It is time for a major cultural change.

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Spot on!
The next one has to be a regular in Eurpean football.

 

I will be the first person to admit it is frustrating as hell watching our team get picked apart - seemingly at will at times. And yes, losing Koeman to Everton isn't the best club he could have chosen. But, until the day comes we lose our manager to Norwich (no offence Norwich fans, just the first club that came to mind) then I'm sure we will be fine. I remember when Cardiff had a cheeky bid for Fonte wasn't it amongst the massive meltdown of two summers ago. BUT I will agree that the media play a massive part in all of this. Unfortunately, papers love a soap opera and we've just happened to be the unfortunate ones to give it to them. We are after all the club that went down to league 1, survived admin, promoted up to Prem, finished 14th, 8th, 7th and then 6th. I'd say of all the clubs in all of the tiers we stick out like a saw thumb - not that I'm biased of course.

 

I don't think we are any different from other Clubs, except that we seem to produce more of what people want than some of the others, and the parasites won't take no for answer, and to keep the peace we succumb to their avarice, and make a few bob on the side, and start all over again.

 

We keep blaming 'the media' for stoking the fires, but they have been right more than they have been wrong concerning departures. As a result, if you're throwing things at the wall, it's perfectly natural to conjure "Saints raided for X" headlines, given that we've now witnessed successful raids for two managers and ~8 players (depending on one's classification of Alderweireld) in two years, with more likely to come. If we stop losing so many players, we will stop seeing as many headlines about the possibility that we will lose players.

 

On these web sites we get posters trolling out reams of rubbish, then suddenly one guess proves to be correct, and what do we get "I told you so", conveniently forgetting the 99% that were wrong,

 

Well this summer (apart from Koeman who was a shock) we can all probably name two players who we all expect to leave...one definitely. Ultimately that isn't too bad in my books. Even if Mane get's snapped up, we'll get a very healthy figure for him, you can be sure of that. If Vardy goes to Arsenal, which is picking up a lot of speed now, I have a sneaking feeling a cheeky bid might come in for Long. Ultimately I have no idea like the rest of us, ha.

 

Sure. Most of the media reports of where and when are rubbish, too. But if you're writing rubbish, our past two summers have rendered "________ to force transfer away from Saints" one of the most believable types of rubbish. That's the cause-and-effect; media transfer rubbish isn't causing players to leave. Players leaving has caused media transfer rubbish.

 

Athletic Bilbao also have their riches taken from them. I recent years they have sold Javi Martinez, Herera, Llorente and look as if Laporte will be on his way to Manchester City. Yet they still had a good season. What is required is that the club have players in line that are as good as those or better than those that move. I hope Saints are proactive in this department and have perhaps lined up purchasing a number of players from Chelsea's very successful youth teams at reasonable prices to continue to be competitive.