You misread what I said or I didn't make it clear. Now and again we will allow a manager to sign a player without the board etc getting involved as much. But mainly we buy players that suit the team rather then players that a manager knows off. It's how we are able to carry on like nothing has happened when a manager leaves (well until recently).
No, I didn't misread it. I just plucked a pertinent point out to simplify the argument. Despite the LOTS of spin about how we do transfers, I am not convinced we are doing anything much different to the majority of clubs.
To sell a CB and club captian to a rival and then have your other first choice CB injured for a fair amount of time and then not replace either while in a transfer window is stupid, plain and simple. There's nothing anybody could say to me that would make me go " oh yeah fair point" on this,it's a shocking decision.
With particular regard to Fonte: what was disappointing was that the club knew Fonte was not happy and looking for a way out. We are told that the club has a succession plan for all player positions (and management) and yet did not line someone up when the window opened. Forward planning seems to have gone out with the leftover xmas turkey. The selling of so many key players over the past couple of years has proven not to be sustainable on the evidence of this season. The model has worked so well in previous seasons but now we have reached the proverbial glass ceiling and like others before us, are gently sliding down into mid-table mediocrity. Some of us are happy with that, but you then spend your seasons looking over your shoulder at the relegation battle. I would take a top 10 spot every season but at the moment - we are not at that level.
Doesn't mean that the players we wanted either a) wanted to join us or b) the clubs would let them join us mid-season
Rubbish. Do you know who we are? We turn up at Liverpool and say we want Coutinho and the player will plead to come, and Liverpool will take £10m for him and be grateful for it. The player will be so grateful to play for the mighty Southampton he'll take a huge cut in wages - in fact he'll pay for the privilege. Yeah. There's more to this transfer business than it appears!
How many people here actually know (not a rumour) how many defenders we've tried to sign in the last 6 months? My expectation is zero people know.
And if a system has worked well for years, does a blip mean you throw out the baby. Nothing wrong with the players we've brought in recently....our problem is with the results and how much of that is due to a system change is unclear. We brought in cover for Forster in the summer and now have had to bring in a loan due to injury to 2nd keeper; we needed another striker but the decision was made that we had enough depth...when this proved wrong due to injury to Austin (which should have been predicted), we brought in a promising striker in Manolo. We do need a CB now, but not in the summer when we thought we had Fonte. The latter is the problem that needed rectifying and wasn't. I just don't think one poorish season (and remember we are in a cup final) means that the whole system needs an overhaul. Ask the question again if next season is the same.
Well if they really tried to sign someone that's almost more worrying. Yeh sure you're probably not gonna get a top level CB in January but for all the fuss made of how the black box scouts every player in europe or whatever you would think they could find one who was available. This is top level sport, trying doesn't really cut it.
Trying and failing, is failing. Les gets paid a ****-load of money to run the football club, and he has messed up. Especially after all the talk to the media. On the whole, I think our recruitment has been incredible, but this season has been a complete departure from the 'Southampton Way'. Essentially the league season is a bit of a write off now. Let's focus on winning the cup, and rebuild in the summer - with the hope that we aren't weakened enough defensively to get sucked down the table.
And I know that made me sound really angry, I'm not actually I was expecting this to happen. I also don't really see much relevance left to the rest of our league season (not going down, not qualifying for europe) so I can live without the signing. Still think it's a poor outcome however.
Since we had a couple of excellent seasons of recruitment, the danger is that the club will seem to think they can crack it every window. Which of course isn't going to happen. In the summer I said I was taking down the board's A* rating to an A. It's now a B+ because quite frankly, if Van Dijk is out for the EFL Cup final and we have to play Yoshida and Stephens (love them both), having sold Fonte without replacing him, I will just consider this just too much, especially after the farce that was Hapoel Be'er Sheva. We might not get to another final for another fifteen years. Having said that, I do feel that with one or two additions in the summer, we will be looking at a squad easily capable of breaking into the top 6.
You think a top 10 finish is beyond us this season? I'm not sure about that. I think you're right to say that we can't expect to sell our best players every summer and get away with it though. Maybe next summer we can keep what we have and build on it. For the first time since we have returned to the PL, this could be the year when the club rather than a few players hold all the aces, so we'll see.
It's easy isn't it? Listen, I agree we should have signed a CB, I was just pointing out that none of us know what efforts were made. PS. We think he's messed up. He might get away with yet.
Of course not, where did you get that from? I just think this CB situation hasn't been handled very well. No company is perfect and certainly no individual is perfect and of course no one knows exactly what goes on behind closed doors. I'm just saying in most lines of work saying 'well i did try' doesn't get you very far.
Yeh of course and in this one senario it probably wont matter that much (I don't think final aside we have much left to play for this season). I still hold that it would be worrying if they really wanted to sign someone but couldn't. I'm not saying 'sack the board' or whatever but shrugging of mistakes isn't good practice, analysing and learning from them is. Of course this is all hypothetical anyway as none of us know what the aims etc of the board were.
