Hi! Been reading for a long while now and finally thought Iâd pluck up the courage to do the type tappy type thing and post some potential gibberishâ¦little scary. I've been thinking about the players we've brought in so far this summer (all two of em), and I canât help feel a bit excited about not only the potential for the new players to be better than the old ones (Might not make the grade, takes time to gel etc aside), but also the way it shows the progression we are making as a club, by where we are now doing our shopping. I have been a season ticket holder for just over 20 years now (blimey!) and itâs great to see us buying our players from the likes of Feyenoord and FC Twente. Both teams in and around the champions league, and not only that, weâre not just popping in to buy the old expired players or the young and unlikely to succeed. No. We are buying out and out starters from their first teams, and spending a lot of money for the privilege. The caliber of club we are raiding for our players has gradually been rising as we have over the last five years, and as we keep strengthening our player base I believe we can continue this trend, and in the years to come teams such as Liverpool may knock on our door and actually want to offer one of their players to our board, to which they will kindly respond âThanks, but weâre off for a week of shopping in Madrid and Barcelonaâ We still have a great base of players now, and if we can keep Lovren (I can forgiveâ¦apology would be nice though) and Schneiderlin, add youth, buy a couple more players of the quality we have already bought in, and maybe one or two above our current expectations (De Vrij, Classie and so on), and add to that Koemanâs potential as manager and his reputation (as a big name), and I am beginning to get very excited for our future! Yes I think we were on the verge of something great had we added 3/4 quality players this summer, but for me I genuinely believe we could be about to embark on something even better! Letâs see what the coming weeks and months bring, but as far as I can see the ambition never left with Cortese (thanks by the way) and Poch (meh, was fun while it lasted), but has grown and will continue to grow as the Saints do. COYS! Gibberish ends
Is that you, Ralph?..... Seriously though, I've not had this feeling of excitement and anticipation for a new season since Markus first took over the club. The first team will look a bit different, but the basic core will largely be the same. It is accepted that we had lots of possession without the killer instinct and we have brought in a creator and a finisher of chances to help to address this. I'll be forever grateful to Nicola, Rickie and Adam for their roles in taking us to the promised land of the Premier League, but now we must move on and not look back. The ambition is still there as is the infrastructure, Academy and fanbase, we can improve and be largely self sufficient in the process. PS Welcome to Not606 SSSS, you will find out that this is the fairest and most well balanced Saints forum on the web.
Good 1st post SSSS, welcome. As you say, its very easy to forget our status of 5 or 6 years ago, we need to pinch ourselves at times to return to reality. I think our new manager is just what we needed to steady the troubled waters, I just hope he will be given the time to do the job needed to move us forward. I'm not quite as optimistic as many on here, but with a few more quality signings, Morgan and Dejan to settle down and a touch of luck I think we in for a half decent season?
On a side note - I've just seen that with SportingBet, we are the most popular bet for relegation next season.
I don't know how I feel. I want to be convinced things are back on the up, and Koeman, Tadic and co seem to show that, but I don't want us to simply feed great players to the bigger clubs. I want to see a line being drawn on that issue. If Reed is great this year, will we just sell him? Ward-Prowse? Targett? Will there ever be any point getting excited by a youth proposition? This isn't doom and gloom. I have no doubt we'll be a decent mid table team for a long time, but this issue bugs me. I want another LeTiss, but everyone runs off for mega money before they've even got out of their training nappies.
Good first post and welcome to Not606, SSSS. Hang on, I thought I heard a gas leak..... No it's ok Good to have a lurker join. Enjoy the site
Welcome aboard SSSS, thanks for being positive! I think like yourself, most of us want to keep the best products of the academy in the club, but as we have seen this summer, sometimes it is worth selling young English players because of the silly money we can get for them. The trick is then to replace them with equal or better quality from abroad, and it remains to be seen whether we can do that for Shaw's position. Hopefully most of our good young graduates will stay at Saints for years though, as a squad who have grown up together would be a force to be reckoned with.
With Hannibal Suarez out of the way, that has to be worth a tenner! I get what you're saying about selling our Academy products spacedsaint, but Luke was an exceptional case and a bit of a freak physically. Most of the youth players will develop a lot slower and will not be playing international football at 18. Prowsey broke into the team before Luke and it has taken Adam seven years to get recognition.
I hope so. I really do want us to be self- sufficient, and love the dream of 50% of first teamers being academy products. If we can succeed at that it will be better than doing a City and winning the league. It will be genuinely earned success. But we are treated as not deserving to keep these guys by the press! Argh!
Great optimism and I feel pretty much the same, welcome aboard. I just put a bet on Top 6 @ 11/1 and Top 4 @ 66/1. Did the same last season and nearly got something back. I might put a bet on Saints winning @ Anfield. 8/1 @ betway.
Even more optimistic than me 4S, nice to see such positivity. I feel we've lost important players and may lose more but I always look forward to each new season and usually think we'll do well, although I am delusional and completely blinkered when it comes to Saints. I do believe however that Koeman will take us onwards and upwards this season, and having a manager who may have a plan B will be a refreshing change as our last three managers were all a bit single minded tactically. I'm optimistic about our new signings and really excited about more incoming - I think Koeman will be a draw for players who wouldn't normally come to Saints so bring on the bindippers and all the rest.
8/1 is a crazy price. No Suarez and Sturridge is injury prone. We won there last season no reason why we cant do so again.
I totally agree about keeping our young/ best players, but by selling the three that we have sold this summer I see our current situation as a great opportunity to move towards keeping the players we develop in the future. We sold three top players for big money (not so big for Lambert), now use that money to replace them with three equally good, or even better players, and then strengthen the squad as a whole with the addition of 3 or 4 more quality players. Therefore the younger players will now be forcing their way into a stronger first team/ squad as a whole. We then have a stronger core group of players in both first team and bench which the youngsters look up to and actually want to stay and play with/ learn from. I think having that strength in depth (but also quality) will help us keep them in future, and hopefully help us to be more successful as well. All will depend on a lot of factors, who we buy, how they settle/ gel etc. But I think (hope) we are on our way.
I think the closer we get to the top 4 the more likely this is to happen until we break in. Obviously the quality of the players we have will continue to increase if we want to finish further up the table, making them more enticing to the teams still above us who can offer a few things we can't; namely CL football and a bigger wage packet. In some ways it could get worse before it gets better.
