Welcome Saint Dejan

I get the impression that very few things would make a difference in your opinion, pal.

 

Your impression is sound.

I try not to get wound up by people on the internet.

 

Quit with the nit-picking...

 

On reflection I may have misinterpreted your last sentence. The fact remains that we had an appalling squad when we came out of administration - Pardew did a good job in the transfer market but nothing special given he could basically point at any League One player and we could sign them. Ryan Dickson was another relatively poor signing for the record.

We didn't sign many players in the Championship because we didn't need them but most of them were successes. Fox was an upgrade on Harding and people knew Shaw was coming through as well while Hooiveld, Cork and Sharp were very good signings. Lee hasn't turned out that well but plenty of people rated him early on. De Ridder is the only outright failure.

Clyne wasn't much of a risk in the Premier League - I know Palace fans who were disappointed he came to us because they felt he was ready for the top 6.

We obviously sign players from outside the Premier League because they're cheaper. You said yourself earlier in the thread that Adam Johnson should be compared with a player from abroad who cost half as much. You pay extra when signing established players from other Premier League clubs and while we aren't on a tight budget we don't have unlimited money. We would have had to spend much more money - possibly as much as double (going by your statement about Adam Johnson) - to buy established Premier League players who were/are as good as what we DID bring in. It's a moot point anyway because we bought who we bought and survived.

If there is a problem with our transfer policy I think we may spend too much time pursuing players that aren't that interested. I suspect we've put a lot of effort into pursuing players like Buttner, Lens and Coutinho (and probably others), missed out on them and then scrabbled around slightly for whatever players are left. For example, Yoshida has been a decent signing but I doubt he was top of our shopping list.


Heh. Took me ages to escape the girlfriend and write this on my phone. Perhaps too long.

 

The thing is we had a plan to get the the Prem in 5 years. Through great managment and our team playing out of their skin, we achieved promotion at our first attempt. The players you have said you wouldn't have started with were not bought to play in the prem they were bought to get us there. We exceeded our own expectations.

We could have gone and bought the likes of Je Sung Park, Wright-Phillips or anyone else QPR picked up but this would not have done anything for team spirit and had we not stayed up, left us with a massive wage bill and players who couldn't be shifted.

Its all well and good saying we should have bought more experience all over the pitch but that would have cost probably double what we spent. The side we are building have years ahead of them and had we got relegated we would be in a position similar to Reading rather than QPR.

 

Well that depends on whether you consider disliking a player because he hasn't topped the goalscoring charts and have too simplistic view of football to appreciate what a player does unless its smack band obvious in your face. He did many good things in his first season in a new country in the toughest league in the world. At a young age. Why bang on about his price tag- regardless of how much we paid he is here. Is he the best player we have to play in that position? Almost certainly.

Barry/GMI was slightly obnoxious but not quite as abrasive as you. It's fine to express different opinions but if you fail to listen to reason and behave like a child you will be treated like one.

I think the point made is that in your defence you simply state "well we're allowed to express different opinions". Yes, yes you are. But it's the way you do it that is pissing people off. Borderline wummery.

 

You don't like the Lovren transfer?! B*****d get out. We are all Cortese zealots here, everything he does is good and we never question the judgement of our leader!

 

I'm happy with the way things are going. Saints are approaching their second season back in the PL with money to spend. Last season we made a few people sit up and take notice and we had some very good results. Shall I explain the word happy...it's the opposite to what you feel when your club is facing annihilation. Not every thing is perfect, people make errors, some purchases will not work out...though it might be an idea to actually see them play before throwing them on the rubbish heap.

 

Well said. I'm more excited now than I was last year.

 

Rest assured I'm not bothered by the number of goals Gaston scored. It's fully consistent with his career history anyway. What I was disappointed was the quality of the play I saw and the shirking. Maybe he played better away. I only do home games. He had about one decent home game, a few bundled goals which didn't reflect a good game overall, and one nearly sublime goal disallowed for a push.

Best player for the position? Well at times Davis has been better coming on for Gaston. At other times Gaston has been stuck on the left wing and didn't look right there. Neither did Jay. I'm not convinced Adam is really right for that either. We've got a lot of players who don't want to be the main striker or a winger, it seems to me.

I'm "banging on" about price tag because it's a transfer discussion. It seems pertinent.

It seems to me that if I fail to listen and conform, you'll all act like children and gang up. Perspective.

I have asked where my opinion became rude. Nobody seems to have volunteered that information. I'm certain that people became openly aggressive to me at some point though and it became a group activity.

So I had hoped that a team that won back to back promotions playing out of their skin for the first third of the championship season and then stuttering to the end., would have been supplemented with first team choices.
Few of our championship season signings have made the step up.

Nathaniel clyne was the sweet spot. He was a talent AND considerably better than Frazer. Can't fault that deal at all. We didn't do enough though. clearly we didn't do enough because we signed a player over the manager's head before january. most people on the forums I frequented at the time were aghast that we started the season with Fox as left back, Aaron MArtin as third choice CB and Kelvin as first choice goalie.

a journeyman midfielder was arguably done with Davis, but with cork out at the start of the season we had JWP playing very early on. He made a good fist of it, but he wore down after a few games. Another midfielder with greater than championship experience would have been handy. Maybe a right winger and Punch could have played centrally as he has done successfully at times before.

On Rodriguez and Gaston... I'd have liked a pacey winger and a more instinctive striker, myself. Arguably Jay could have been one of those. Eventually I thought Mayuka would be one or both of those. Sadly no.

 

I was pretty damn excited last season. Ramirez Rumours, Buttner (even though he's pup), Adkins saying we're going to bring in two goalies.

Then we started the season with Fox and Davis.

 

How has Buttner done at United...not paid much attention.

 

Not good I think. Seems good going forward but terrible at the back.

So not really the improvement we wanted over fox.

 

Played 13 times. Their fans seem to think he is OK, but nothing special. Decent attacking but v. poor defensively.

 

Gaston's ****. Jayrod is garbage and we should have signed someone with real quality.

 

Yeah, you're spot on

 

Fox and SKD started because Nigel Adkins thought they were good enough, hindsight as you say is a wonderful thing, tbf SKD was in the Championship team of the season when we were promoted. Your point about us risking relegation last season is a moot one as we survived quite comfortably in the end...14th position in the first season back is a solid platform to move forward and with a first team with an average age of 24 we are well placed to push on next season...We have proved that we can match the best on our day, so in my opinion we have a lot to look forward to next season, last season is history now.

 

Adkins making enough poor decisions as assessed by the board to get the sack didn't relegate us either. It doesn't justify them.

We survived. Yep. We've proved you don't need to make all wise decisions to survive.

With QPR and Reading in the division, being bad in many obvious ways, the surprise is how many other teams managed to do more wrong than us from a better start.

 

This is surely gmi/barry. I prefer Banana.

 

Yeah. You're right.