In a perfect world yes that would be great. But simply not realistic. We're selling Tino because Newcastle are offering way more than his market value. We'd be nuts to turn down 40mill for someone who has played about 20 minutes of football in the last 16 months. Besides, due to FFP rules in the Championship, sales had to happen so we were always going to lose one or two of our better players. I'll put it this way: I'd much rather lose Tino than Charly.
Not really Tom, it’s just question of what decent profit actually is. Those players will both go when the numbers are right.
Brighton are the current flavour of the month and they are where we were when we had VVD, Mane etc They have lost players for big money and re-invested well (as we did for a time) and now are turning down huge bids for a player (Caicedo) exactly as we did with VVD. Time will tell if they can continue their impressive upward trend or if the wheels eventually come off like it did for us. They might win something with the good team they have which will be something we didn’t achieve. Winning something doesn’t stop you turning **** however. How long ago did Leicester win the ****ing league and make the CL quarter finals? And now they are relegated and their better players all left soon after those feats. This is football, this is how it works. Unless you are one of the top teams the others all have peaks and troughs, but ultimately “mediocre” in the PL is successful for these teams. With this being the reality of it in my view then I’m quite happy for some players who look like going to the very top passing through Saints for a couple of years to give some excitement, before moving on to a top side.
Have we all forgotten that we support Southampton? I'd love for the club to develop and hold onto high class talent, but that just isn't how the footballing world works.
The aim is essentially to trade like Dortmund do. Bellingham and Halaand were wanted by most clubs in world football even before they signed for Dortmund... but they went there because they knew they would play, develop and then get the move to Madrid/City. Dortmund got £160m for them, so they can now compete in the champions league without their owners ploughing money in every season. Why does no one criticise their selling? Because they have reinvested wisely. We haven't.
Most clubs will sell if the numbers are right. Kane will leave spurs if the numbers are right or they may get nothing the season after. Fans would then be up in arms about that. City will have to sell Haaland when he wants to leave to go to Spain, and the numbers would have to be right. And Southampton have to do the same but on a much different scale. Anyway must sleep as off to Sheffield tomorrow to cheer the team that will be wearing our shirt, hopefully revitalised and busting their gut to get 3 points.
And you think if anyone offered 20 million plus for Charly he'd still be here? Anyone and everyone is for sale under SR. I support Southampton FC, I want my team to do well. I don't give a **** if we're a nursery for top talent if we're going to sell them every year. What's the point?
We don’t 100% know what’s going on behind the scenes. Reading between the lines it sounds like Wilcox has spoken to a number of players who would be in demand and said “here’s the price we will accept for you, anything less and we won’t accept” Maybe Tino was one of those players and £40m was the fee. Maybe he was edging for a move when Newcastle’s interest became more than just “yeah we think he’s good”. All the “I’m happy to stay for another year” media stuff is just footballers toeing the line publicly in my view, even more so if you think the Wilcox conversations happened. They obviously don’t want to piss off their current teams fanbase in like June if nobody matched our asking price. I said before that the proof will be in the last week of the window if Lavia/JWP/Alcaraz/anyone else who haven’t left yet if they start kicking off about the asking price
Well, no, that's simply not the case. If someone offered 20mill for Charly it would be instantly rejected because I'm fairly certain SR value him a lot more than that.
so it would be a higher number but the same point stands. I won’t be surprised if Charly and sulemana and tella and JWP all leave and it happens in the last week of the window. Small comfort that will be at the end of the season though because the ‘offer was above market rate’.
I expect all of those to leave aswell. But because they all won’t want to play in the Championship if they have better offers, same with all of our players, and virtually every footballer playing anywhere if a better offer presents itself
Currently I don’t think are squad is good enough to make the playoffs, just look at the gutless second half of last season. All this talk of players leaving, who have we brought in? A young, unproven but hopefully talented kid. Doesn’t sound like the higher ups have learned from last season.
Saints don`t come from a big city, hence we`ll never be a perennial `big/top` team. In any league in any country, the `big/top` teams come from the big cities - there are the occasional blips - like Ipswich, or Forest, or Aberdeen. I`m as excited for this season as much as I have been for years. I`m hoping for a team that plays good football, with everyone committed to the cause. Any team that plays Saints will know they have been in a game, and will be either very good, or very lucky to win. I want the `big/top` teams to covet our players - that means we`re getting it right. Tino and Lavia (likely) move with my best wishes - we will evolve if our recruitment is as good as it has been with those two.
As Tom has said, Manning is a very good addition, but I do agree that we need to strengthen. Think we need to wait for the window to close before we can judge though.
If you get relegated, it's pretty much par for the course that the vultures are going to descend. Again, I don't mind that part of our model at all: we want more Tinos and Romeos to see us as a pathway to stardom, and if that means actual-Tino and actual-Romeo leave for massive profits in short order, that's totally fine. "We have players who are too talented for us" is a good problem to have. Do we need to add? Absolutely. But we also need to know how much money we have for those additions, because financial controls exist in this league, so to some extent sales need to come first. And the fact that we can add at all speaks to the value of the Tinos and Romeos, without whom this would be a fire sale with scant few options to add at all.
