The Virgil Van Dijk Stays at Southampton Thread

We are debt free, we have new Chinese investment and our board have stated that we don't need to sell any player that we don't want to...Time to do your shopping elsewhere I'd suggest...

 

All well and good but your new owners will want to look at profits and if they decide that a fee is worth it then they'll consider that option, it's not like you are never going to sell again. I already think contracts will change because of the recent VVD and Coutinho cases players will be more cautious when siging a long term deal and clubs will also then need to adjust or you'll have cases like us with Emre Can happening more often, he's almost certain to agree to leave us in January for nothing.

So as much as we've both hung onto our players this time around I don't think it'll be the end of it and I can see both players moving next Summer, that's not to say it'll be us doing the buying though.

 

We were also told the last two summers that we didn't need to sell players... and then we sold players.

We will inevitably sell a player or players we want to keep at some point in the future but hopefully this marks the end of us losing 2, 3, 4 players every summer.

 

But things have changed for us finacially Puck, no more debt to service and new investment. I agree that there will be sales, but they will not be to the detriment of the overall squad IMO.

 

That depends on Gao and we don't know much about him. The majority of our debt was owed to the owner of the club. That's as much or as little of a problem as the owner wants it to be. Chelsea owe Abramovich something like a billion pounds but it doesn't affect them because he's not asking for it to be repaid and isn't (as far as I know) charging the club interest.

 

The difference there is that we had players running down their contracts. I see a consistency in our approach even if the outcomes are different. The first year we sold because we couldn't have so many malcontents in one team. Subsequently, we sold because players refused to sign new contracts and their value was vanishing. This time everyone is on long contracts. In none of the above cases did we want to sell (except perhaps Chambers where the valuation was considered too good) but the club has been working towards this all the time. I don't see the approach as inconsistent.

 

Just your opinion. Don't think your right but the next few days, weeks, months will tell.

 

I agree, you're in a good position so there's no need to lose 2 or 3 players every season it's going to be a matter of letting a player go at the right price only.

 

Well we can only judge the board by their most recent actions and we never sold a player that we wanted to keep in the last transfer window.

 

I haven't tried to be inventive with the last three lines, but when Liverpool play us, this has to start with:

We've got Van Dijk,
We've STILL got Van Dijk,
I just don't think you understand...

 

Proper football mate

Anyone Saints should be looking at?

 

Kat's intention was always to make the club self sufficient, so the loan was always going to have to be paid back, that's why we cashed in on players.

 

I highly doubt it would stop players coming initially, but it may discourage them from signing the all important 2nd contract which enables us to get huge fees for the player. I still think we should've sold him and re-invested, but only if a team was willing to bid £60m+ for him, which it doesn't appear that any were so the opportunity never came about.

 

I think we're all going through a period of re-adjustment following the Sky tv bribe and the madness PSG (and to a certain extent China) have introduced to the transfer market.

One myth which should be dismissed is we will struggle to attract players because of the stand with VVD.
During the turmoil and media driven chaos we seem to have signed 3 players and extended contracts with others, they're not running away screaming.

 

Definitely NOT! Very enjoyable though.

 

Yes but the ones we have extended recently (off the top of my head Forster and Yoshida) are players that are good enough for where we are right now, but not going to be of any interest to the teams who our players will try and force a move to. I am saying (I may be completely wrong) that this VVD saga will put off the more talented players signing long term with us, after they have joined. We could have set a different precedent this summer by selling VVD, where we say to that type of player "sign another deal with us, we will still let you go, except it will be for a huge fee for the club that gave you the opportunity to display your ability in the PL".

I may be placing too much faith/emphasis on our ability to recruit players who will eventually be wanted by the top teams however.

 

I think you're being a little naive with this statement. In the case of the VVD saga only two factual things happened.
Liverpool apologised for the tapping up and said they would not make a bid and no other bids were made for the player, that's it.
Your board said he wouldn't be sold, but as you never received any bids, the noises coming out of Southampton were never really put to the test. If he gets himself back into the team and has a good, injury free season, then it could all start again next season.

 

Surely if we had wanted to sell we would've asked to see what the other clubs wanted to offer. We made it abundantly clear that we didn't want to sell to Liverpool by reporting their tapping up.

 

I think we got no bids because it was made abundantly clear that we weren't interested in selling. No bids doesn't mean that other teams didn't get on the phone and make a polite enquiry, but nothing was turned into a firm offer. That's actually the usual method of trying to buy a player...ask the current employer if an offer would be welcome....perhaps with a vague idea of what could be on offer. That may have been what confused Liverpool.