Right, I've been musing over what the **** is going on at Saints and what can/can't be done - and this is what I've come up with. It's a long read but I'll try to segment it nicely so it's not unreadable, but I feel like I need to get this down in one long post using the following segments... - Why Is This Happening? - The Facts - Moving On - Club Image - The Premier League - The Positives - Rant Over Why Is This Happening? - Clubs are recognising a certain weakness or lack of the togetherness and steely nature that characterised the club and the dressing room under the leadership of Nicola Cortese, so are chancing their arm with their bids for our players. - Players, having finished 8th after having our best ever season, are seeing that life without Nicola is not so rosy. No doubt he absolutely treated them great, led them well and gave them by and large what they wanted. He clearly had created a working environment that was pleasant for them and they liked it the way it was. - Nicola was obviously central in the whole philosophy of the club and in the mindset's of those associated with it. Be it Mauricio, Dejan, Adam or Rickie. Even Luke and Calum. The club was built around Nicola. When he had the initial issues with Katharina in the summer of 2013, he got everyone to get behind him and nail their colours to the mast and that mast was that 'we are behind Nicola and our futures are questionable without him'. - Ultimately he tried to take on the owner, over whatever the reason was. I'm not going to go into whether it was because she wanted a democratised board, player sales or a club sale etc. He tried to take on the owner, forgetting that he was an employee for her. She won and arguably rightly so. - I don't know if the board has 'negative' intentions with regard to selling/stripping the club. We can't really know, until the club is listed for sale - in all honesty. But there are clearly communication issues at the club and this has added to the instability of Cortese and Pochettino leaving. I'd say the 'scaling back' of Krueger is an admission of this. - If any behaviour of the board has not been intentionally 'negative' or 'malicious' with regard to the strength of our playing squad, then it has at very least been extremely naïve and poorly handled and the relevant folks need to stand up and accept that for what it is. The Facts - The club was built around Nicola. His personality, his vision and everything he had built in terms of the football side of Southampton since 2009. - Players do not dream of playing for Southampton or spending their whole career here, at least not the top, top bracket players who can go all the way. (Le Tissier perhaps a rare exception) - We simply do not have that lure, prestige or cup-winning history that does that, nor do we have a huge fan base. - Bids come in for players like Luke, who have lost their favourite manager and favourite chairman after feeling like they've gone as far as they can with Saints. They're getting international recognition now and being told just how wonderful they are. - These players then decide that they need to take the next step, and life has now peaked at Saints - it won't get any better as far as they're concerned, but they can go to Arsenal, Chelsea, Liverpool et al and not only compete in the UCL, have enhanced international status and progress their career, but also earn a better wage and that leads to potential greater image rights also. - Players tell Saints they want to leave the club. What can we do? We can offer them a ****load more money like LFC did with Suárez, but it's a quick-fix, as we've seen. Contracts are also really not worth all that much in reality, as we have also seen. - It is now in the best interests of the club to sell the players. They don't want to be here, which can lead to a poisonous atmosphere or attitude inside the club, that is not conducive to producing great displays and achieving a good season. - I accept the argument of: 'They're pro's, they've signed a deal - they wouldn't jeopardise their own careers' / But generally speaking, players and agents have so much power in the current market - We get offered big money and so we accept, however willingly or reluctantly. Moving On - We need to move at a faster rate to secure our targets. The board's greatest failing, IMO, has not lay with the fact that they have sold Luke for £30m, Adam for £25m or Dejan for £20m. It's the fact that we still don't have all of these positions covered with the required strength and depth. I accept that it is not always possible to have a replacement available beforehand, but how long has it been since Luke left? Koeman said in the Bournemouth post-match interview that we will sign a new left-back. - We now have just three weeks to the start of the season. We're going to need 6 players (+/- 2) dependent on how you're feeling about the current squad. - We're cutting it incredibly tight and we need all of these guys in, committed and gelling - whilst also getting rid of any bad eggs or snakes in the camp that are still pursuing an exit, because quite frankly that's of very little use to us. - We're going to struggle to have everything just how we'd like it. Hell, Koeman isn't going to have it how he likes it. But from what we've seen, he is accepting of that and is still planning to make his signings and develop his own culture. Good. We need that kind of attitude. Club Image - Ultimately this does display the club as a 'selling club'. As many have pointed out, with the exception of the odd two or three, everyone is a selling club. - Yes, it does mean future signings will view us as a chance to show off their talents and the move on, as highlighted by Dušan (I believe he made comments to this effect) - that's fine, as I said, these guys will not be dreaming of playing for Southampton, but while they're here it's in the interests of both parties that they succeed and give their all. - Then at some stage, if they impress, we will find ourselves being approached again by one of the 'big boys' with more money than sense, who wants to sign our player, whether it is to play regularly, sit on the bench or just be stockpiled in their squad, which seems to be popular with Chelsea. (They had 20 or so out on loan?!) - We then have to recommence the cycle again, identifying and producing the new talent, nurturing and developing it and then trying to rinse the top clubs for a fee when it comes to selling again. It's not particularly desirable, but it's pretty much a way of life and is going to be how Saints work. It's largely the way for the Eredivisie, which makes me think that this partly why Koeman is here. He is experienced in the culture of: Build a team, achieve something, have it picked apart, start again. The Premier League - It's all a bit ****, really. But it's more beneficial for a club of our size and with our infrastructure to be in it, than not in it. - There was that discussion last season amongst the fan base of 'the glass ceiling' and ultimately that has shown itself to be entirely accurate. If not in terms of fan perceptions of how far the club can go, certainly in the mind of the players and a certain manager who has now traded us in for, hey presto, a bigger club. - The elite have increased funds due to billionaire owners, larger stadium, higher league rankings and European competition that generates them more TV money. - They can then use these funds to eliminate any potential competition, to enhance their own squads using 'the best of the rest' in the league and cement their position. - It keeps the other clubs down, whilst ensuring they can continue to hold their position and continue to rake in the money so that they can continually repeat the process for their own development and to protect their own position. - You then see clubs like Chelsea and City stockpiling players that look pretty good in lower sides, just so that they've got this player and nobody has. Or just to meet a quota. See City with Sinclair, Rodwell etc. And Chelsea with their ridiculous amount of loanees, with a large amount out on loan at Vitesse Arnhem. The Positives - what can we take heart from? - Our academy hasn't let us down yet. We're all incredibly proud of it and although we all know deep down it can't churn out 4 or 5 guys every season, we know it will provide us fairly often with a star or two. We've obviously got a knack for identifying young talent and developing it to a high standard. - These players are obtainable, still. Lets look at who we've got/had... Boruc - £0 Clyne - £2.5m Fonte - £1m Lovren - £8m Shaw - £0 Wanyama - £12m Cork - £1m Schneiderlin - £1m Lallana - £0 Lambert - £0 Rodriguez - £6m - Now, not a single one of those players would sell for less than they were purchased. Which tells us two things: 1. We know how to spot a good player. 2. They're out there, we just need to make the right deal. - Now obviously you can sign a Mayuka (WTF was NC thinking there?!) or a Forren, De Ridder or Forte. - But my point is, it's not impossible to build a team without breaking the bank on 'names' at the top level. I'm not saying I want Saints to scrimp and save and go for the cheap and cheerful approach, but that you can find good talent that you can turn into 'top' talent without breaking the bank. - Also, we're not seeing (at least it doesn't seem to be so), the likes of Boruc, Clyne, Fonte, Yoshida, S. Davis instructing their agents to get them moves. They're also not moving to similar or lesser clubs, say Leicester, Villa, Sunderland, Stoke, Fulham or Cardiff. - Fonte is linked to Cardiff and I can honestly say, yes I will majorly start crapping myself if these sort of players start leaving us for clubs that aren't 'bigger' and 'better' than us. Rant Over Now that's all off my chest there's only really one thing left to say... - I don't know whether KL intends to asset strip. To sell. To develop the club under the aforementioned Eredivisie approach. Ultimately, none of us know Katharina's mind. - This is by no means 'the end'. Sure it's a pretty dire situation to be in three weeks prior to the season, but we've had worse than star players wanting to leave for big sums. I know it's no consolation to anyone right now, though. It may be the end of the 'Cortese era', but we can come back from this. For now... lets just give all the support we can to Ronald Koeman and whoever turns out for Saints this season, because we're all in the same boat and we all ultimately want Saints to have a good season. Sorry for going on, but I needed to get this off my chest. DTLW
Just to highlight one part of it: I don't think that the 'Eredivisie approach' is an any way viable in the Premier League. You can be a perpetual selling team in the Eredivisie because, for the majority of the teams, relegation is not a threat, and it's a financial necessity. Fail to reinvent yourself one year there, you finish in the lower half of the table. Fail to reinvent yourself one year in the PL, you're in the Championship. Edit: to be clear, I know that you're suggesting that as a possible strategy they're following, rather than recommending it yourself. I'm responding to the idea, rather than taking a swipe at what you've written.
I knew that'd be one of the first responses. No and I understand where you're coming from Schad and I quite agree. But rightly or wrongly, I feel this was for sure a major attraction with Koeman, given that he's perhaps less of a wild punt on a rebuilding job than someone who hasn't been through that scenario before. Admittedly he doesn't have PL experience, so in that sense it's a gamble anyway, but I'm just thinking that this is how our board have probably seen it. If that makes sense.
I don't disagree that it might've been part of the appeal with Koeman. But I also think that, if that's the desire, relegation is not a matter of if but when. In the PL, if you're selling anyone who produces you need to hit on virtually every move just to survive year-to-year, and it simply isn't realistic.
I thought i should post that before actually reading, and after actually reading I do agree with what you say
- Ultimately he tried to take on the owner, over whatever the reason was. I'm not going to go into whether it was because she wanted a democratised board, player sales or a club sale etc. He tried to take on the owner, forgetting that he was an employee for her. She won and arguably rightly so. I think it as simple as he wanted to spend more of her money than she was willing to spend. He realised he couldn't get the the club to the level he wanted on what she was willing to spend so he jumped ship. Once NC left everyone else realised if they wanted CL football or CL money they needed to move on. There's no big conspiracy, players like Morgan who could have left last summer stayed because they had brought into NC's dream so rather than two or three players moving on each year which is what happens at most clubs, we're going to end up with two or three years of moves happening in one window. Once CL was off the table all bets was off.
That's alright pal, no one's fault but our own board. Dont think schneiderlin will go for less than 20m though or youll be sorely mistaken Has Kruger done a Venky's and just not realised that relegation exists in this country?
What Reed and Krueger said less than a month ago now just looks stupid. Yes we brought a top manager in but why so many exits? Lets hope Ron has a masterplan.
Well I was massively more annoyed than a lot of you the other week when I had my very own meltdown. All I'm feeling about these latest developments is... Nothing. It amazes me that the club can produce the heart and home season ticket booklet, showing it knows exactly how much it means to the fans, and then proceed to mug us all off completely. Really well done southampton fc.
I'm pretty sure I know where Liebherr, Krueger and the rest are right now. please log in to view this image
We've regained our status as a defenceless selling club this summer. I'll attempt to remain calm for the next few weeks and see who we bring in, but I still feel there's something incredibly wrong with the powers that be at the club. It'd also be nice to know who exactly is sanctioning theses sales and who is talking to the players about interest from other clubs.
I agree with it all. You missed out one other thing Cortese did...he got us to believe too. I am the most pessimistic supporter (after 37 years of watching Saints!), and even I started to believe. I would tell my Man U supporting mates that no way would Luke want to go there, and to my Liverpudlian (now ex) mates that Lallana loves the club too much to go anywhere. I even believed that it was not a case of how we would get into the Champion's League, but when. The journey that Cortese, Pardew, Adkins and SRL took us on was amazing and anything seemed possible. I woke up this summer.
I'm amused by the suggestion and concept that Ralph has a master plan!!!! Good post DTLW, and very much on the money, if you'll excuse the pun - the trend needs to be arrested and reversed now before the 'outs' snowball any more. You have to wonder what Vic/Nat/Jay are beginning to think....
I've discovered that firstly your not allowed an opinion on here unless you solely agree with others or people get arsey, but IMO we are looking a complete joke at the mo, yes I know it's business and good money for him,him,or him,but surely it's gotta stop at some point otherwise we won't be that competitive this season. Why does it take quicker to sell players than buying anyone. Come on Les give us one of your positive interviews again and tell us no one will leave until we agree a good price. I take it that all the ITK's never saw this coming coz no one said chambers was going to go this summer. But other than that I'm really positive about where Saints are heading.
