Wanderlust

Not sure what’s going on but presume this is about the parasite? I blocked him the second some fool let him back on, and I strongly recommend everyone else does too as he’s an idiot troll trying to be clever who stinks the place out wherever he goes, including his own now decimated site. Ignore him until he slinks off back to his miserable life.

Yep. Great layoff for a shot from outside the box and a sublime chip over the top. Not too much getting behind the FBs or through the middle so without dragging the whole team back, it’s about as much as you can hope for at this level. That said, I noticed Rice getting caught forward at times and Kane dropping back to cover for him which isn’t ideal, but as I said, they can learn from it and with a tweak or two they’ll be right. Hopefully.

Lot of folk saying that but after the first minute, I thought Konsa and Stones were well shielded by Rice and Anderson and Croatia were kept at arm’s length and forced into producing real quality to score so I’m not complaining.

I dreamed Southampton at home

I guess none of us really know what we have available for transfers but some folk are just being silly. Personally I like the way we are going especially with the younger talented players around 21 or 22 year olds with enough athleticism to compete and potential to develop like Watson, Stephenson if he comes and Kenny and ACD if we can sign them permanently. The idea of developing a young squad together is appealing especially as we have a few mature players to throw into the mix to help them come along. We may well not get them, but the thinking seems to be right. We could eventually become a force without breaking the bank if we buy well at this stage and given our brush with oblivion I’d much prefer it to splashing the cash on marquee signings.

Luca Connell???? Probably just Modric…

Just reminded myself of the last transfer windows when I was bigging up Kenny as a top young prospect whilst half the world was calling him gash, the likes of Hardie, Nombe and Apter were the mutt’s nuts and most of the players we were linked to never came anywhere near us. Plus our initial bid for Watson was rejected - but we’ve got him eventually. Transfer rumours are entertaining TBF but I’m taking everything with a pinch of salt until the window closes and we know what we’re actually dealing with, but I’m sure we’ll be fine given that for the most part Fergal has done well and there’s clearly a longer term strategy in place.

Ben Davies was a very solid player a few tears back and I presume he can still tackle, head, provide a physical presence and pass but I’m just slightly concerned about whether his injuries have left him without enough pace for the Championship. Still, I guess we’ve got to give him a chance. Could turn out to be what we need.

I read Cissoko’s purchase option clause that was attached to the loan is reported to be around a million. As entertaining as he is, I hope we’re only considering that as a last resort.

Yup and for further clarification in this case, the rules say we can only spend so much compared to our football income so in crude terms if we sign a player for 4 million and give him a contract for 4 years it can be accounted as a million each year.

This is exciting. Players signed this window will have to be very, very carefully selected and ideally good for the longer term. With increased revenue in the Championship and amortisation of transfer fees over contract length we could end up with a team good enough to survive despite Squad Cost Rules and the fact that existing Championship clubs have already have the squad advantage they gained under the old system. Very high risk handing out longer contracts, but I suspect we may go down that road with a few younger prospects. The owners could balance the books by selling off assets like land for development or the hotel, but under SCR that income couldn’t be used for buying players or staff wages so we need to buy very, very well and could do with some of our youngsters coming through.

I love the WC despite all its imperfections, politics and off field bullshit because ATEOTD it’s a footie fest and an opportunity to see players we don’t usually get to see. Always throws up surprises and interest.

Whoever we end up signing, it would be good if we get as many deals as possible over the line early in the window. I like that we seem to be profiling young players with energy, physicality and potential although I’ve been duped into thinking we can build a young team that will grow together and form the basis of a successful squad for years to come before - it just never seems to work out that way. But I live in hope. Thankfully, there’s a World Cup this summer to help me take my mind off it - at least for a while - but I suspect the rumour mill will be unavoidably interfere.

Still too early but a fee of £700k is being bandied about by several sources and the description seems to be a creative defensive midfielder, whatever that is. Some scousers feel that if true, it would be a steal. But we know from experience that “several sources” is often lots of people repeating what one person said.

It’s true that he used to annoy me and a lot of folk, and equally true that I frequently didn’t agree with him but neither are the reason I think he should be banned. He should be banned for starting an argument in an empty room, misquoting folk to do it and the fact that the vast majority of his posts are simply to have a go at other people’s opinions whilst rarely having an original thought of his own. Or at least a vaguely interesting one.

Good luck with that. Never does, never did and never will.

He would potentially be a great addition but I read Rangers are in for him.

You know I have history with the clown and his posts are based on selected facts taken out of context which he puts a spin on to big himself up. For example his first act when he got back was to dig out an old question I asked about Dalby shortly after he arrived when he was playing really badly if you remember - and I was wondering whether we needed to change our style of play to get the best out of him? Schumacher duly did and Dalby grew into the role so it was all good. Dickhead reframed that as a poor “analysis” of the player Dalby became - as relevant as saying Messi was crap when he was 2 or had a broken leg. Within a couple of days he has “corrected” several people on here and his misguided “lectures” started to flow - and we both know that will ramp up when he gets on to the subject of finances which he claims to be an expert in. It will be no time before he moves on to trying to position himself as the font of all knowledge and argue with everyone (unless they are folk he wants to suck up to) - which is why he drives people away from forums (I think his own once lively forum is down to about 3 people who only post occasionally) and why I’ve already blocked him on here. It’s not so much about me disagreeing with him (most do) or even his incessant condescending drivel and intolerance of opinions that differ from his own - as about the fact that he will inevitably and intentionally wind up so many posters and discourage open discussion and variety of opinion that the site will start losing members and that cancer needs to be cut out before it spreads.

Just ignore the bin man - he’s just looking to wind people up, trying to look clever by taking partial quotes out of context and will persist until he gets banned again, just as he pissed off and banned everyone who disagreed with him on his own forum. I guess he’s come crawling back here because there’s nobody left to lord it over on Bolton Nuts. Come on mods - fuck Sluffy off before he wrecks this forum too - after all he spent years slagging off WW. He’s a cock and everyone knows it.

I think Sheehan had a season of two halves, much improved since Xmas. That could be down to the forward options that Kenny and Dalby brought, the tweaks to the system to accommodate them or SS simply telling him to stop trying to spray floaty passes and crosses all over the shop so much. He certainly kept it simpler and stepped up his work rate and the defensive aspects of his game which I suspect is good coaching. Whatever the reasons, he has improved. The question for me is how he will perform with another change in team structure and playing against better opposition - I suspect he’ll be fine as he has already shown he can adapt.

SJM has been effing brilliant. He may be a club legend, but at heart he is just a fan.

I still have high hopes for Max Conway but defensively he was targeted a lot recently and if he’s to play further forward the competition is fiercer so I’m not sure where he fits in unless he improves significantly.

Agent Cogley has always had that nasty niggly streak in him on top of being a diver when he gets beat - perhaps one of the reasons we got rid? Well that and the money.

Hangover from hell this morning but I couldn’t sleep any more. Still processing what happened yesterday but it was absolutely joyous. Amongst the many wonderful things that happened - Tutu’s best performance, Dalby’s goal, the white wall and so much more - I’d pick out a couple of things: Firstly seeing the injured players celebrating on the pitch showing the inclusiveness/togetherness of the squad indicative of the culture Schumacher and his team have developed over the season - no prima donnas this time around and it’s made a difference The other is that back in January, we were struggling up top but recruitment then worked out in the end and in Dalby and Kenny we suddenly had two different but complimentary new attacking options - a target man and a relentless and pacy runner -and huge credit to Fergal and SS for recognising the issue and being flexible enough to recruit them and change our style of play to suit them. For me, it is great to know that after years of backwards and sideways and predictability we now have a tactically astute manager flexible enough to switch things around as required.

What a game. What a team. What a result!