Bayern Munich want Sadio Mané

Because it's the height of hubris to believe that we're so far and beyond the evaluative capabilities of other clubs that we can pluck successes at will on the cheap, while selling off most of our best players annually without batting an eye. Over any sustained period of time, no talent evaluator or group thereof will succeed under those circumstances; we aren't in the Eredivisie with the luxury of all the teams around us doing likewise, and if we cannot retain our best for more than a year at a time, it will at some point go extremely badly.

It's entirely possible to sell ~1 excellent player a year and keep going; Everton certainly did for years. Turning over half the starting XI? Not a chance.

 

No, the hubris comes in thinking we can actually say no and hold on to our players.

We were able to hold on to one player last year. ONE. And it was a close shave. And it was Schneiderlin, who I think is probably somewhat more loyal or at least level-headed than the average player. And from reports, it wasn't even a CL club. It was Tottenham. And we don't even know if a concrete offer was made.

If Schneiderlin can be bought for 25m then anyone on our team can be bought for that much, whether we like it or not. We have sold much more important players, who were much more established, and who were more loyal (or should have been expected to be, anyway), and who meant more to the fans than Mane for a whole lot less than 30m.

There are only two ways to get into CL. One is to keep selling players for profit until we have enough money to hang with the big clubs. The other is sneak into a top four place with a squad that no one thinks is that good.

Fortunately, Mane falls into the latter category. I don't think anyone would offer 30m for him. Probably not even 20. And that is why we will be able to hang on to him for one more year.

 

Looking back, that was part of our ability to challenge last year.
Arsenal, City & Chelsea were relatively settled, but Spurs, Man Utd and Liverpool either had a new manager, large player turnover or both.
All six clubs look set to have a pretty settled summer. City are expected to bring in a lot of players, but you'd expect them to bring in great quality.

Even with a summer of few major exits, I think it will be an even bigger achievement to still be in touching distance of the top six and balance it with Europa league, because all six should be stronger

 

Sadly, very true. Howeber, I have great faith in LesR & RonK & think we'll still be there, thereabouts although "sadly" !!! probably 7th again. If we have a run in the EL & possibly a domestic cup, that'll still be seen as a succession step.

 

I'm not sure I'd describe Liverpool's summer as going to be settled though.

 

I was saying all last season that if ever there was a time for an unfancied club to break the top 4 it was now as a few of the established teams were all having terrible seasons. Despite this they still all finished in the top 6 and I am even stronger in my belief that it is basically impossible for a smaller team to finish top 4, without help from a very wealthy owner

 

True and if they start the season how they ended it then I don't give Rodgers past October.
However, losing one player is not a rebuild and though I don't think they've bought in players good enough to break top four so far, I think they are looking better balanced already as a first team.

 

Impossible to come from virtually no-where, but not if you have a few years to build toward it.

If the top six had such disastrous seasons then none of their managers would still be employed.
Four of them performed on point or better than last season.

We had a great season and made average performances from Spurs and Liverpool look worse than usual just because our name is Southampton and not Everton.

Yes, this season was a chance to break top four, but I think it's silly to believe that this season was some total eclipse style once in a generation chance.

It will happen again sooner than you think and hopefully we will have the squad depth to make it count.

 

Absolutely this. Very well said saintlyhero!

 

No team wins the league standing still. Man U were lucky for a while that their youth team all came through together but SAF still added to it and changed a couple of the 1st 11 each season. Arsenal did the same adding more each season. When Arsenal started treading water and going into each season with the same 11 they fell away. Similarly in SAF's later years when he settled on the old trusted 11 just bringing in squad players they started to struggle bar that penultimate season where they won without really playing very well all season.

All the Champions of recent years have won by improving 4 / 5 / 6 of their first 11!!! Man City do it every year, Chelsea do it every year, Man Utd will start to do it again and Arsenal are starting to do it.

We need to change this mindset of 'we need to keep everybody'. We need to keep some but we also need to improve and that means changing faces.

I was one of those bemoaning Mane early on but I did say I would give him a chance and he has taken that chance and proved me/us wrong. There was a spell around the injury /either side of ACON where he was pants but he has got better and better and proved to be very valuable.

We have also seen him now playing a lot on the right which hopefully could see Tadic return to the left when fit and then we would have 2 wide forwards playing brilliantly as well as JayRod and Long.

TBH I think the players in our first 11-15 that are likely not to insist on a move if sufficient money was offered are Fonte, Bertrand, Davis, JWP, Reed, Pelle and maybe Long and Forster.

Of all that lot Bertrand and Forster are probably the only ones that we would look on as pretty much the best we as a club can get in their positions ATM and the rest are ones we are looking to improve on. JWP and Reed being the exceptions because we are expecting them to improve with experience anyway.

If a CL club came in with a sufficient bid for Tadic(£15-£20m), Mane(£20m), Schneiderlin(£25m), Alderweireld(£2m buy out), Clyne (£15-£20m) and probably Forster(£15-£20m)** I'm pretty sure those guys will be thumping Les and Ralph's desk demanding that their chance at the big time is not witheld from them.

**Forster is on my I'm not sure list. I think if a big bid came in from a big club he would want to go but it would definitely have to be CL. Tottenham would have no chance.

That unfortunately is where we are still at the moment and will be for a fair while until we can bridge that commercial and success gap. Even to catch up with Tottenham we are a fair way off in terms of being able to attract players.

So if we can bring in 2 players for every 1 we lose then hopefully one will be as good and the other will fill out our squad for the extra games we have.

I also think that many underestimate the extra pull we have now we are in the Europa League. We aren't Hull or Swansea or Wigan. We pay as much / more and we have finished in a high league position in succesive seasons. Our ambition is way higher than those clubs and we have now got that opportunity to kick on and regularly compete on the european stage even if it is only EL season after season. Last season we would only have had a slight advantage over a team like Swansea or West Ham. This season we will have a larger advantage and if we can keep qualifying for Europe we will pull away from the 8th, 9th etc. If we do well next season we will arguably be a more attractive option than Everton!!!

The short of it...If a team bids £20m for Mane the board will be waiting for it be improved on slightly £22m - £25m before they accept.

 

This thread is what happens when there is no firm transfer news.

 

Maybe there's no firm transfer news because Katharina is holding on to the money.

Maybe there'll be a fire sale.

Maybe she's asset stripping.

Maybe we're up for sale.

Maybe we will have some transfer news on Tuesday after Monday's media had spent the day wondering why England played players out of position.

Maybe.

 

Filling out that many positions and getting good value for all isn't easy, because teams know that you're desperate and have money to burn. Remember, just last off-season we ended up splashing £12-13m on Shane Long, and the consensus here was that i) it wasn't good value, but ii) we didn't really have a choice, because we needed a striker, any striker.

Also, while the £80m we'd get from the above sales is quite a bit, it's genuinely hard to get 8-9 squad-quality players with half as good as what we have now with that, once you've factored in the other expenses associated. Clyne's sell-on and solidarity payments would scrape off a few million. Agent fees and signing-on bonuses would deduct a few more. We'd be looking at rebuilding the squad on less money than we did a year ago...but also needing to devote more of those resources to depth, with Europa looming. Extraordinarily tough.

It's quite possible that players would pound the table expecting their big chance, but that happens all the time at a good many clubs. We're the only one where any interest means that we apparently must surrender immediately and sell at a below-market price, however...despite having demonstrated with Morgan that even a player wanting badly to depart can have their stays prolonged with a minimum of fuss.

 

We offer half the wages, generate much less marketing interest/publicity and no CL football. Of course we don't have the leverage of those other clubs and have to sell players for less.

 

Except that we've managed to keep Morgan for an extra year, and managed to get Jay to re-sign. Further, many other non-CL teams have demonstrated the ability to fend off interest. We have leverage, if we choose to exercise it.

 

Agree with your first sentence but not necessarily the second. I thought we got top fees for Chambers Lallana Loveren Shaw Lambert and we will do the same with Clyne and Morgan.Do you think we undersold those players and if so what was the correct market value?

 

Maybe not the best two examples you could have given. One who'll be gone this summer and the other who has been crocked for a year.

Now if we get Morgan to sign a new contract...

 

I'm under no illusions that we can keep players forever, at our current level. But I suspect that holding on to Morgan for an extra year contributed significantly to our position, and our position contributed to Jay staying and our having a chance to retain Clyne and Toby. Saying "no" is unlikely; saying "not now" seems to be within our power, however.

 

I agree that holding on to Morgan probably helped us in terms of our season however as I said before, I think the reason we 'held on to him' was little more than the fact that the club did not receive a bid of value. Quite simply 'Morgan, I'm sorry we aren't letting you go for a derisory offer of £10m and no-one is offering us the £20+ that we would require as a minimum so you're going to have to stay another season and prove to them you are worth the money you want, then straight to the press and state we have taken a stance and told Morgan we are not letting him go and the fans lap it up. If the £20 - £25m had been offered he would have been on the same list for the exit door, we would have signed Clasie and things would have continued. This is just the way it is unless we get CL or have a big history a la Liverpool.

Many other non CL clubs don't manage it at all. I don't get what you are saying there. The player kicks up a stink and ends up getting what he wants as long as the right price is paid. Happens to all other clubs. If by that you meant the same as happened with Morgan i.e. Player kicks up stink but only low bids come in then you get a Berahino, Morgan situation. Once that higher bid comes in the player is gone.