Summer 2014 Transfer rumour thread - Part II

everyone or you and a lot of others? A lot haven't taken it that way.

 

You said 'everyone' earlier.

 

TSS, I am surprised at this statement. Who isn't still following that vision? Selling one player (IF it happens) at an enormous value does not have to indicate the vision isn't being followed. I just don't see why you seem to stick to the 'upward line on a graph' view. If during the process of progression a situation arises where they feel it is the right thing to do, in selling a player and doing something with that money towards the ultimate goal, then that is fine with me.

 

FLT, not sure what point you're trying to make, but I have little interest in getting drawn into another public argument so maybe you can PM me your concerns and I'll do my best to address them privately.

 

I think we would all prefer Shaw stays. This whole paragraph to me, is what LTL has been trying to say all day.

 

Beefy, I don't think it is the speculation that has gone on and on, but the 'trying to get people to see a view' that has gone on and on.

 

I have no concerns, was just catching up on the thread and posting when I felt I wanted to. Your post where I said you make the view that LTL seemed to be trying to make all day, brings it together nicely.

 

True.

 

Well it says nothing whatsoever about what Krueger said or the fans' general reaction to Shaw's potential sale, which is what we disagreed on, so I'm not sure it is really. We may well agree on what we want to happen should he be sold, but that's not what we were discussing.

Anyway, glad you have no concerns, surprised as I am to hear it!

 

My God, do we really have 500-odd more posts of this to go?

 

The reason for the sale of Shaw would concern me as much as his sale. Selling him because it makes sense for the team is one thing...selling him because we're in financial difficulties is another. As I've said before, I think he'll be with us next season anyway.

 

Its still got a long way to go to challenge the Gaston thread.

 

I am near-certain any sale income will be reinvested in the team at the next good opportunity.

 

Yep - and Krueger isn't discounting the first possibility, but is the second.

And there endeth, in a lovely wrapped up single sentence, the point that I've been trying to make!

 

Well, let's be clear. Sell key Southampton players isn't sending out the best of ambitious signs is it..? Especially when other key Saints players have expressed their ambitions in print.

Cortese's vision was, Set ambitious goals; keep your best players; teach them the dream; get them to believe and be as ambitious as the club vision; make it sustainable, by introducing best players from the academy and topping up with quality selected transfers in. Win and don't be content with being second best.

Now during that time, the players believed in that ambition more and more. Saints are where they are now because they believed. I have said, ad nauseum, that spectators have to believe as well. Otherwise we are arguably viewers, not supporters.
In all the time that Cortese was at the club, only one key player left - Oxlade-Chamberlain, and Cortese did everything he could, bar lock the door, to keep him at SFC. In the end, he took Arsenal for everything they had

 

This is the area where we need to be more selective and get better value for money, I believe that Nicola sanctioned the £40m spend last summer with the expectation of making the Champions League to make back that money (speculate to accumulate). As you rightly point out TSS, he is an ambitious man and not particularly a patient one, his own goals for the club would've been Top 4 in the future. His long term vision was always to be more self sufficient through the academy, hence the heavy investment at Staplewood and we would've seen fewer and fewer expensive signings over time as the squad evolved. That is why I think we have a debt now, not a massive one but i'm sure that Champion's League revenue would've been factored in at some point in Cortese's plans.

 

For the last time, I will just say again that IF Shaw is sold for a hell of a lot of money, I think it would be a little blinkered if people thought that was the end of the ambition. What they did with the money and what the reasons for the sale are (as I think Fran and PTF mentioned earlier), would be an indication of the ambition; not the sale of one player, be he a star or not.

I have always sat in the happy clapper, positive camp and was a defender of Cortese's ways that drove the ambitions; I loved it. However, knowing what we know now, maybe (and just a maybe) he was getting too close to win at all cost and that could have been dangerous. Ask Leeds fans. I'm not settling for mediocrity but I am trying to be realistic while enjoying the ride.

 

Heard a horrible rumour this was now a cert... Tbh would rather we lost Shaw to the than Adam if we had to lose one...

 

well I can't imagine united really need a player in lallana's position

 

When Tottenham sols Bale, they bought a whole new squad, and I didn't feel like they lacked ambition. I was actually impressed with some of the players they bought, but all bar Eriksen and Paulinho have flopped.