Transfer Deadline Day Discussion

The only way to keep good players is to get into and maintain a place in a good league. There is literally nothing else we can do.

 

I don't even think it's as simple as that though; We still lost Morgan after finishing 7th. Mane and Wanyama after finishing 6th. I could go on and on

 

Right. Liverpool lost Trent to Real. It will literally never stop happening. But, it will happen less frequently, the more success the club achieves.

 

Also relevant that at that time the club were using that as a selling point to players like Wanyama and Mane. At least part of our pitch to those players was effectively "Come to Saints, prove yourself in the Premier League and earn your big move."

 

Even Liverpool have had to let players go, Torres, Sterling, Coutinho, Suárez…etc in the past …..every player has a price.

 

And we’re talking about clubs faaaaar bigger than us, who pay far bigger wages. If you don’t want this to happen, you need to be supporting Real or PSG. Not Saints.

 

Yeah but what’s the point

 

True. But then many modern "fans" (plastics*) say what's point in them following their local club even if there decent champ or rank and file PL cklub.

*We're about 3 generations into folk "supporting" the (mega) club they asked for a shirt or duvet cover when they were 7 years old. They seem to know loyalty is involved, so keep "supporting" the club they liked the colour of all those years ago. As a lot of so called support increasingly happens online - the shame of being a plastic has drifted. Plus there are just so many that a critical mass has been reached; big six followers surely outnumber Saints supporters in Southampton.

 

That’s because those were great players. We can keep good ones if we are good but we have to achieve the impossible to keep great players.

 

Yep. Didn't Parsons actually say this in an interview or fan forum or something? I have a vague recollection of that. I find it really frustrating. It's like filling a glass of water slightly slower than it's leaking out the bottom. If we can reverse that, that is the key. Yes, some players will leave inevitably but not every good one.

Someone said earlier in the thread that the current crop of players have no real affinity to the club (I would say Jack is possibly the only one) and I can't help feeling that because of the way we have 'sold' the club philosophy, new signings are more often than not viewing us as a stepping stone; much more even than they have done historically.

 

He definitely had a period under Juric around December and January where he was actually looking like a threat. It certainly wasn’t long but it was there a bit.

 

Would you swap him back for the £20m we got for him though?

 

Completely agree and I think this is where we are as a club and our biggest problem. It’s hard for us to see it because we’re on the inside looking out but there is no player, from the outside looking in, that would see us as anything other than a stepping stone, which is probably normal for a lot of teams but with us it feels like it’s a promise. We have had the buy low, sell high philosophy going back to the Poch years and 10 years later it has left us with no long term leaders in the team, no stalwarts, no leadership on the pitch and everyone looking for the door at the earliest opportunity.

And it’s because as soon as we get anyone that fits the bill it’s usually seen as the best time to sell and we always always always do. I think I said in an earlier thread but we are so far out from a JWP in the team. Let alone a Lambert, Le Tiss, Benali, Fonte, Dodd etc or however many long serving players we’ve had. Our longest serving players now are ones like Stephens and, until recently Bednerak, who seem to just be because we can never shift them off when we need to.

 

But those times you're talking about (Le Tiss, Benali, Dodd at least) are completely different to what we're dealing with now. JWP and Fonte jumped ship as soon as a big club came calling (and that was just West Ham). Just like Joao Pedro did, just like Wissa is trying to do, just like Isak is trying to do, just like VVD did, just like Lambert did as soon as Liverpool came knocking. As has been said, that's football now, regardless of the club. It's not just us!

 

I don't disagree with that but if we are actively selling ourselves on the "join us now, play well and you'll get your move to a big club" philosophy, it seems we will never build anything, let alone any loyalty. Of course, I don't know that we are actually doing that, but with the amount of player departures over recent seasons, it does seem like we might be. Whatever the club 'philosophy' is, it does seem a bit 'rinse and repeat' every single year.

 

I had a nice reply built around the change in the values of loyalty across the generations due to the hyper focus of "instant success or bust" that has been pumped into the internet generations but I'll keep that for nice Friday night politics thread opener...

Southampton will always be at risk of other clubs poaching their great and very good players and that is the norm for a club of our size and stature - we aren't a PSG.

What's hit hard the past few years is the lack of investment in the team from previous ownerships allowing us to drift back compared to our peer teams, some odd managerial choices creating a lack of consistency and continuity and the relegations that came from those meaning the bar at when all this poaching happens has shifted down not up.

It's harder for us to keep the really good ones as we aren't in the PL or Europe, it's harder for us to coax the good ones from championship teams as we've just come out of a relegation as one of the worst ever, we have a new manager and we had a lot of turmoil in the board last season too.

Despite the perception that we've had a crap start (last champ season we had 1W,1L, 1D after 3 games too IIRC) there are flashes from the team that we won't be spending the season pissing around in our penalty box all day so if we can add a couple of decent wingers, an AM that can thread a quick ball to Downs (who I'm sure will score loads if someone actually passed to him at the right moment) and we exchange a few of the lower end of the squad with players who are even just a little bit better we'll be better off.

 

Yeah, I have zero concern right now. If we haven't signed anyone by next week, that could be subject to change.

 

What’s the alternative though? Ultimately we signed players like VVD, Mane, Wanyama etc on the back of those promises. Would we have got them if we had been firm with our “not selling” stance?

Around that same time I remember West Brom telling everyone to **** off when Berahino was a hot commodity and there were pundits saying it will hinder them in the long run because players will see how hard it is to get a move away if they do well and not want to sign for them because of it. Even back then (and likely more so now) there are no “hidden gem” players, every PL side will know about virtually every player around so you need something to attract a player to you over the others.

Ultimately nobodies dream is to play for Saints if they have the truly big clubs interested in them. We just have to try and become a solid mid table PL side again so the list of clubs who players will want to leave to is shorter than it is now.

 

It was always my dream.

 

Would’ve wanted out after a season of being harassed on Not606