Since we Last Gathered: Pre-Season 22/23 Part 1

Stuart About to Cry When Modelling the Blueberry Vomit Kit

As I probably say around this time every year, my close season mainly involves reading rumours about what player we are signing on Twitter and deciding that it is bullshit. Most the time, I’m dead right and it is bullshit because either Sainst are never going to be able to afford the wages of squad player from a Super League Club that they don't want, or because Saints don’t tend to do any business early, despite saying every year that they would like to.  As far as early business goes, it usually comes down to when the contracts end on July 1.

However, there was a veritable flurry of activity in June, the first of which being outgoing with us allowing our best goalkeeper to leave on a free transfer as Fraser Forster departed to be a back-up for Hugo Lloris at Tottenham.  Rumour has it that Fraser hated being number two at Saints behind Alex McCarthy and you can’t really blame him for that but he’s obviously happy be number 2 behind the French World Cup winner and no doubt a nice new contract will have played a part. Good luck to him.  He was a brilliant goalkeeper for us at the start of his spell and immediately after his return from the knee injury. He has also been decent this season but there was a lot of time in the middle when we were wondering why earth we had given him a new contract as his confidence was completely shot to shit. When we as supporters look back on Fraser‘s career, there will be plenty of highlights that will far outnumber the bad moments.   I also had a lot of time for him because he improved. When he lost all his confidence, he had become a goalkeeper that was nailed to his goal line but under the better coaching of Andrew Sparkes, he not only become a lot more confident coming for the ball but he also massively improved at the sweeper side of the game, and it takes some doing to completely change things around once you are in your 30s.

Tapping the badge and Twitter Shithousing.  Good Work

Fraser‘s departure, along with the departure of Harry Lewis meant that there were at least two gaps in the goalkeeper department and after much rumour, we decided that our nearest and dearest neighbours Player of the Season was the man who we wanted to challenge McCarthy for next year‘s number one shirt.  Gavin Buzunu wasn’t of course a Pompey player but he had been on-loan there last year from Manchester City.  The fact that he was only on loan at Pompey didn’t stop you being able to smell the sweet perfume of boiling piss from 17 miles East, on the day the signing was announced.

Aside from the very obvious comparison with Angus Gunn, who was the last goalkeeper we signed from Manchester City, everything you read about Bazunu suggests that this is not a young goalkeeper who is going to be prepared to sit on the bench for a couple of years. This guy has come here to play and at this moment in time, I would be very surprised if he’s not in goal for the first game of the season.  He doesn’t have any club experience higher than League 1 but bizarrely, he has already won 10 caps of the Republic of Ireland.

On the same day as Bazunu, Saints also signed Mateusz Lis on a free transfer.  Lis is Polish and has been playing in Turkey and he’s 25 years old so five years older than Bazunu, who he will undoubtedly be behind in the pecking order, so it seems a bit bizarre as I write.  However, there are lots of rumours that he will be heading out on loan for the season so maybe this is a low-cost gamble, one for the future and see how it works out. He could end up being our first team regular at some point down the line and equally, he could end up leaving in a couple of years without having played a game for us. The rumours of Lis going out on-loan are fuelled by the fact that we offered Willy Caballero a one-year extension to his contract.  Big Willy signed on the dotted line.  It seems odd that we are now signing players to loan them out, we are like Chelsea and Man City, we are fucking massive (ha ha).

The activity in the goalkeeping department didn’t end there however, with Eddie Beach, who is 18, departing for Chelsea.  Whilst this didn’t really warrant many mentions in the National press or even the local press, it is interesting that he is good enough for Chelsea but not good enough for us and we felt the need to bring in a goalkeeper who is not much older.  I mean, the chances of him actually ever playing a game for Chelsea are extremely remote and he will probably join the army of players out on loan all over Europe, but it will be interesting to remember his name and see if it crops up at any point in the future.

So, where else did we need strengthening?  Everywhere.  According to Ralph’s blueprint, there are six positions on the team, goalkeeper, fullback, centre back, number six, number 10 (wingers) and strikers. According to my blueprint we needed new players in every single one of those positions so with goalkeeper having been addressed, we moved on to centre back with the signing of 20-year-old German Armel Bella-Kotchap. I have to say that I am going to provide absolutely zero insight because I had never heard of the guy until the day that we signed him.

The Experienced Centre Back we Needed is 20

The general reaction from people that matter, was that he’s a very promising young central defender with all the usual attributes, quick, strong, good in the air etc etc. He has over 70 appearances for Bochum in the Bundesliga and Bundesliga 2, and he looks to have a very promising future. With Armel being right-footed, it seems very likely on the face of it, that he will partner the left footed Salisu in the centre of defence which will probably give us the youngest centre back pairing in Premier League history and when you add in Tino, and KWP and even Roman Perraud, the oldest player in there is about 24 and that’s before you get to the fact that we may well have a 20-year-old goalkeeper. It might be brilliant…. but it might be absolute madness. We do seem to be flying on our own down this particular train of thought and flying against years of established wisdom and practices, which basically say that you need some experience, especially in defence. I like the fact that we are trying to do things differently but at the same time I find it fucking terrifying.

When Sports Republic bought the club, they did make a point of saying but they like the way we do things and at the time they bought us, the success of the Tino Livramento signing was all anyone was talking about. Maybe they are just taking the success of the Tino signing and doing it more. It certainly seems that way anyway. The good news is that we can stop worrying about missing out on signing players at about 9 pm because they’ll be going to bed around that time.

A new kit release happened, same as every year, only this time it was centred around the marketing tagline of “bravery“. I’m sure they chose bravery as a theme because you’ve got to be brave to get involved in any of that NFT shit that comes with it.  "The first kit with its own NFT".... oh do fuck off!  Anyway, apparently it’s brave because it’s a bold design which is quite similar to a kit that we had in 2001 just before we moved to St Mary‘s. That 2001 kit for me is always synonymous with Dean Richards.  Anyway, a single thick red vertical stripe down the middle of a predominantly white shirt it is but as usual, at the end of the day, it’s a red and white kit with our badge on it and a sponsors logo ont he front. The amount of extreme reaction it provokes is always mildly amusing to me. I’m more concerned about whether the team and the manager take the bravery message into the way they play next season, not sitting back and hoping to nick a goal on the break which is what we were doing at the tail end of the season.  Maybe the bravery is having a team full of kids – there’s a thin line between bravery and idiocy.

Oh, stop the press…. Here comes the away shirt which looks like someone has eaten a load of blueberries and then eaten a lot of plums and then produced some sort of massive technicolour yawn over a football shirt.  It’s allegedly based on the sea and a nod towards our location.  Maybe this is just me being old but football shirts should be predominantly plain, stripes, quarters or halves or hoops and that’s more or less it.  This will look fine from a distance on a match day but up close… not for me.  The only thing worth getting annoyed about regarding kits is the fact we have three brand new ones a season (five if you count the keepers’ kits).  Third kits are just unnecessary if you think about the colours in the away shirt.   If you want my opinion on the home kit – it’s ok.  Not as good as some but certainly not as bad as the red one with pinstripes from our first year back in the Premier League, nor that fucking awful template red kit when aap3 were the sponsors. 

More importantly, we had coaching positions to fill and Ruben Selles arrived to be Ralph’s number 2, or First Team Lead Coach, which will hopefully stop lots of people moaning that we didn’t have one.  There are also a couple of new appointments elsewhere.  Replacing the mercurial Dave Watson on set pieces, is Alex Chapman who has joined from Notts County and Carl Martin has been promoted from the Under 18s to ‘major on ball possession’.  Interesting, because our possession was always relatively decent – it was the cutting edge that was lacking.  All we need now is a court jester to replace Kelvin Davis and we’re sorted.

Shane - Thanks for the Memories

July 1^st did eventually roll around and it was as usual, the signal for things to happen.  Who were we linked with? – more youngsters in the shape of Levi Colwill from Chelsea and Romeo Lavia from Manchester City – a defender and a defensive midfielder.  I wondered when we are going to address the gaping chasm that is the lack of creativity and goals in the squad.  I was expecting that we’d probably give Shane Long a new contract – though it was encouraging that he wasn’t present at the first day of pre-season training….

…. And Shane Long got released, thankfully.  That may seem harsh but the harsh facts are that he’s not had a good season since 2016, which is 6 years ago and there is a world of difference between 29 and 35 when you're a striker who primarily relies on pace and fitness.  He’s had moments of inspiration since then but there comes a time for everyone.  For me, it’s good that Saints are putting sentimentality aside and there really isn’t much room for it in top level sport and we’ve recently corrected the Kelvin Davis issue and now this – just Theo Walcott to go now.

Shane, lovely bloke, would love to go for a pint with him but not a Premier League striker anymore.  Like with Fraser Forster, we’ll remember the good stuff like the Liverpool semi-final goal, the Villa long ranger, the Watford 7 second goal and him running himself into the ground for the cause, therefore creating space for others like Danny Ings to stick the ball in the net.  He always played like he cared and you could never accuse him of not putting a shift in, which may sound like a minimum requirement for a professional footballer but we’ve had a few who don’t.  I think he’s probably got a season or two left in him at a lower level and hope he gets to finish his career on his own terms and good luck to him.

Romeo: Another Piece of the Plot to Take over Man City

Onwards… and after nearly a week of speculation all over the place, Romeo Lavia, an 18-year-old defensive midfielder, joined from Manchester City.  He is the current Premiership 2 Player of the Season and has joined for the opportunity of playing in the Premier League where he had no pathway before.  For here on in, I will describe this as joining ‘on a Tino’ which is a relatively modest fee, with a buy back clause for the Super League Club.  Like with Gavin Bazunu, the reputation is very good and there’s a reason for that, but it of course comes with the caveat that he has never played a Premier League game and in Lavia’s case, as far as I can work out, has only played two games of football that weren’t age group games.  What I’m saying is – don’t expect him to be brilliant straight away but as he’s joined on a Tino, he may well be, like last year’s trail blazer.  Lavia’s You Tube highlight reel looks impressive and if he can take that into the Premier League then we’ll be very happy.  Straight after Lavia came some more staff recruitment with Joe Shields becoming our new Head of Recruitment, having done a similar role at Youth Level with Manchester City… no doubt having a hand in the development of Bazunu and Lavia.  Sports Republic are taking over Man City and no one has realised it yet…. We are massive!

A few days later and we diverted from the City takeover master plan for a bit with the signing of Joe Aribo from Rangers.  He’s positively ancient at 25 and if Romeo Lavia was ‘on a Tino’, this is ‘on a Stuart Armstrong’.  One year left on the contract and a relatively cheap gamble (£6m) signing from the Old Firm.  By the sound of it, his playing style is similar to the man with the magnificent hair but he’s left footed, which we haven’t had enough of in recent seasons.  Now, with Perraud, Salisu and Aribo, there’s the opportunity for the team to have a real balance to it, if Ralph chooses to do so.  Aribo has been a standout player for Rangers in the SPL and whilst playing well in that league for Rangers or Celtic is a bit like shooting fish in a barrel, he also stood out in the latter stages of Rangers Europa League campaigns, which is of course a higher standard, if only over a few games.  The key to being a good Premier League player is of course consistency over a large number of games but the raw materials look to be all there.  He seems ideally suited to one of the wide positions in our formation or can operate just behind the striker in a 4-3-3 formation, so will give us some more flexibility.  He’s also built up a reputation as a bit of a JWP-like machine player, having played 70 games last season.  Our last few Old Firm signings have been good for us so here’s hoping this one will be as well.

Joe Gets the Liebherr Pavilion Photoshop Treatment

So, 5 new players, 3 new coaches and 1 Head of Recruitment through the door and no one as I write, has left for a fee as yet, so approximately £45 million has been spent so far.  Sports Republic are putting their money where their mouth is.  We clearly still need a striker to replace Armando Broja in the squad but we also badly need to offload, with Theo Walcott, Moussa Djenepo and Nathan Redmond the names in the frame.  There have been rumours about departures for Lyanco and Jan Bednarek but nothing has happened as yet.  With pre-season training camps starting in a week or so, it will be interesting to see who gets left behind as the squad head off to Austria for a training camp, including a friendly against Ralph’s previous employers, RB Leipzig.  On the face of it, the recruitment that we have done in terms of positions and quality seems to be sound but there is of course, that massive question over experience.  Maybe we’ll be like the England Test Cricket team and try something different and find that it totally suits us despite it going against hundreds of years of tradition, or maybe we’ll be like Jan Poortvliet’s Saints who went down this route and collapsed horribly.  More likely we’ll be something in the middle but it’s a massive risk but it’s one that Ralph, Martin Semmens, Rasmus Ankersen and Dragan Solak must be happy to take.  All aboard.