Saint Nicolae!

Our policy to date works very well.

 

Okay, net spend is important is it?

 

But increasingly less well. Wanyama and Mane were two of the league's best player. Lost for peanuts. You can't rest on your laurels in business. That leads to reduced profit. You can't really argue that we aren't predictable. All I am saying is the method is mostly right, but we have to make it harder for others to guess what we will do.

 

Hold on, you were saying that keeping a player until his last year was a good strategy a minute ago, which is what we did with Wanyama (and is why he was sold cheaply).

Which one is it?

 

Thing is that, like hopeless romantics, we keep believing that maybe this time it'll be for real.

 

Yes, read in context. I would take a loss on Mane's pathetic fee to make sure the next one was better. To be honest, I would have preferred us to keep Wanyama too. The point is to make life hard for buyers. I don't believe we do that anymore, where I did believe it with the Lallana's and co. The worstt hing we do is promise players they can leave if they sign a new contract. Do we really not know their agents will make this known to buying clubs and again reduce our bargaining power? And the end result is players feel they can go when they want rather than when we are ready.

 

Was Wanyama sold cheaply ? - is it not a case that no other club saw fit to try and outbid spuds ?

 

Then why sell him at all...

 

It could be argued, yes. But what does the evidence suggest? So far, it points to us making a successful bid for top six status and European football.

 

Okay, fair enough. I take that point. Not sure I'm in agreement with it, but fair call.

 

Well, because he wasn't going to sign a new contract, and at the end of the day we're a business. Letting him go for free when he has a decent resale value would be madness. Now of course if he was completely irreplaceable, that might be different. But he's not.

 

Yes, so far. But as I have said, the policy is weakening as we are no longer the only club selling players for huge fees. In fact, other clubs are selling inferior product for higher prices. The Southampton Way is a selling strategy that can only be judge on the profit and the quality of replacements. It is a permanently ongoing gamble, rather than a nice steady rise, as some suggest.

Again, I am not knocking the strategy as a whole, but we have to have a summer at some stage where we are perceived to be totally in control or the strategy will weaken further.

 

Just like Newcastle did, eh?

Doom, gloom, boom.

 

But I miss him.

 

It would be arrogant in the extreme to assume only SFC are capable of growth long term.

 

I'll give you that, yes

 

For all your pointing our clear weaknesses, I can't recall ever reading your solution.

Are you as gloomy in real life Spacedsaint, because virtually every post I read of yours is pointing out a negative. Now you can call me out here for whatever you like, but I just want to try and understand why it is you only ever seem to see the negative in things our club does.

We didn't get a "terrible" fee for Mane. I am happy for someone to argue that with the current climate it could have been higher, but "terrible" ... really?

 

Agree entirely.

 

That is not what I said. Once again, you only choose the negative.

 

I suspect we will all miss Vic and Mane. Like we have missed Clyne and Toby and Morgan and Lallana (a bit) and Oxtail-Chamberpot. We've done alright without them though