Transfer Rumours Saints January Transfer Window Rumour Thread

Would like to keep both

 

Virgil would make a lush captain, at least for the next 6 months he's here. Then he will be feeding the press stories and the fans will turn on him.

 

There are a fair few times this season I wish he was on the bench TLL. Some of the missed chances this season I could see (okay through 'rose tinted glasses') him burying into the back of the net...

 

I know mate... I was just making the point that plenty would have been happy to see him retire here on (relatively) big wages whilst not playing all that much.

But some are dead against us offering Jose an extension due to business/financial reasons - which I do get, like I've said I see both sides.

Just seems a tad hypocritical to me... and don't think people can ever whinge about lack of loyalty again if that's what they feel. That's all.

Enough of that anyway... let's hope for a last minute winner from Jose tonight

 

He has a contract until 2018. If by 2018 he is still playing decent, then I am all for giving him a one year extension. I don't think giving him one now has any real value, especially on the wages he will be on.

Imagine giving him a extension and his age starts effecting him next year. That would mean we have a player who is 33+ on 100k a week for two years..

I would say the same about any player coming to the end of their career.

 

Don't Saints ever want to keep talismanic players happy and maintain good relationships so they can ease seamlessly (or via a stint at another, non-PL club) and with goodwill into coaching and potential future management roles? That's got to be worth a year of anyone's money. Put him on coaching courses in those final years, where he doesn't play as much.

 

I take your point but, with a relatively limited budget, I'm not sure the club can afford to have their highest-paid player sitting on the bench or in a classroom doing a coaching course.

 

Hasn't that been pretty much what the club have done with Kelvin Davis? I know he won't have been on Fonte style wages, but he appears to have been fairly well looked after by the club. So you'd imagine something similar may have been on offer to Jose if he wanted it.

 

Alternatively, don't talismanic players ever want to keep the Saints and the fans happy, rather than rock the boat and bleat to the press at what they consider to be "a slight", or when they are hopeful (allegedly in Fonte's case) of a move to another club?

 

Last post on this untill later/tomorrow (result pending )

People moaned because he didn't say anything in the Summer... and people are moaning now he's put his point of view across in the media.

Which way is in the wrong? It can't be both surely?

 

It is both, as both situations are different.

There was loads of news about Utd bidding for him and him wanting to go, but he stayed quiet. He could have just said to the fans, I am staying but he didn't.

Now he is putting stuff in the press making out the club are treating him badly. When we aren't at all

What is worrying is it's exactly how our other players acted when wanted to leave.

 

Ultimately, Saints problems of holding onto players are caused by Financial Fair Play. We are simply not allowed to offer more money than the previous year's budget allows, plus a percentage. Yes, it stops irresponsible football clubs from sending themselves into financial ruin, but it's holding back Saints because we have been progressing so fast that players suddenly become little marvels to glamour clubs with bigger budgets. This is why every year or so we tend to offer wage increases to each player, simply because the previous year we were operating on a bigger budget. Not enough for some, and Jose has reached his value peak, as far as Saints are concerned.

Virgil looks like Jose's natural successor in the captain's department [sorry James]. With his new extended contract, which will be uprated at every opportunity, I've no doubt, he's going to be there or thereabouts the costliest defender on the planet, so I don't see him leaving in a great hurry, unless another club is mad enough - and there are other great defenders around, so clubs don't have to make an automatic beeline for VVD.

 

This isn't how FFP works. We aren't allowed to offer more than the previous budget plus a percentage: there are additional provisions involving a Club's Own Revenues that can boost it far more than the 7m per year that the wage budget grows naturally. I have explained this many times.

We don't spend more because we don't want to spend more. That is the sum and total of the story.

 

Yes I know. That's why I mentioned PERCENTAGE.

 

None of the mechanics for inflating one's wage bill involve a percentage.

 

The detail was something I'm not particularly interested in, nor was I in my first post. It's enough to know that FFP holds the club back.

 

FFP holding the club back is purely theoretical, though, because we're miles away from it.

The lack of caring about the details is why I keep posting about this stuff. FFP has been in place for four years now. It takes about 15 minutes, if that, to get a good grasp on what contributes to allowable increases beyond the baked-in jumps. Yet people would much prefer to make sweeping pronouncements on how we'd totally love to spend a fortune, but the rules prevent it. They aren't. We prevent it.

 

Not according to Les Reed, which I keep reminding people about, and people still don't look up his comments.

 

I'd suggest doing the fairly basic addition that'd indicate, using our books, roughly what our FFP threshold would have been in recent years. Les has a bit of a vested interest here; he isn't exactly going to say "well, we aren't spending more because the owner's angling for a sale", is he?

 

Dear Santa,
can we please have a proper striker who can actually score goals, and isn't broken

I've been good(ish)

Fanks