I don't have anger towards Liverpool fans, never have, never will. I have anger at the power of players who so easily have their heads turned by other clubs. You say you can stop players leaving? Of course you can, (Suarez?) but once they see the short cut to glory and riches that clubs like Liverpool entice these under contract players with, it's nigh on impossible to stop them. Why spend upwards of 50k a week on disruptive influences? Lovren was under contract so how the **** can his head have been in Liverpool? Because he was tapped up or given encouragement, by sources from Liverpool via his agent. How else could he have even thought he was going anywhere near Anfield otherwise? The answer of course is to make it so a player CANNOT move during a contracts' period, thi'll make them think before signing anything. At the moment a contract is worth squat.
If you make contracts more firm- then that makes movement not so easy and it makes it harder for smaller teams to make inroads into replacing larger teams. The bigger teams will stay big under that scenario too! Or you get more teams following the Chelsea model of buying everyone and loaning most of them back out. Suarez had his best season last season after being told he couldn't move. If he hadn't been an idiot and bitten someone again, we probably would have been more firm in not letting him leave this summer. It's horrible losing a large percent of your first team; however, to soften the blow your club did very well in getting a good fee for the players they have sold- above their true value... you could in theory replace them with better players but your management hasn't reinvested most of the money earned. Why haven't new players of equal or better ability been bought?
I can't argue with that. Don't know if you saw but I question the signing of Lovren was he forced Saints hand. I never like to see us sign players that will go to such lengths, whats to say they won't do the same to us? Yes, we can refuse to sell them but how many accept it and get on with the job like Suarez did? Not many. I do think you guys have been harsh on Lallana though. Sure, he could of handled it better but he gave you guys a lot of years service, why not just wish him well in his new quest that he clearly felt he couldn't turn down? With the way things have gone since his departure, it looks like he made the decision to move at the right time too. I just hope you guys pull something out of the bag because I like Saints and don't want to see you go down. PS...I know this as been mentioned before and it happened under a different owner, but southampton didn't exactly show loyalty to Adkins either #touchysubject This would massively hinder lower ranked clubs as it would effectively rule out transfer fees, a way of survival for some teams and, as a Saints fan, you should know all to well too.
I'd like to see Saints bring in some good quality to replace what has been sold and be challenging for Europe again. They were one of my favourite teams to watch last season! It was really a case of the floodgates opening for Soton. Once a couple of top players left- everyone wanted out. If they had managed to stay firm on the first few then players like Lovren wouldn't have been itching so much to leave.
The only reason a player (guided by his agent, of course) will sign, say- a five-year contract, is because he knows he can be bought out of it. If you make it so they can't move during its term, then they simply won't agree to them in the first place. So, if they want to move they'll just run down a shorter contract and leave at the end, and the club will get sod all for them. After being made to stay last year, Suarez signed a new, long term contract which meant that we could get a huge amount for him. Although contracts don't function in the way they should- i.e. tie a player to a club for the term- they do benefit the club by them being able to demand a large release fee. I've no idea whether Lovren was tapped up or not (though it wouldn't surprise me),but hadn't LFC already made an offer that Saints had turned down before he came out with his "head" statement? Our interest was already out in the open, though I agree that his statement was insensitive and he should have kept schtum about the whole thing until it was sorted. Saints have been the victim of their own moderate success, unfortunately. Successful enough for your players to attract attention from the "bigger" clubs, yet not quite successful enough to make them want to stay. Anyway, I like Saints ( they're named after me ) and I hope you get over this and continue to do well this season. As long as you start after the first game, of course.
Apart from being illegal then sure.... In terms of the comment about being tapped up or coming from agent etc, maybe it was when Liverpool made an initial bid for him which alerted him to the fact we were interested and from that point his "head was in Liverpool". I'm not condoning what he did, especially the threat of striking either but there are other ways players become aware a club is interested in them other than those which are against the rules.
Paddy Power has us at 10/11 to finish outside the top 4... EDIT: On Lovren etc it's all a little pointless to speculate on how/when he was contacted or made aware that we wanted him. It was patently obvious he didn't want to go to the Saints last summer and no surprise that he forced a move here as soon as he thought he could realistically succeed. Seems to have loved us from afar for a while (or he really wants to win our affection). Not nice and I didn't like him talking publicly about wanting to come here but it's real life.
see this is the problem the fact is your lot (according to him) made a gentleman's agreement. now more fool him in believing such crap IMO but he's not the first from that area of the globe (modric) to have such a thing. Our bids were actual bids and he went nuts.. you can accuse us of tapping up all you want basically thats pointless. We made a bid and you said no so he said hang on F you i told you x or y and would never have signed... so if your lot promised him something but didn't put it in his contract with a huge release clause you are just as guilty as he... we bid 16mil... maybe we even SHOCK leaked we bid it... get real that happens. you lot rejected it and he went for it and forced his move. You got an extra amount of cash on top for rejecting so you accepted thinking you'd done good business. the real answer is to be realistic and not talk about players not moving to to insert proper clauses that everyone get value on. IF you'd inserted a 20mil buy out day one then had it been met you knew where you stood. nobody likes losing a player but its not like your poor club didn't maximise every penny out of said deal.
I'd say nah... we're another stepping stone to wherever for the guy. If we don't stay in CL he'll force a move to where ever... bet it in his mind bayern or even juve or real... the reality is these guys think they are absolute stars and must maximize their return. be that medals for some or money for others. Southamptons fans cannot deny the guy was hugely important to them and a beast at the back for them. LFC will IMO sell him on for more than 20mil, not much more but if we see the next big club ... ie real, barca, bayern step in with their tv money and tax free wages. Amazingly nobody in the prem has lost a player to bayern. its the two spanish clubs that cast off players to bayern (snigger) and pay mad fees and wages is a completely unsustainable way. a portugese bank had to be recapitalised again.... i really feel the spanish economy is finally going to catch up with a lot of orgainisations.
Part of me thinks that too but he's not a big enough name for that yet. If he has a good season and the club miss CL... maybe. Agree with the rest. Think they're trying to compensate for the PL's superiority and CL dominance from 05 to 12 ish. It's turned into a bit of a cold war arms race between Barca and Real... unfortunately Barca are sure to end up like Russia.
Who will win the Premier League this season? 7% Manchester City 28% Liverpool 25% Chelsea 8% Arsenal 1% Everton < 1% Tottenham 29% Manchester United 1% Other http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/premier-league-201415-who-bookies-3905678#ixzz39nwdnZ5R
How many people just voted for the team they support? No way Liverpool OR Manchester United will come close to the title this season- and they're the top two teams. Chelsea, City, even Arsenal more likely. #ivotedliverpool
Spurs had a nice little run for a few years- but their days of European football is over for another long stretch now.
Premier League 2014: Title Odds Team Odds Chelsea 15-8 Man City 9-4 Man Utd 9-2 Arsenal 6-1 Liverpool 10-1 Tottenham 66-1 Everton 125-1 Newcastle 1000-1 Southampton 1500-1 Stoke 2000-1 Swansea 2500-1 Sunderland 2500-1 West Ham 2500-1 Aston Villa 4000-1 West Brom 4000-1 Crystal Palace 4000-1 Hull 5000-1 Leicester 5000-1 QPR 5000-1 Burnley 7500-1 http://bleacherreport.com/articles/...2014-week-1-latest-epl-title-odds-and-outlook
so the bookies are making a shed load off utd betting is what this tells me. 9/2 is an absolute joke price for utd before they even add signings! Chelsea are looking long there, thats a 2/1 bet in effect... they should be near even right now. city at 9/4 look pretty fair.
There was something recently saying United were the best backed team to win the title, with twice as many bets placed on them compared to City, making it seem like they actually had a good chance then. Forgetting the fact that the odds on City/Chelsea are so poor that they're just taking a risk due to the longer odds on United.
