 again, it didn't happen there. (We bought all the good players off of some other poor sods)
It did happen in L1 but we were the big boys and it was happening to other teams and not us. I see this same fretting in the Lincoln forums when one of the bankrolled teams starts unsettling Lincoln players. In that league we are one of the "giants" with attendances of 3 or 4 x some of the bankrolled teams like Forest Green or Boreham Wood yet we lose players to them sometimes months after we've signed them. Down there in the fifth division it is all about money for the players though because we are paying £600 a week (£31,200 a year) on average where some of the bankrolled teams are paying double and more even though their gates are only just above 1,000.
The guy has been wrong before and will be again. We all know Saints want to keep him, but at the end if the day it's up to Fonte.
Don't get that. We may let him go by choice because we have a history of doing this and I wouldn't blame the club if they did the best deal they could, but Saints could refuse to release him and come the end of August he would have to play for us. Don't think that is likely, but in law they could.
Not going to go through it all again, as I have said my opinion. I will simply say if a player wants to go enough, a club has no choice but to let them go.
Didint adam blackmore say the he understands saint are not in for charlie austin.one day later austin was a saints player .
