Also don't forget we had to keep the faith with Pelle too, recall posts, missed chances etc early in. But again a better team all round.
He has done it before. But I think Saints have probably made him a worse player so I get the skepticism. I yo-yo between thinking we would have a really good chance of coming straight back up or struggle, just no idea what to expect.
It's always a shame to lose rising stars, but, neither of those were our academy players in the first place, so I'm not that bothered. We will make a tidy profit of them both. The positive thing is that at least now some academy players will get a look in. We have Dynel Simeu and Nico Lawrence having very good loan spells in the lower divisions, who could step up to be understudy to our CBs. We will also get Jack Stephens back, who, like Bednarek, will be avery good defender in the Championship. Lavia will be a big loss, and I think DM is the one position in which we will need to recruit. Everywhere else I think we'll be okay.
But how many players have we seen have a wonder season and disappear. We have all watched him for two seasons and the general concensus has been he is not a player. It takes a huge leap of faith that we drop a league and he will score 25 Goals. I would not back him to get them even if you offered me 5-1.. I think he had 'one' good season when his tail was up
But he's already done it for two seasons on the trot in the Championship. That's why we bought him. Che will score in Championship football too (and already has done for Birmingham), and I think Tall Paul would do well too.
Yep. Kamari Doyle too. Diamond Edwards, Ryan Finnigan, Lewis Payne have all played in the first team in pre-season/cup games.
I agree with what you say. It will give a chance to the youngsters. I think my post was more in the context that folks expect us to compete in the championship and maybe context for promotion. I think if we go down, we will be down for a while. We have a broken squad and need a complete reset. That is easier to do by staying up, retaining your best players and spending prem.league money. I think if we go down, I fear a repeat of last time
Burnley are currently walking the league. They revamped their squad and it’s paid off. I don’t see why we couldn’t do the same. They didn’t have a Lavia or JWP (or the owners we have who seem to be willing to spend) to sell to increase the spending power either We may spend a load and **** it up the wall of course, but football is pretty simple in that respect, higher spend = better league finish, even more so in the lower leagues as we will essentially be like Man City in comparison to half the league when it comes to money
When we came up in 2011, we had a really strong midfield with Scheiderlin and Hammond, complimented by Llanana in attacking mid., Just seems way better than what we have now. Not forgetting sir Rickie. You have to have a team of characters to get promoted, I think we will be short
Going down IS the reset. If we were to stay in the Premier League, then we would need a squad overhaul (again) because our squad isn't good enough. In the Champ it IS good enough. The only reset we need is an easier fixture list for a season, so that this squad of potential can turn into a squad of ability. And plus we have a billionaire owner.
Maybe .......but I see a highly paid bloated squad in the championship with no hunger or desire.. our wage bill will be huge and if we fail to get up in season one, I see history repeating itself. We spent over £100 m in summer and January window, probably on big wages. How much could you recoup?.,
I would imagine we could recoup a fair bit from selling JWP, Lavia and KWP alone. Then a few others who will go, Walcott is one of our higher earners and is out of contract, Ely also out of contract and will be on a reasonable wage. Burnley will buy Tella for a decent fee. There are probably another 5/6 players at least who will leave. The first season with the parachute payments is almost a free hit as if we don’t go back up immediately we will trim the wage bill further in 24/25 summer If we do go down then we are in a much better position than many of the other teams who have made an immediate return to not feel confident imo
And yet Dean Hammond has never played a game in the Premier League. I agree that team was special, but after we were promoted from League One, none of us thought they were good enough to earn promotion straight away again. You just never know until you are actually doing it, in the Championship. But, I would hazard a guess and say that we would start the season with one of the best six squads in that division.
I am going to be deliberately facetious now. Fixtures like Grimsby, but they are two league lowers. Going down is not the reset. You lose £100m + funding. You have players stuck on ludricous wages that no- one wants.. I am interested who you think in our squad compared to the team in 2011 that got us promoted as a am struggling. I give you KWP at right back. Have we players better than the following: Davis - no Right back yes Left back yes Fonte No Big Dutch centre back Schneidelen no Hammond No In Champ, better leader than JWP Llanana no Sir Rickie No Even Billy Sharpe no. So not sure why folks think we will compete
I put a bet on Lambert being top scorer in the Championship and Saints winning the league that season. ****ing Danny Fox
It’s impossible to say right now as we have no idea what the squad will look like in September 2023. Regardless of what league we are in it will be very different to the squad today
