Summer transfer, gossip, speculation thread

[mike]

anyone else slightly concerned that we still have no real cb's or a defensive midfielder?

Aren't Chester and Hause real centre backs? Yes, we need another couple more but they are real centre backs. As for the midfielder, we do need one in but there's plenty of time.

I'm not sure it would make comfortable viewing watching the likes of Raheem Sterling and Mo Salah against them.

[Damo70]

Southampton fans seem to be taking delight selling us their rejects. Let's send them to the Championship.

Too bloody right! I just read this (yes I know it's Twatter but coming from a team I'd forgotten which league they were in)..

Villa buying our deadwood. Tossers.

Most of the Southampton fans I have had the misfortune to speak to over the years have been a bit backward. 

I've never met a Southampton fan. There's a pointless fact.

I went to bed with one, once. She even wore her Saints retro shirt (Draper tools sponsor, I think) as a nightie.

A few of my ex's wore my Villa shirts in bed. One of my ex's wore her Arsenal shirt in bed, another one wore her West Ham shirt in bed. I had a one night stand once with a girl who wore her Sunderland shirt in bed. I have had brief relationships with two female noses, but thankfully neither of them possessed Small Heath shirts.

[Clampy]

anyone else slightly concerned that we still have no real cb's or a defensive midfielder?

Aren't Chester and Hause real centre backs? Yes, we need another couple more but they are real centre backs. As for the midfielder, we do need one in but there's plenty of time.

I'm not sure it would make comfortable viewing watching the likes of Raheem Sterling and Mo Salah against them.

I agree, and like I said we need a couple more but they are real centre backs which what he said we hadn't got.

[AllanW]

AV late Summer reflections in mid-Summer 2019

While the press hoopla is still going on around transfers coming in and going out and the PR machine cranks up for pre-season jamborees in ‘Murica and the UK, it would be useful to prepare ourselves for what’s coming between now and the end of September. You know, just so we don’t lose our sense of perspective and react irrationally …

More passionate people might be tempted to start with the state of the squad, who’s in and who’s out, but that would be too easy. We’ll come back to that.

I’d like to ask you to consider our first 7 fixtures and where we might be in the table come the start of October. Compared to the other two teams joining the PL this year our campaign begins favourably. We should be confident that we can win points early as we have a balance of home and away matches which is welcome; 4 home, 3 away. We only face 2 of the Top 6 in those games so that’s not an uphill start (both away), we play 2 of the teams likely to be fighting relegation (both home games so already looking like ‘Must Win’ matches if we want to survive) and of the other 3 games we are against teams likely to be safely in the middle come the end of the season, 2 at home, so can look to pick up points.

By the end of September we could afford to have lost away at both Spurs and Arsenal if we have won at home to Bournemouth and Burnley. If we pick up a win and a draw against Wet Spam and either Everton at home or Palace away we’ll be sitting on 10 points and comfortably mid-table after 7 games. I’d expect the relegation zone to feature teams with half that number of points by that time.

That is a scenario that’s certainly possible; our ‘keeper has hit his straps and carried on from the end of last season, the defence is grooved and confident with the 2 new full backs fitting-in smoothly, our midfield is an exciting dynamo of steel and diamond with McGinn and Grealish in their pomp, and the attack is full of youthful exuberance, creating chances for fun and smashing goals in when they matter.

But that’s only likely if the time between now and then has gone very, very well. What if the next 12 weeks contains all or some of the following;

-   Despite the professional intentions and work of the club, Moraes struggles to adjust to a foreign country, foreign culture, foreign language and different playing conditions and the weight of leading the line is playing on the young guys’ mind. Kodjia comes back from the ACN tired and out of sorts so does not provide an effective alternative striking option. Goals are hard to come by which makes games an excruciating grind.

-   The right-sided attacker we pursued does not arrive and the unbalanced nature of the attack misfires continually in pre-season and the first few games of the PL as the fill-in Jota tries to adjust to his new team until the player purchase arrives. Even if we eventually get our man or find the right combination up front by the end of August it takes until nearly Christmas before it produces an effective unit.

-   McGinn gets injured in pre-season and is out for 4 months.

-   Mings picks up a niggle in pre-season and the whole defensive unit suffers a lack of cohesion and confidence as they are effectively strangers thrown together for the first time without an on-field leader. The coaching staff works hard at this problem but progress is slow and results faltering. Odd mistakes of communication and positioning, inevitable throughout a steep learning process, are made at crucial points in games and results are poor even if performances are getting better.

-   Pursestrings says in an interview that the strategy is in place for the future of the club to be balanced but that means off-field capital requirements and FFP rules mean that player acquisition needs to stop before buying Butland, another centre back and a defensive midfielder let alone £25 to £30m for another striker. A tacit admission that prices have gone haywire and we won’t be paying them now but will look again in January.  The coaching staff and the fans know this leaves us 3 players short before we start. Confidence collapses on fan sites.
-   The Beeb and Sky, as part of their build-ups to the new season, pitch their Villa coverage as ‘Can the inexperienced manager and thrown-together team at Villa avoid relegation?’ and play that skewed message on an endless loop. Pundits do what pundits do and fall back lazily on every cliché they can find; ‘Chances are that promoted teams get relegated’, ‘You can’t build a new team and expect it to win quickly’, ‘The gap between Championship and PL is too great’ etc. Traditional Brummie pessimism kicks in and the first serious shouts of ‘Smith Out, we need someone to rescue our season’ are written before the end of August, fuelling another merry-go-round of media coverage on the topic of ‘Smith has only 5 games to turn the season around before Thierry Henry is bought in’.

We all know those things could happen.

There’s not much we can do about player targeting and acquisition, tactics, training and team cohesion, capital budgeting, the money in the PL or players agents but we can do something about the rest of it. Which might ultimately help.

That probably starts with realistic expectations. It’s not realistic to say anything like ‘Our new owners are minted so spunk another £30m on the next player linked with us in the gutter press’. There are rules, there are real financial limits and everyone needs to realise that. If we want a club that gets better it involves a rounded expansion of the capacities of the club not just unbalanced progression in one aspect. That destroys wage structures, causes team disharmony and does not improve results anywhere, especially on the pitch. It’s a team game not an individual one and I’m happy that Deano shows he knows that at every possible point in time.

It also probably means that we need to become more resilient to not battering teams we play every week; this last 6 months has seen a wonderful uptick in the style of football we play and that’s thrilling. But with half the squad being new it’s unlikely we will see that excitement return consistently for at least the next 3 months. It’s a different league, different team, new situation; we can’t expect it to look and feel like Wembley every week. Sorry to pop that bubble. The team will feel like it is taking a step backwards from those heady days of the 10-game winning run but it’s not, it’s just adjusting to a new world and we need to know that before it happens so we don’t agonise ‘we should be beating that lot every week’. We shouldn’t and we probably won’t. Yet. But give the staff and team a chance to get there, eh?

And it probably involves taking a step back and enjoying the ride. Last Summer the club was dead. I mean really dead; just waiting for the axe to fall. This time 4 months ago we had given up the season. The only thing those lessons should teach us is that we should enjoy the ride.

So let’s make a pact on here; nobody even mentions points or position in the table until Bonfire night. Let’s just make up new chants for the terraces, buy season tickets, laugh at the bluenoses, cheer our heads off at the grounds whenever we see something we like, and generally enjoy being back in the circus. We've got a reputation to uphold of being 'real' fans of a big club so let's concentrate on that. Support the team, through whatever life throws at us, and enjoy the ride. We’re in good hands so trust in that fact.

UTV

[Percy McCarthy]

Southampton fans seem to be taking delight selling us their rejects. Let's send them to the Championship.

Too bloody right! I just read this (yes I know it's Twatter but coming from a team I'd forgotten which league they were in)..

Villa buying our deadwood. Tossers.

Most of the Southampton fans I have had the misfortune to speak to over the years have been a bit backward. 

I've never met a Southampton fan. There's a pointless fact.

I went to bed with one, once. She even wore her Saints retro shirt (Draper tools sponsor, I think) as a nightie.

My mate went to bed with a B-loser’s girlfriend. We both knew the geezer, he’s a nice bloke. My mate made her wear her boyfriend’s b-lose top.

[Risso]

Haven't heard the phrase "went to bed" in at least 20 years!

[Villafirst]

I'm sure Deano and JT are aware of the CB positions being sparse. We ended last season with plenty of options: Mings, Axel, Hause, Elphick, Chester and Jedinak. Now only Chester and Hause which is extremely thin. We all saw the problems from August through to the end of Jan that SB left behind - all through lack of cover for injuries/suspensions.
I think we need another 3 CB's to bolster the defence - sooner rather than later. What happens if Chester or Hause get injured?

[Clampy]

I don't know any Southampton fans by the way.

[VILLA MOLE]

I don't know any Southampton fans by the way.

they have a strange twang of an accent

[berneboy]

I'm sure Deano and JT are aware of the CB positions being sparse. We ended last season with plenty of options: Mings, Axel, Hause, Elphick, Chester and Jedinak. Now only Chester and Hause which is extremely thin. We all saw the problems from August through to the end of Jan that SB left behind - all through lack of cover for injuries/suspensions.
I think we need another 3 CB's to bolster the defence - sooner rather than later. What happens if Chester or Hause get injured?

I agree but if we all know it I think El Bosses may too. They will be wanting recruits in asap. We have to be patient for they shall arrive. I just hope it's their first choices. We know FFP rules may come back to bite us.

[AsTallAsLions]

AV late Summer reflections in mid-Summer 2019

While the press hoopla is still going on around transfers coming in and going out and the PR machine cranks up for pre-season jamborees in ‘Murica and the UK, it would be useful to prepare ourselves for what’s coming between now and the end of September. You know, just so we don’t lose our sense of perspective and react irrationally …

More passionate people might be tempted to start with the state of the squad, who’s in and who’s out, but that would be too easy. We’ll come back to that.

I’d like to ask you to consider our first 7 fixtures and where we might be in the table come the start of October. Compared to the other two teams joining the PL this year our campaign begins favourably. We should be confident that we can win points early as we have a balance of home and away matches which is welcome; 4 home, 3 away. We only face 2 of the Top 6 in those games so that’s not an uphill start (both away), we play 2 of the teams likely to be fighting relegation (both home games so already looking like ‘Must Win’ matches if we want to survive) and of the other 3 games we are against teams likely to be safely in the middle come the end of the season, 2 at home, so can look to pick up points.

By the end of September we could afford to have lost away at both Spurs and Arsenal if we have won at home to Bournemouth and Burnley. If we pick up a win and a draw against Wet Spam and either Everton at home or Palace away we’ll be sitting on 10 points and comfortably mid-table after 7 games. I’d expect the relegation zone to feature teams with half that number of points by that time.

That is a scenario that’s certainly possible; our ‘keeper has hit his straps and carried on from the end of last season, the defence is grooved and confident with the 2 new full backs fitting-in smoothly, our midfield is an exciting dynamo of steel and diamond with McGinn and Grealish in their pomp, and the attack is full of youthful exuberance, creating chances for fun and smashing goals in when they matter.

But that’s only likely if the time between now and then has gone very, very well. What if the next 12 weeks contains all or some of the following;

-   Despite the professional intentions and work of the club, Moraes struggles to adjust to a foreign country, foreign culture, foreign language and different playing conditions and the weight of leading the line is playing on the young guys’ mind. Kodjia comes back from the ACN tired and out of sorts so does not provide an effective alternative striking option. Goals are hard to come by which makes games an excruciating grind.

-   The right-sided attacker we pursued does not arrive and the unbalanced nature of the attack misfires continually in pre-season and the first few games of the PL as the fill-in Jota tries to adjust to his new team until the player purchase arrives. Even if we eventually get our man or find the right combination up front by the end of August it takes until nearly Christmas before it produces an effective unit.

-   McGinn gets injured in pre-season and is out for 4 months.

-   Mings picks up a niggle in pre-season and the whole defensive unit suffers a lack of cohesion and confidence as they are effectively strangers thrown together for the first time without an on-field leader. The coaching staff works hard at this problem but progress is slow and results faltering. Odd mistakes of communication and positioning, inevitable throughout a steep learning process, are made at crucial points in games and results are poor even if performances are getting better.

-   Pursestrings says in an interview that the strategy is in place for the future of the club to be balanced but that means off-field capital requirements and FFP rules mean that player acquisition needs to stop before buying Butland, another centre back and a defensive midfielder let alone £25 to £30m for another striker. A tacit admission that prices have gone haywire and we won’t be paying them now but will look again in January.  The coaching staff and the fans know this leaves us 3 players short before we start. Confidence collapses on fan sites.
-   The Beeb and Sky, as part of their build-ups to the new season, pitch their Villa coverage as ‘Can the inexperienced manager and thrown-together team at Villa avoid relegation?’ and play that skewed message on an endless loop. Pundits do what pundits do and fall back lazily on every cliché they can find; ‘Chances are that promoted teams get relegated’, ‘You can’t build a new team and expect it to win quickly’, ‘The gap between Championship and PL is too great’ etc. Traditional Brummie pessimism kicks in and the first serious shouts of ‘Smith Out, we need someone to rescue our season’ are written before the end of August, fuelling another merry-go-round of media coverage on the topic of ‘Smith has only 5 games to turn the season around before Thierry Henry is bought in’.

We all know those things could happen.

There’s not much we can do about player targeting and acquisition, tactics, training and team cohesion, capital budgeting, the money in the PL or players agents but we can do something about the rest of it. Which might ultimately help.

That probably starts with realistic expectations. It’s not realistic to say anything like ‘Our new owners are minted so spunk another £30m on the next player linked with us in the gutter press’. There are rules, there are real financial limits and everyone needs to realise that. If we want a club that gets better it involves a rounded expansion of the capacities of the club not just unbalanced progression in one aspect. That destroys wage structures, causes team disharmony and does not improve results anywhere, especially on the pitch. It’s a team game not an individual one and I’m happy that Deano shows he knows that at every possible point in time.

It also probably means that we need to become more resilient to not battering teams we play every week; this last 6 months has seen a wonderful uptick in the style of football we play and that’s thrilling. But with half the squad being new it’s unlikely we will see that excitement return consistently for at least the next 3 months. It’s a different league, different team, new situation; we can’t expect it to look and feel like Wembley every week. Sorry to pop that bubble. The team will feel like it is taking a step backwards from those heady days of the 10-game winning run but it’s not, it’s just adjusting to a new world and we need to know that before it happens so we don’t agonise ‘we should be beating that lot every week’. We shouldn’t and we probably won’t. Yet. But give the staff and team a chance to get there, eh?

And it probably involves taking a step back and enjoying the ride. Last Summer the club was dead. I mean really dead; just waiting for the axe to fall. This time 4 months ago we had given up the season. The only thing those lessons should teach us is that we should enjoy the ride.

So let’s make a pact on here; nobody even mentions points or position in the table until Bonfire night. Let’s just make up new chants for the terraces, buy season tickets, laugh at the bluenoses, cheer our heads off at the grounds whenever we see something we like, and generally enjoy being back in the circus. We've got a reputation to uphold of being 'real' fans of a big club so let's concentrate on that. Support the team, through whatever life throws at us, and enjoy the ride. We’re in good hands so trust in that fact.

UTV

TL;DR, JFC

[hipkiss92]

AV late Summer reflections in mid-Summer 2019

While the press hoopla is still going on around transfers coming in and going out and the PR machine cranks up for pre-season jamborees in ‘Murica and the UK, it would be useful to prepare ourselves for what’s coming between now and the end of September. You know, just so we don’t lose our sense of perspective and react irrationally …

More passionate people might be tempted to start with the state of the squad, who’s in and who’s out, but that would be too easy. We’ll come back to that.

I’d like to ask you to consider our first 7 fixtures and where we might be in the table come the start of October. Compared to the other two teams joining the PL this year our campaign begins favourably. We should be confident that we can win points early as we have a balance of home and away matches which is welcome; 4 home, 3 away. We only face 2 of the Top 6 in those games so that’s not an uphill start (both away), we play 2 of the teams likely to be fighting relegation (both home games so already looking like ‘Must Win’ matches if we want to survive) and of the other 3 games we are against teams likely to be safely in the middle come the end of the season, 2 at home, so can look to pick up points.

By the end of September we could afford to have lost away at both Spurs and Arsenal if we have won at home to Bournemouth and Burnley. If we pick up a win and a draw against Wet Spam and either Everton at home or Palace away we’ll be sitting on 10 points and comfortably mid-table after 7 games. I’d expect the relegation zone to feature teams with half that number of points by that time.

That is a scenario that’s certainly possible; our ‘keeper has hit his straps and carried on from the end of last season, the defence is grooved and confident with the 2 new full backs fitting-in smoothly, our midfield is an exciting dynamo of steel and diamond with McGinn and Grealish in their pomp, and the attack is full of youthful exuberance, creating chances for fun and smashing goals in when they matter.

But that’s only likely if the time between now and then has gone very, very well. What if the next 12 weeks contains all or some of the following;

-   Despite the professional intentions and work of the club, Moraes struggles to adjust to a foreign country, foreign culture, foreign language and different playing conditions and the weight of leading the line is playing on the young guys’ mind. Kodjia comes back from the ACN tired and out of sorts so does not provide an effective alternative striking option. Goals are hard to come by which makes games an excruciating grind.

-   The right-sided attacker we pursued does not arrive and the unbalanced nature of the attack misfires continually in pre-season and the first few games of the PL as the fill-in Jota tries to adjust to his new team until the player purchase arrives. Even if we eventually get our man or find the right combination up front by the end of August it takes until nearly Christmas before it produces an effective unit.

-   McGinn gets injured in pre-season and is out for 4 months.

-   Mings picks up a niggle in pre-season and the whole defensive unit suffers a lack of cohesion and confidence as they are effectively strangers thrown together for the first time without an on-field leader. The coaching staff works hard at this problem but progress is slow and results faltering. Odd mistakes of communication and positioning, inevitable throughout a steep learning process, are made at crucial points in games and results are poor even if performances are getting better.

-   Pursestrings says in an interview that the strategy is in place for the future of the club to be balanced but that means off-field capital requirements and FFP rules mean that player acquisition needs to stop before buying Butland, another centre back and a defensive midfielder let alone £25 to £30m for another striker. A tacit admission that prices have gone haywire and we won’t be paying them now but will look again in January.  The coaching staff and the fans know this leaves us 3 players short before we start. Confidence collapses on fan sites.
-   The Beeb and Sky, as part of their build-ups to the new season, pitch their Villa coverage as ‘Can the inexperienced manager and thrown-together team at Villa avoid relegation?’ and play that skewed message on an endless loop. Pundits do what pundits do and fall back lazily on every cliché they can find; ‘Chances are that promoted teams get relegated’, ‘You can’t build a new team and expect it to win quickly’, ‘The gap between Championship and PL is too great’ etc. Traditional Brummie pessimism kicks in and the first serious shouts of ‘Smith Out, we need someone to rescue our season’ are written before the end of August, fuelling another merry-go-round of media coverage on the topic of ‘Smith has only 5 games to turn the season around before Thierry Henry is bought in’.

We all know those things could happen.

There’s not much we can do about player targeting and acquisition, tactics, training and team cohesion, capital budgeting, the money in the PL or players agents but we can do something about the rest of it. Which might ultimately help.

That probably starts with realistic expectations. It’s not realistic to say anything like ‘Our new owners are minted so spunk another £30m on the next player linked with us in the gutter press’. There are rules, there are real financial limits and everyone needs to realise that. If we want a club that gets better it involves a rounded expansion of the capacities of the club not just unbalanced progression in one aspect. That destroys wage structures, causes team disharmony and does not improve results anywhere, especially on the pitch. It’s a team game not an individual one and I’m happy that Deano shows he knows that at every possible point in time.

It also probably means that we need to become more resilient to not battering teams we play every week; this last 6 months has seen a wonderful uptick in the style of football we play and that’s thrilling. But with half the squad being new it’s unlikely we will see that excitement return consistently for at least the next 3 months. It’s a different league, different team, new situation; we can’t expect it to look and feel like Wembley every week. Sorry to pop that bubble. The team will feel like it is taking a step backwards from those heady days of the 10-game winning run but it’s not, it’s just adjusting to a new world and we need to know that before it happens so we don’t agonise ‘we should be beating that lot every week’. We shouldn’t and we probably won’t. Yet. But give the staff and team a chance to get there, eh?

And it probably involves taking a step back and enjoying the ride. Last Summer the club was dead. I mean really dead; just waiting for the axe to fall. This time 4 months ago we had given up the season. The only thing those lessons should teach us is that we should enjoy the ride.

So let’s make a pact on here; nobody even mentions points or position in the table until Bonfire night. Let’s just make up new chants for the terraces, buy season tickets, laugh at the bluenoses, cheer our heads off at the grounds whenever we see something we like, and generally enjoy being back in the circus. We've got a reputation to uphold of being 'real' fans of a big club so let's concentrate on that. Support the team, through whatever life throws at us, and enjoy the ride. We’re in good hands so trust in that fact.

UTV

Transfer window shuts first day of the season

[mr underhill]

this might be interesting - according to various people on a Huddersfield fans forum both Chester and Bree are staying at the Manor House Hotel in Lindley. A player exchange deal perhaps?

[AsTallAsLions]

this might be interesting - according to various people on a Huddersfield fans forum both Chester and Bree are staying at the Manor House Hotel in Lindley. A player exchange deal perhaps?

Although I didn't see Bree, Chester was snapped at BMH yesterday. Would he have reported for a day and then made his way to Lindley? Not outside the realms of possibility I suppose. Hmmm.

[MoetVillan]

I don't know any Southampton fans by the way.

My mother in law is a proud Saints fan, as is most of her part of the family. I am very lucky having such a cool mother in law, she is a huge football fan, a fountain of knowledge, and also brought up a rather fantastic daughter. Her sister was in the final of mastermind this year, so I’m guessing they are not all simpletons!