would be an immense addition and add SIGNIFICANT quality at the back

Not a very likely signing if Milan are a serious contender and anyway, as per Forren, who is deciding at Saints which players should be transfer targets - not Pochettino I suspect/ Like the majority of signings while Adkins was in charge, I think he will be given players to work with rather than allowed to select his preferences

In respect of Forren the question has to be when is the right time to put him in. I think if we were mid table with no relegation worries we would have seen him thrown in, but with every game meaning so much is it a gamble to put him in with no Premier League experience? Imagine if we picked him against Chelsea and lost 2-3, everyone would be on here saying it was a gamble that didn't pay off and why change it when we kept a clean sheet last time out. I think we will see a lot of him once we are mathematically safe.

Will only matter if we stay up. If he wanted to get here hes had chances. Sounds like a mecenary to me. Also a bad temperment read somewhere sent off twice this season. RISKY.

Chalks, a few of the posters on here said the same kind of things when advocating Fox in the team in preference to the untested but promising Shaw. Hopefully Forren will add some quality and competition to those positions, but I guess we'll need to trust in the manager and coaches to get the timing right.

exiledsupporter
your suggestion/the suggestion that MoPo doesnt target his own players may be true. But it looks like Coutinho was his target and we were prepared to pay good money for him.
Nic
I dont know how fit Forren is but to say he is a white elephant and has been ready for the best part of six weeks is off the mark. In the U21's match v Liv he ran out of steam. Has been on the bench. He's getting close i think

Forren isn't a write-off. He hasn't played reguarly since mid November when the Norwegian league finished. Its taken a long time to get him near match fit and Poche hasn't risked bedding him in because we need the points. Our defence has improved a bit too recently.
Chalks82 is right, we'll prob see Forren play this season when we are pretty much safe. Then he can be given games to get used to the Premiership.

Next season I reckon our CB pairing will be Forren and a new signing; Astori would be superb.

I am not sure why people like to blame Cortese for the errors in purchases and credit the manager for the good ones. I reckon the only manager that has the old style freedom of seeing a player he like and buying him is 'Arry.

What is the point of employing a professional scouting network if the manager is the only one that has a say...seems like creating a business with a single point of failure to me.

RE Forren I echo the sentiments of those that say its a question of timing. Same as Tadanari Lee. Its not that Lee wasnt ever good enough its more that Jay Rod has worked hard for his spot in contention with him.

Yoshida, has improved so has Jos and Jose. I expect Forren to get an operunity towards the end of the season if we are safe.

If Astori comes in one of the 4 current CBs will be likely to move out on loan.

Tiptop, It's a fair point you make about Coutinho on the grounds that MP is clearly an admirer and has had previously positive experience of playing him at Espanyol.

But if what you say is true it raises some questions like why consider spending big sums of money on another forward in the transfer window when bolstering the defence was widely regarded as the most pressing priority. Another point is recruiting him would have meant dropping two from Puncheon, Ramirez, Lallana, Rodrigues or, even, Lambert which I think is difficult to imagine at least at this stage of the season.

Ok, in January we might have expected Forren to appear after some exposure to our training regime, but here we are two months later and still not a minute of first team football. Either a) not remotely fit enough for us but good enough to play at international level or b) not good enough to be selected to start by MP which sort of implies that the head coach doesn't think he has the necessary quality when compared to the rather flawed central defenders that he was supposed to replace or c)that the head coach knew nothing about his impending arrival (I doubt he had even heard of him before!) or c) both in the case of Forren and Coutinho we were gazing at the horizon before we had secured our immediate future.

If the latter is true then the 'running before you can walk' cliche comes to mind.

If it is a question of fitness with Forren, he has to be fit and match fit. He can get fit in training, but can only get match fit by actually playing. While it is tight near the bottom, he probably wont be risked. Not much of a confidence boost for the player. If it is not a question of fitness, it shows bad judgement on those who have signed him.

So is Forren getting fit or not? Is he on a top quality diet or feeding on hot cross buns? Is he running til he drops or sat in front of a computer with a pack of stellas and hamlets?

Just how long does it take a top club to get a player fit or is the answer he is not good enough?

ah well I always said we should beware of buying too many Forren players.