They should have taken whatever they were offered. We could have sold Carillo , I believe and I think that the likes of Stephens. Elynoussi and Vestergaard could have been offered to Championship clubs. I just don't feel we tried hard enough. If there are "bad eggs" in the playing staff, they should have been removed if this compromised Ralph's plans. Unfortunately the performance on Friday has clouded the issue insofar that the manager is now no longer exempt from having his ability scrutinised. I am not aware of the issue with the finances but there must be a point at which having certain players remain in the squad is more detrimental to the club than any loss of investment.
Was the Carrillo one to an Argentinian club? I don’t think it would or will be easy to sell some of these to championship clubs, as their wages will be pretty high. Wolves only wanted Mario on a loan first. Don’t think anyone can in for Hoedt, Cedric or Long We did shift Charlie though to that league. I agree about taking a hit/loss. Just needed someone to step in.
I would not get rid of Long as he typifies for me the kind of spirit you need within the club. Of the ones remaining I would tend to bomb out would be Cedric, Vesterggard, Stephens, maybe Bertrand, possibly Bednarek and then run my eye over Boufal and Armstrong to see what an extended spell in the first 11 would achieve with them to see if they can offer something for the future. I would not want any of the players currently out on loan to return, I would also have to say that I have been underwhelmed by Angus Gunn so far too. I think that Djenepo and Obafemi will have a role to play this season but I don't think any of this will matter until there are at least three new defenders brought in to the squad. I would also have to say that JWP is a shadow of the player he was last season and needs to be rested . The shame is that no one seems to be knocking on the door from the reserves. All the better academy players seem to be more attack minded which is not so much of a problem at the moment,
Big Fraser could have played in slippers, such was the lack of work he had to do. And we made El Mo look good too! I hate football!
Koeman latterly didn`t give youth a chance - Ralph has stopped blooding the youngsters too, for whatever reason. No signs of Slattery, Vokins, Ramsay etc getting anywhere near the first team, for whatever reason.
Seeing as Vokins is a defender, you wonder what he must be like not to be able to play a part this season.
I think as well as spending money in January, the club needs to realise the benefit of just getting shot and taking a financial hit just for the sake of moving on...:
You can't force players to go to clubs they don't want to, or to sign a contract with worse terms than their current one. Simple as that.
That’s a ridiculous statement mate. Assuming you aren’t involved in the transfers department of course. I have been pondering our situation and can’t get past the fact that we can sack a manager for a 0-9 defeat yet we have to honour the contracts of every player in the squad for years till they decide to leave. It’s little wonder that it’s seen as the answer to all our woes season after season.
Saints players and coaching staff have donated their wages from Friday to the Saints Foundation... https://www.southamptonfc.com/news/...yers-staff-wage-donation-to-saints-foundation
Think it is. However, I am sure they are on more than most people in a week in a day. £40k a week, £8k a day (5 day week). I'd take that.
At the moment it doesn't matter to me how much they put in, I'm still pissed off with the lot of them.
Yep, need a performance. Not necessarily a win, but hard work, unity & appreciation of the shirt. Nothing less than that.
I think we could possibly have sold Carillo and Boufal. But we would have made nothing or so little it would not have mattered. Boufal has actually been pretty useful to us this year even if we are paying him too much. We could have sold Elyounoussi for some small amount of revenue, IMO. Nowhere near enough to recoup what we paid, of course. But even then if he has a good season at Celtic maybe we can use him next year or he builds a little value. Forster is a similar situation. So I don't really mind the lack of a formal clear out. They are cleared off our roster and our squad size is fine so it doesn't matter. Someone is paying all or part of their wages which is about as good as we could do on a transfer.
We should start clearing out the management above Ralph. We don't have a hope in hell of moving in the right direction until we have the right people making the right decisions!