I'm going. Only because I'm a sadist who enjoys punishment (and in reality, its a few hours without the kids )
It's honestly funny that people still can't understand why some are just maybe a little tiny bit fed up of the current situation. And also seem to be under the impression that we're really close to turning it around? We will never build anything again because we will sell the cream that rises to the top. I would happily bet that if Scienza keeps playing the way he is that he will be sold next summer. Likewise if Ross Stewart bagged us 20/30 goals, he would have been sold too. Unfortunately our club culture has become selling our best assets. And you can't build anything when that happens and unfortunately it's very hard to get out of. Because the owners are wanting to buy low and sell high and no player that comes to us sees us as anything more than a stepping stone. I do not believe for a second that any of our owners or players actually care about getting Southampton Football Club to any sort of respectable position. We will not have another JWP for a very very very long time because the club is not built to work that way.
You keep going on about this like it’s unique to us. It’s quite odd. Our problem isn’t selling players, it’s recruitment of players to replace them. Bournemouth (and Brentford) sold all their good players last summer, because bigger clubs came in (which is what happens) but they recruited excellently to replace them. It’s the ‘in’ that’s the issue. Everyone of our size does the ‘out’ part.
Agreed, 100%. Every club in football (except maybe Real Madrid & Barcelona) are selling clubs. However, you have to also build at the same time. Dortmund and now Brighton/Bournemouth are currently showing that it still can be done. Unfortunately for this selling model to be successful, you need fantastic recruitment and also to prioritise the squad balance as a whole. Sure, you can sell a few, but you can’t sell everyone that can kick a ball. Ultimately we have had the balance completely wrong for too long. Selling too many and replacing them poorly will always lead to disaster.
No they don't. I really can't be arsed to list the amount of good players we've sold as I've done it in other threads but I'm very sure it's not as much as us. Because as I've said repeatedly, we don't sell our best players, we sell anyone good. As the poster above me put perfectly, you need to build while selling. What have we been building to the last few years exactly? Tyler Dibling and Fernandes should not have been in any position to have been sold. Are you seriously telling me it's acceptable to only keep your best player for one season? Because that's football? What is the point in the damn sport if that's how it works? The only possible, and still ****, argument is "they wanted to go", well why the **** do so many of our best players seemingly want to leave so badly? All the time? The clubs you've mentioned have kept a couple consistent players across the years in which they've been selling. We haven't. Our longest serving players are very average and haven't even played consistently for the club. And it's not like these players are going to Manchester United or Liverpool like they used to, it's now a **** West Ham team and an okay Everton. It's not like we'd be stopping their dream moves away. The club just has nothing they can do because they've cultivated an environment where players expect to leave. Will you actually be happy if Scienza has a good season and is sold next summer? Is that still just football being football or will it be us offloading our best asset for a quick buck again?
We’re in the Championship now. Of course our players will move to an Everton or West Ham. Fernandes wouldn’t have gone if we were still a PL team, and we wouldn’t have needed to sell him for the financials. Am I happy about it? No. But you need to be realistic. As I said, it’s the ins that have caused issues. Not the outs.
I think I am being realistic personally. In that I see absolutely no future for the football club in its current state. We don’t have a mix of average, good and bad players. We have average players and bad players and every year 2 or 3 of those average players play a bit better than the crap behind them, then Summer rolls around and we need money so those best players get sold. I’m sorry but I don’t see how it is an unrealistic expectation to expect your 19 year old academy graduate who has not even played that well for you, to stay and build something around him due to his potential. The fact he forced a move away just shows you how happy we are to sell anyone and everyone yet everyone seems puzzled as to how we ended up with a squad that don’t give a ****. It’s very obvious to me. I’ve already said to my friend this is the last year I get a season ticket because it is absolutely pointless turning up to a football club that has zero future prospects. Who are the players in this squad that will stick around and be a big part for the next 5 or so years? Because that is what we need. But we will sell anyone who appears to be such a player because we prioritise profit over squad building. It’s why I expected the season to start **** and end **** because we have squad who don’t care about the club they play for who just want to get their move on. It’s a culture thing, the players coming in see a culture of failure and just adapt to it rather than build something good here. Yes we have **** recruitment but to have the failure rate that we have with transfers and to have multiple changes in scouting with the same result speaks to a far bigger problem than just buying the wrong players. We’ve had poor recruitment even before SR were here. And even with all their changes nothing has improved. You can’t build anything if you’re having to start from the beginning every year. As mentioned, Brighton have always kept a few key players. We have kept Stephens and McCarthy because no other ****er wants them.
I think you make a good point that you have to retain a core of players, preferably in the spine, when selling a lot to maintain a level of team spirit. I always thought along with having to get recruitment right at an insanely high rate the team spirit question is the biggest risk. Brighton have Dunk, Bournemouth have Cook, we had Fonte and Davis for a few years after the mass sales started. In fact you could argue it was after Fonte left that things started to go downhill?
It comes hand in hand with the overall performance of the club declining. When we were half decent we wouldn’t sell Fonte or Davis because the clubs who wanted them weren’t a big upgrade at the time, but the bigger clubs would always be an attraction. Dese loves a moan about this topic, but all the players Bournemouth sold this summer had max been at the club for 2 years (Huijsen 1 season) so it obviously happens to other clubs as well. Our issue has been gradual decline so the list of clubs who would pick off our “core” players has grown. We wouldn’t have lost Fernandes/Dibling in the Fonte days because Everton and West Ham wouldn’t be perceived as a big step up like they are now. Players like Cook\Dunk wouldn’t be wanted by the top 6 or whatever, so they are the perfect level for where Brighton and Bournemouth are currently operating in that they can be part of a good side with better players. Be interesting how they perform if they are surrounded by poor/average PL level players which is what eventually happened to us (Stephens and Yoshida I seem to recall forming a good partnership for awhile when we had other good players and they are both ****) Ultimately it’s football in its current form and as described to Deserena many times it doesn’t sound like the sport for him if he wants Saints to ever be anything more than an also ran at the top level
Don't disagree mate, just think the potential team spirit impact of selling lots of players doesn't get spoken about that much and that it's a good point. Long term players can make all the difference when there's high turnover, especially if they're actually decent.
Agreed with all the above SR aren’t building a football team, they’re building a corporate player trading entity. We need a core of players that actually want to be here, not just using the club as a stepping stone. The issue is, this isn’t something that can be resolved quickly. It will take a long time.
