Not sure there's been any evidence of that? Otherwise we would have sold TP for one of those stupidly low offers from Turkey in the summer. We let Chelsea and Liverpool fight it out over Lavia too and that went on for weeks. We held onto Che and let him go for a free rather than accept a low offer because we decided he was worth more to us for one last season to get us back up. If we are not sacking Martin for financial/PSR reasons then I imagine we will need to sell at least one of Fernandes or Dibling in the summer. Not sure any team has ever not sold any of their best players on relegation either? If we can keep hold of one of them next season in the Championship I'll be delighted but we have lost too many players for nothing in recent seasons too (Che, Stu, KWP) and the fact that we are on a tightrope with PSR means we can't keep letting that happen so length of contract will also have to be taken into consideration (thinking Dibling here).
This. Dibling and Fernandes won't be sold for less than £35million each I would have thought and that's a conservative estimate.
Whilst on the subject of departures, apart from those we'd like to move on, I wonder who else we will lose when we go down. I don't think it will be a massive exodus like last time. Dibling Fernandes Ramsdale Anyone else?
I'm not 100% convinced we'll lose both Dibling and Fernandes. It's likely but not a certainty IMO. They'll be interest in THB as well. KWP will obviously depart.
Yeah I am kind of counting KWP as already gone! Not sure on THB. I think he might fall into the category of clubs definitely being interested, but none of them paying what we would value him at. I can't see anyone paying £25m+ for him and surely we wouldn't sell for less. Similar situation for Downes.
I'm just thinking of all the players we will likely sell/contracts end. High profile that we could get decent money for but would in ideal world keep: Dibling, Fernandes, Ramsdale and THB? Out of contract in the summer: KWP, Stephens, Lallana and Lumley Will be going into the final year of their contracts so at the stage of new contract, sell or lose for nothing the following summer: Tall Paul, ABK, Smallbone, Aribo, Stewart, Fraser, Taylor, Bree, McCarthy, SAA Players that still have a few years left on their contract, but I could imagine we will want to sell if we can: Sulemana
all depends on the players as well, this isn’t football manager. If they really want to leave then it’s in our best interests to get as good a fee and move on. Can see us getting about £70m for the pair as you say, but don’t think that’s particularly conservative, it may look cheap in the future, but given the circumstances there isn’t much we can do
It does but Dibling is at the very start of his career. He may feel a year in the Championship may be better for him than a year mostly sat on the bench with a big PL team. We could also sell but arrange to get him back on loan. I'm probably clutching a straws somewhat but Dibling needs to play week in week out. Hopefully one way or another he will be playing for us next season.
I would just love the club to show a bit of backbone and keep the quality and offload the ****. That’s exactly why we’re in the mess we are in! The Poch/Koeman era was built around buying the equivalent of what you lost in talent. After Koeman it became replace what you lost with a Poundland version of what you had and pocket the rest. Now look where that has got us all these years later. This is why I was always jealous of Spurs keeping Kane for as long as they did. They obviously kept telling him “don’t leave, we are really building something here and you are key to it”, I don’t believe we’ve said that to a single player ever. It’s most telling in our centre backs. Think of some absolute belters we’ve had the last 10 years and now look what we’re left with. Just shows you that philosophy was terrible and how much we fold when it comes to sales.
It’s clearly what we’ve been trying to do the last few years, but recruitment is very hit and miss for every club and the streak we had for a couple of years in the Koeman days was always going to be an anomaly. Agree about the Poundland days under Gao, and that being the main catalyst for where we are now Can’t really compare us to Spurs. Miles bigger club who had been flirting with Champs league when Kane was there. We are never going to do that so players aren’t going to want to stay, not even mentioning the wages they can pay in comparison. Any player who bigger teams are looking at from us is likely to want to go. That list has grown over the years from just the top 8 or so to now the entire PL, but has shown under SR we don’t just take any old fee for the player at least which gives us a chance at replacing them
We almost were though, we finished 3 points off 4th in 2016 and the year before that finished 7th. Both times in Europe even though one was a qualifier that we lost, we finished very close to Spurs with a really strong side. I know it’s pointless complaining about it now but that was the siding doors moment for our club. Do you show the current manager and players that you’re willing to commit to progression and give the budget needed for the champions league? Or do you stick to your little black box and get replacements AGAIN for all those that want to leave? And we picked the later. Maybe I’m misremembering or it’s bias but I don’t remember a single instance of the club desperately trying to keep it together, it seemed like as soon as an offer came in it was “yes” and on the way. That’s not even just players, ****ing staff as well. Oh you want our head scout!? Sure! We’ll get another! Both Poch and Koeman said the reason they left was because the club didn’t match the ambition. We are a selling club through and through and I don’t believe it’s changed now. Dibling will be sold at the earliest opportunity as will anyone else that does well from now till the end of the season. The only reason we’re no longer seen as a selling club is because the replacements have gotten to the point that they’re so **** even we can’t offload them. Our striker record recently is abysmal. Unfortunately that’s a feeling around the ground too. The first thing anyone says as soon as Dibling does anything good is “he’ll be done in the summer”. I think it’s the overall feeling of any Saints supporter my age that there’s no exciting future at this club whatsoever right now because even if we had exciting players they’ll just be sold ASAP anyway. Just to finish the sudden rant, it also says a lot about our club that the manager who just finished 5th, 3 points off a champions league place found Everton, who finished in 11th the same season, a more desirable team to manage. That shows you just how shocking our clubs ambitions have been.
Yeah I over reacted a bit yesterday, the rumored non sacking of RM didn't help. Of course they will get good money for Dibling and Fernandes for a start, it's the grating feeling is that we will again sell the jewels in the crown. (It's happened for years)I just wish the club would promise these two particular kids to all they can to go straight back up and if not sell them. (Who knows, perhaps they will) I am just extremely concerned about the club going forward.
I am sure Dibling will be off in January. No way we are staying up. I think SR will be looking to off load a few players. I cannot see Martin being sacked until the end of the season. He will go in the summer.
Quite a good argument you could make to sell him then though. Stock is very high, we’re down anyway and teams like to over pay in Jan. Chances are with 2 years left he’ll definitely be gone in the summer, if someone chucks us an extra £10m or something than we’d accept in the summer you can definitely make a case for selling in Jan
. I agree with this. Feels pointless supporting this club. More a like a habit that I can’t kick than an enjoyable hobby these days. Especially this season with them willing to accept losing every single week. The club has no standards, no ambition and no clue how to win football matches. We have no figures like Fonte/Lambert that are mainstays in the team really. Just a tombola of **** mercenaries that put in awful performances. **** me, even last season when we had a chance to go for the championship title they sold tella etc and ruined that. Very bleak. My only hope is that if we go down we can put together a title charge next season in the championship. That could be fun. But knowing SR they will probably sell too many again and mess even that up.
I agree with most of this but it has to be said the Poch and Koeman era was very different to now. Almost the opposite. We had pretty good people running things then but when Markus died his daughter wasn't prepared to put money into the club (and fair enough, she wasn't the one who'd decided to buy it). That meant we were very limited in what we could do. If Markus had lived longer things might have been different. We'll never know but I suspect he'd have got caught up in the excitement and put more money in. Say what you like about Sport Republic but they HAVE been prepared to spend money. The problem is the people running the club have made some very poor decisions and haven't yet shown they know how to run a football club. If we had the likes of Cortese or Les Reed behind the scenes and backed by Solak's money then things might be different.
