Transfer Rumours Saints Summer 2017 Transfer Rumour Thread

How would we have paid their wages?

 

The only point in signing an attacking midfielder is if they are better than what we've got....if they are the same or less able, why bother....we have several players at that level. We don't need another squad player. I'm sure the club is aware of what we need and have tried to sign such players. Mauricio said we were trying to get players as late as a week ago. A purchase is too expensive just to do it for the sake of it or to please fans. If a player isn't good enough to leapfrog the midfielders we have, it would be better to wait till the right one comes along.

 

Problem is, a lot of fans have played Football Manager, & they think it's a simple of matter of going shopping online.

 

Truth be known we all have different opinions as to what we need. As others have said though if we cannot get a player that is an improvement on what we have what is the point?
Again as others also have suggested we had sold VVD and used the money to buy a replacement and or an attacking mid fielder, immediately they knew we had that kind of money, another £10 mil would have been added to the players market price!!
Pretty well all our current midfielders have got to be worth upwards of £20/25 million so to improve on them the chances are we would have had to be looking at someone in the £30/35mil bracket. Cant see Saints paying that for more than a couple of seasons yet, we will eventually the way the market is going, but just not yet..............

 

Hi, someone here!!

 

FWIW I think we have a good enough attacking threat but at the moment we're not giving it service.

Gabbi is constantly making runs through that no-one is spotting (not really visible on TV just how many of them he tries). When the ball's played through to him on those runs (once a game at the mo), he's dynamite.

Charlie is able to position himself for a cross quickly and accurately. He's also a fine poacher. However, he needs the ball delivering.

Long scares the bejeebus out of the last line of defenders and keepers and can run onto any ball, even if it looks lost. He needs lofted, testing passes. Once he's scored one or two his confidence swells and he just gets more accurate, hence that run a couple of seasons ago when he just started slotting them in.

If I can see it, MP can. I'm sure the subject of service (particularly to Gabbi) comes up at least occasionally in training sessions. They will get it and we'll see a change. We've already seen a change in tempo but this one might take a little longer to polish. I'm confident that it's coming.

Vin

 

Agree with all that and one of the things we really miss is VIrgil's marauding runs through the middle and diagonal passes. If he will integrate with the team it could make us more of a threat. Of course, he can score himself, as well.

 

One bright note about VD's absence last year was that Jack Stephens looks to be cast from the same mould. Needs a bit of polish but I suspect he'll be very dangerous sooner or later.

Vin

 

Yes, he is always looking for gaps through the middle to run into with the ball- I always thought that was something he picked up from Virgil.

 

And let's not forget Yoshida can also bring the ball forward and deliver a pass to a wide player inside the full back. Can't remember the game but it led to a goal last season.

 

We have an ample supply of players that can score goals, we have a shortage of players that do score goals, so I reckon the problem lays elsewhere.

 

I'm rarely happy about a two week break when the season starts, but I have a feeling we will benefit from this.
#allgunsblazin #screwyouwatford

 

Reference our shortage of goals, was it Arsenal, after moving to the Emirates, who suffered a bit of a goal drought?
I think they solved it by having training sessions at the ground, having claimed that the players hadn't yet grown used to the new surroundings and had lost their bearings as to where the goal was
Clutching at straws, but may be worth a few shooting sessions at SMS.

 

Nah, just max out training sessions with Tadic, Redmond, Boufal & the strikers. Make them know what each is doing.

 

I would have Boufal in the film room, get him to watch the way Mane played for us. Direct running at the defence, no ****ing around, trying to beat the defender again and again. From what I have seen, Boufal can finish too!

 

There are no straws left to clutch. They were all sent to Liverpool where there was demand far greater than the supply.

 

With another ex-Saint arriving in Liverpool, surely that city deserves to take the outstanding MP for Itchen, Royston Smith!!!

 

I think you can put a lot of our inability to score goals down to where we are playing most of our football on the pitch. When Pochettino was manager we were sometimes quite sparing in attack, but we closed the opposition down very high up the pitch, which led to goals through the opposition being unbalanced while in transition. When Koeman was manager he had a settled, high quality back four and two holding defenders, if he wanted, either of which could start attacks. The attacking side of the team could stay higher up the pitch, close down the opposition intelligently, but be fairly confident that the ball would be turned around, if it got past them. When Puel came in he lost his two key strikers, and then Charlie Austin before Xmas. He never really had a settled back four, because Jose somehow had got himself into a situation where he wanted something else, and he'd also lost Wanyama from day one. So his inherited defence structure was shaky. What he did have was the rock which was Oriol, who was ever present and really stepped up his game. And of course VVD was sometimes one and a half CBs he was so dominant. Then halfway through the season he didn't have VVD either. What this meant was that the relatively high possession we had still been achieving, but further back towards our own goal, also started to diminish, as the team started to surrender possession and defend our goal. At times we played the odd game seemingly almost entirely in our own half, with just the occasional raid at the other goal. Gabbi solved a short term goal problem, as opposition defences didn't know what to do with him. Inevitably, he was injured and blunted a bit. Welcome to GB, Manolo. So our goals almost completely dried up. Puel's problem was that his effective options had become incredibly limited.

The situation had gone, from a settled team, with high possession, with many options in attack and defence, under Koeman, to one which was struggling, by comparison. Koeman's team could even surrender possession, confident of catching teams on the break. They were very close to being very, very good indeed [so obviously just ripe for cherry picking]. In having been cherry picked of three of his most important key players, Puel's team had lost its focal points, and the replacements and key other became injured or also eventually left.
I still say we're a tad light at the very front, but we do have good options, and our attacking midfield hasn't been stronger in recent years, and now we've somewhat addressed the loss of Wanyama at DM. When VVD comes back we'll have something like our defence of two years ago. This means that we should be able to return to playing higher up the pitch as confidence and new strategy takes hold. That will lead to our attacking midfielders being able to be more creative and paying slightly less attention on having to protect a defence. Consequently, the strikers should get better service.

In the past, [I've said this before] bigger clubs could see Saints progress and just pick off the players they needed to make them stronger and us weaker. It's a strategy that works very well. Sometimes they paid over the odds to do it. Sometimes it didn't even make them stronger. They just did it knowing that it would weaken an up and coming rival, and there would be one less club in direct competition to worry about. The difference here is that now Saints players are all on long contracts, so breaking this team up is going to be harder to do [there's a song in there if I could remember it]. And Saints need to remain firm on this, and continue to add key stronger components, so that the team evolves into one that can regularly compete in Europe.

 

Exactly this. I'm happy if VVD never plays for us again if it draws a new line in the sand and puts and end to the cherry picking of Liverhampton.