steviemay17

We all dream of a team of Eetu Vertain.... it doesn't really fit the tune I guess

I get we're not going to go and spend £1m+ on players, but it would be nice if we sanctioned around 150-200k so Grieve can widen his search a bit and find the odd gem

This is one of the main things but he'll have been advised that it's a short career and injuries do happen, plus he'll often look up in a match or training to be greeted by the ghost of Stevie May as a very visual reminder of how quickly things can change after a bad injury

I do find the agent and general tapping up thing to be weird. I can't ever find that the whole tapping up practice was suddenly allowed to happen, but we've now publicly got the Fabrizio Romano's of this world tweeting that players have agreed personal terms months before a bid is accepted so it clearly happens and Saints moaning about it isn't going to move the needle there. My biggest issue is that we are clearly a selling club (basically anyone who isn't Man City, Real Madrid or PSG is) but we still seem to cower from that fact and don't actively try to get big fees when a player's stock is highest. We seem to sort of hide and pretend it's not happening and then be like "oh wow they've left and we didn't plan for this, how did this all happen?") The youth system is clearly working, we can also develop players from lower divisions like Rooney and McCart, so my hope is that with the new HOR that we actively have a list of names to work on when a player leaves, so now when the interest comes in we can get a good fee, move on and not have a repeat of this in Janaury

Generally yes, but it depends how genuine Steve Brown is being with those comments. It sounds like McCann really wanted that move to happen, Preston were the only buyer and the whole situation had led to use feeling obliged to let him go so it was about getting what we could, and that starting position is pretty much known as "Being fully bent over while they have control of the broom handle"

That is also true. It's an odd one on McCann because I really don't have an issue with him trying to get a move to further his career and make life changing money, but maybe the way it happened on the final day was poor? I guess it sounds like Preson planned it that way so we were over a barrel, but it explains the lack of an obvious replacement being ready to come in

That statement is fair enough really, even if you don't really agree with McCann actually going, we were over a barrel, he's probably been a bit naughty in forcing the move but when does keeping an unhappy player ever actually work out well? It would've just rumbled on til January and he would've went for something similar anyway.

Share with the class if you can. Seems he was doing some kind of impromptu Q and A to show what a big swinging d*ck he is in the media world, was asked what he thought about Celtic's transfer window, a one sentence response of "the wee j*p looks good" went down as well as expected, then doubled down with a pc gone mad kind of response, also really seemed to struggle with the basics of Ali McCann being born in Scotland but playing football for Northern Ireland too but that's small fry

At least Alan Nixon has followed up on his campaign to get McCann a move by trying to get himself cancelled on Twitter

It's been some time since i felt this, but there's just nothing that excites me in terms of the prospect of actually watching this team this season, just dread

The most damning thing about all of this is that it simply cannot be defended If the plan was to simply replace our best players with fringe-player standard loan signings then that is some staggering incompetence If we've just panicked and not through it through then it shows the decision-makers can't be trusted to make decisions Neither has anything redeeming about it

Saints trying really hard to push the Eetu agenda this morning on Twitter, of course largely brushing over the fact he doesn't have a work permit and literally cannot play yet

Of course and it's a gamble, but it's a stupid one to take, especially when we currently have walking proof of how badly it can go down south after a big injury with Stevie May in the building. That £5m will be useful once we've fully transformed into Falkirk and play in League one in two years

If we've taken a piss poor fee purely on the hope that he goes for a bigger one in the future then that's naive to the extreme. Preston don't have a great tradition of developing players and selling them on, they go through managers pretty quickly, relegation isn't out of the question for them so that could result in him being sold for £2m and it won't break Davidson's record, plus injuries can happen at any time. Sell on clauses are designed to enhance the fee, not top it up to the level that it should've been at in the first place

I've found the silver lining! Transfermarkt has Eetu's contract down as expiring at the end of this year, so by the time we get that sorted he'll be a free agent and we save on the fee

So I guess as a brief summary Steve Brown has set a precedent that he'll bend over and take a third of the asking price Our four forwards currently average for a goal every 3.8 league games as a collective We've sold Jason Kerr, and if we put out a defence containing Devine, Muller and Dendoncker then they have a combined total of 8 senior league starts between them Eetu Vertainen is currently Schrodinger's signing where he may or may not exist, and if he does then he'll need weeks to get up to speed, he's also not a striker Shaun Rooney is currently having a meltdown on Twitter so we've given him and his agent all the ammunition they need to hold off signing a new contract We've put ourselves in a position of being in a relegation scrap, therefore ensuring players won't want to sign new deals and SB will play the "well the future is too uncertain to offer new deals" card so McCart and Clark could also end up leaving for nothing We've managed to erase any and all enthusiasm surrounding the club, also not much to bring those big European crowds back either Missed anything? Edit: We also have the added fun that Devine, MacPherson, Muller, Dendoncker and Crawford can all be recalled with 24 hours notice in January too

There's still a 50/50 chance that we've sold them the rights to Neil McCann I guess

“I’m bulletproof and you need to be. If you’re easily influenced, you’ll never be a good leader.

At least with all this cash we can employ someone to have a stab at the Eetu paperwork, just waiting for it to emerge that the paperwork was also too difficult to read on the McCann deal so it's actually £120k and we got the decimal point wrong

Odds on us to finish bottom have already gone from 14/1 to 10/1

I am aware I'm acting like a child, but his stock is at an all-time high after the cups and Europe, Decent offers aren't coming his way if we go down

I hear Plamen Krachunov's agent is dusting the phone off as we speak

If Callum Davidson has sense he walks. Other teams see him as a double winning manager against all the odds and his stock is high, this team may legitimately struggle to score more than 10 goals all season and we've sold two of our best players leaving no time for replacements

https://www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/sport/football/st-johnstone/2499308/breaking-preston-north-end-up-their-bid-at-the-11th-hour-for-st-johnstone-star-ali-mccann/ Wasn't Nicholson saying no to this half an hour ago?