Is it coincidence but since the World Cup squads were announced at the beginning of June we have lost Rickie, Luke & probably Adam today. Lovren & Morgan are strongly linked with other clubs, one apparently putting in a transfer request and Morgan indicating he's already talked to the board, presumably about going to a CL club. Gaston is a target for Torino though Yoshida isn't linked yet. All the first 5 have either gone or seem the most likely to go. The other point is that if 5 of our players (half our team) are either being sold or strongly linked with CL teams (I'm assuming Man U will become one soon again), then could we have reasonably built a CL side of our own in the near future ?
I think we had a reasonable chance last season of getting into the Europa League...we just blew it mid-season due to injuries. Our problem is how light we were last season (that seems amusing to say now). I would never say we could never be top four (who knows what the next twenty years holds), but certainly not in the near future. It is not about how good we are, but how much better the top clubs are. We are suffering for how good we looked and how successful we were last season. Important to build again for our third EPL season.
It's a combination of circumstances, but I think if Lambert, Lallana, Shaw and Rodriguez hadn't got into the England team and been considered or picked for the WC, they would still be at Saints, simply because the bigger clubs wouldn't consider them, whether they wanted away or not. Similar goes for Yoshida, Lovren and Schneiderlin. Of course, had Cortese and then Poch stayed we would have exactly the same squad right now as last season, whether or not several had been to the WC. Plus, there might have been additions. It pisses me off greatly when I think about it, but there it is. I'm trying to be like Beefy and not look back.
Yep lets look forwards. Ron has a huge amount of wonga to spend and I'm living in hope we get better than we've sold. I still think both Shaw and Adam have gone for more than they are worth but time will tell. Koeman didnt come here to fight relegation or settle for mid table.
