Pre-Season beers Arrive from Belgium
One day after posting the last pre-season update, Dejan
Lovren did what we all assumed he would do and threw his toys out of the
pram. In a Croatian magazine interview
which he knew would go out to everyone, he basically spat his dummy out about
Saints rejecting a bid from Liverpool which
the last time I checked, was perfectly within our rights. He cited a lack of ambition from Saints as
we’ve sold Lambert, Shaw and fellow dummy spitter, Billy Bigtime Lallana. Lovren also believed in the Cortese empty promise
of Champions League Football, therefore proving himself to be a complete
idiot.
As far as I’m concerned he can do one and it’s another nail
in the coffin of belief that players care about the club they’re at. Oddly, Liverpool
have of course sold the animal Suarez, so is that a lack of ambition? That anomaly was pointed out by none other
than Matt le Tissier who Dejan immediately unfollowed on Twitter, rather than
have a conversation, a bit like the one he’d failed to have with Ronald Koeman
at this point, a man who achieved more as a player than Dejan ever will. The temptation is to say ‘let him rot’ but
that won’t happen and he’ll go, for at least double what we paid for him a year
ago. When he goes, like Lallana it’ll be
with a resounding ‘fuck you’ ringing in his ears. He won’t care though, like Pochettino and
Lallana before him.
Curiously, Liverpool fans
seem to think that we’re reacting negatively to Lovren because he’s foreign and
that we’re fine with English Lallana because of the full page advert in The
Echo. Do your research lads – it’s not
hard. You can imagine a scene at Melwood
where Lovren, Bigtime and Lambert are talking about Saints. Dejan and Adam will
be slagging us off for being small time and Rickie will put them right one hopes. Liverpool
could sign whoever they like and they will still be weaker than last year due
to the one man who has left.
Morgan Schneiderlin has revealed that he’s had a
conversation with Koeman who wants him to stay so at least there’s a dialogue
going on there and Morgan is acting with a touch of class as you’d expect. The rumours of Arsenal and bloody Spurs won’t
go away. Like I said before, I could
deal with his moving to Arsenal but not Spurs.
Surely he’s been in England long enough to know that they are a joke and
going nowhere, no matter who they have as manager and who they sign.
The first signing of the Koeman era was confirmed with the
arrival of Dusan Tadic from FC Twente in Holland . A Serbian international left winger who can
also play in the 10 role. He sounds like
a ready made replacement for Adam Bigtime for less than half the money, with
the added bonus that he hopefully won’t be dreaming of playing for another club
this season. Tadic sounds like the real
deal with an impressive record for goals and assists. He also takes free kicks and penalties so it
sounds like we are covering all the important things that we’ve recently
lost. The caveat is of course that he
has to get used to playing in the English League which I’m sure will be a bit
of a culture shock compared to the Eredivisie.
In Ronald we trust.
Soon after we had the arrival of Graziano Pelle who joined
from Koeman’s previous club, Feyenoord.
A quick look at Pelle reveals a player who has scored loads in the Dutch
league, 6 foot 4, good in the air, good on the deck, eye for a pass, creates
and scores... remind you of anyone? With
his tall dark and handsome, swarthy Italian looks – he seems to already be a
big hit with the ladies. I can’t think
why.
Tadic made his debut in the first Dutch friendly and Pelle
in the second. The first game saw a 4-0
win against Hoensbroek with goals from a Sam McQueen deflected effort, a Calum
Chambers header, a Billy Sharp penalty, and a Steve Davis long ranger. The inclusion of Billy Sharp in this tour
has been slaughtered by the bedwetters who know best and who fail to consider
that Koeman may want to actually look at all the senior pros with his own eyes
before deciding who makes the squad this season. I don’t think he’s up to playing in the
Premier league but if Koeman thinks otherwise and puts him in then fair enough.
The second game against Sporting Hasselt, saw Graziano Pelle
take all of five minutes to score his first after Isgrove put it on a plate for
him and before half time he notched again at the near post from a McCarthy
cross. The second half saw further
strikes from a McQueen header from a Chambers cross, an own goal, a Mayuka
penalty after Sharp’s chip and chase had been handled and a Gallagher tap-in
after a Sharp effort was blocked.
Homeward bound to play against Swindon in the first of our
‘local derby’ friendlies which also takes in Bournemouth and Brighton . Again we had the full squad plus new kids
with still no Morgan, Dejan, Gaston or Big Vic.
Also missing was Steve Davis with a slight knock and Dusan Tadic who is
still in Holland
awaiting work permit formalities. The
game itself was a tight affair with Saints dominating possession and ultimately
winning 1-0 as Big Jos got his toe on a corner and knocked it in. Brendan Rodgers was straight on to his
journalist friend to leak a $20 million bid through the papers. It’s not ‘tapping up’ when Brendan does
it. Koeman’s post match interview was
the highlight as he revealed that no bid had been accepted for Lovren but that
he wanted to go. No shock in that it
proved that 99% of what I read on the internet is complete shite.
With the shock revelation that 99% of what’s on the internet
is shite, we can maybe take some of our incoming transfer rumours with a pinch
of salt. However, just for giggles I’ll
run through some of them with my personal guess on how likely they are to
happen:-
Fraser Forster from Celtic is the keeper to address the
issue of having a good first choice and then nothing in reserve. For what I’ve seen of Forster, he’s big and a
bit slow and cumbersome and his distribution is pretty poor. If it was down to me I wouldn’t be spending
£8 to £10million on a keeper who is not an upgrade on King Artur. I also can’t imagine that Forster would join
to be a 2nd choice for a season or two. With Celtic being our feeder club though (said
with extreme sarcasm) I’d say the chances of this deal eventually happening are
7/10.
Virgil Van Dijk is also at Celtic who is a ball playing
centre half who from what I’ve seen, reminds me of Claus Lundekvam in his pomp
but without the drugs and alcohol. Any
You Tube compliations of players which have been culled from SPL games needs to
be watched with the caveat that the opposition Celtic are playing against is
League 1 standard. Van Dijk does look a
very talented player though and guess what, he’s Dutch so it’s another 7/10.
A throwaway Koeman comment regarding Ron Vlaar being a good
player and the fact that he was his manager for a year at Feyenoord saw a
frenzy of articles being published on this being a possibility. Paul Lambert then came out and said something
unintelligible which sounded like the sort of noise Barry White would make if
he was gargling Listerine. I think he
was saying that Vlaar wasn’t for sale, even though he only has a year left on
his contract. Even though Villa have
signed a wonderful replacement in Phillippe Senderos – possibly the worst
defender I’ve ever seen this side of Calum Davenport – I’d say it was unlikely
that Vlaar will come to us so it’s a 5/10 as I can see him ending up at Man
United with van Gaal.
Marcos Rojo was Argentina ’s left back at the World
Cup and is currently at Sporting Lisbon and apparently available. I’m sure we’re only linked because we’ll be
linked with every left back but of course – he’s linked with a raft of big
clubs so I’d be amazed if this one happens.
Good player though and we can dream but I’d rate this one as a 3/10. Another left back linked is Dusko Tosic who
was illegally signed by the Skates and then illegally put on the bench for a
cup game against us a few years ago when they were in administration. This potential move was mentioned for a day
or so and then went quiet so I give it a 3/10 which is similar to Pablo Armero,
a Colombian who was at West Ham on loan at the tail end of last season. He didn’t pull up any trees and despite
having a good World Cup, I can’t rate this one above a 3/10 either.
We go Dutch again with Jordy Clasie who like Fer, got in the
Dutch squad for the World Cup. He’s a
combative midfielder who plays in exactly the same manner as Morgan
Schneiderlin which means that I’ll give this a 5/10 if Morgan stays and an 8/10
if he goes. We will be up against some
serious competition for his signature though so we may have to hope that the
Koeman factor can sway the issue should we wish to pursue it. The only striker we’ve been linked with is
Teo Gutierrez, who scored for Colombia
in the World Cup. At 29 and never having
done anything remarkable and currently playing for River Plate, I can’t see
this one happening at all so I’d give it a 3/10.
As I write we’re about to play Bournemouth
in a friendly at Dean Court
or whatever it’s called these days. A
majority of fans on both sides, see this for what it is, just a friendly
between two local sides gearing up for the season. There are some knobs who are seeing it as a
battle for South Coast Supremacy though.
Yawn. I expect there will be some
booing of our players by the Cherries massive but they’ll get a lesson in how
to boo a Saints player if Dejan Lovren makes an appearance. I really hope he does, just show he can find
out just what a dick he’s been.
UPDATE:
The Bournemouth game
happened and we won 1-0 with a decent goal from Lloyd Isgrove who got in front
of his defender and flicked home a very good header from a wonderful Clyne
cross. A headed winner from a player who
is 5 foot 4 at best. The Cherries didn’t
really threaten the goal at all for the rest of the game aside from a
disallowed effort late on. They did
however have Kermorgant who spat his dummy right out when he came off worse in
a 50/50 with Jose Fonte.
The game was overshadowed though by two bits of news. First was that Dejan the Dick was having a
medical at Liverpool and the discovery of a large penis in the middle of his
forehead wasn’t going to put them off signing him. This was confirmed a couple of days afterwards
and off he went – it was his ‘dream’ to sign for Liverpool
– heard it all before mate, fuck off. Well,
we knew this one was coming but the next one wasn’t on the agenda at all. Calum Chambers missed the Bournemouth
matches because he was ‘ill’ said the official club spokesman. Ill
my arse as he was finalising a move to Arsenal. I guess it was only a matter of time before
the master Child Catcher Arsene Fucking Wenger got in on the act. The fee reported is anywhere between £11
million and £18 million. Frankly, the
fee doesn’t matter – it’s a step too far for many.
Rumour has it that he had a continental style release clause
in his contract if a club in the Champions League came in for him which is the
only thing that could make this sale make sense from a Siants point of
view. If this is true then it makes a
mockery of Cortese’s statement that everyone would have stayed if he was still
there. Bullshit.
Assuming Chambers moves, it is gut-wrenchingly
disappointing. We can’t even finish 8th
in the Prem and hold onto a player who has played half a season at 19 years
old. What’s the fucking point? Three months ago we’re getting praised for
being the saviours of English football cos we play the English youth and then
what happens. Fucking pillaged by clubs
who have the MO of “don’t bother developing players, we have so much money we
can just throw stupid amounts of cash at it”. The ultimate piss take is that we appear to be
being offered Serge Gnabry, a young Arsenal winger in return on loan. So, they sign our English young player who we’ve
developed since he was 8 and then they lend us one of their foreign kids to
develop for them because they can’t be bothered. Fuck you Arsene, fuck you Premier League. On the back of a disastrous World Cup, the
English national team will now see another of it’s potential stars going to
Arsenal and disappearing for three years before emerging no better than he was as
he’ll have 50 less games under his belt. Chambers could potentially have been England ’s right
back by the end of next season but not now. I laughably saw it reported that Arsenal see
him as a centre back or midfielder as well. As if Arsenal are going to play him at centre
back or in midfield where they have approximately 400 players. You’re not going to play Calum – you’re back
up to Debuchy who is a full France
international. Do you care – probably not
– you can ponder what to spend all your money on whilst sitting in the stands
or on the bench.
And breathe…
We’ve received approximately $90 million for players we
spent approximately £9 million on. The
only problem is that they’ve all left at once and of course it might not be
over yet with Schneiderlin almost certain to go and even our crippled player,
J-Rod, being subject to the usual Brendan Twat Rodgers ‘tapping up by media’
ploy. We have 3 weeks before the season
starts and we need to get some players in now. Despite the ‘oh so funny’ jokes going round –
we have a decent starting XI, even if Morgan leaves but we don’t have a lot
behind it. A team of Boruc / Clyne,
Fonte, Yoshida, Targett/ Corky, Vic, Davis
/ Gaston, Tadic, Pelle is not bad at all. Aside from JWP, there’s not a lot else in the
squad who you could throw in with any confidence. We obviously will get players in (we need between
5 and 8) but we need to do it now and even so, I see us loitering around the
lower mid table region as things stand.
Also - there's been no statement from Uncle Les as yet. The last one was that no one would be sold. no wonder he's keeping quiet....
Also - there's been no statement from Uncle Les as yet. The last one was that no one would be sold. no wonder he's keeping quiet....
KARMA UPDATE:
Adam Lallana injured for 6 weeks. No comment. Luke Shaw in 'twat on Twitter' shocker.
FURTHER UPDATE:
Chambers moved to Arsenal. Well - it was never going to fall through was it?
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