Dusic

Surely this summer Saints will accept any reasonable offer as otherwise will end up like Carillo and Clasie, just being loaned out til his contract is up. If a club offerwd a guarenteed £3m or £4m then we would be silly to turn that down. Lemina situation is similar, albeit there is possibly more of a market for him.

Also...the main thing...he is actually good as a CB. Most of the time.

From reading the reports from Germany and also Blackmore's snippet (and we know where that came from) I am inclined to believe we are/were interested but are also realistic that we aren't going to be spending €25m on anyone this summer and have a wage structure that we won't break for anyone apart from Big Fraser. With other interest and the timing of Blackmore's info it must be highly unlikely that we sign him.

https://www.getfootballnewsfrance.com/2020/as-monaco-are-in-talks-to-sign-weston-mckennie-from-schalke/ Looks like McKennie will move sooner rather than later, so we will see if Blackmore's info that we aren't in for him is correct - it usually is. https://www.lequipe.fr/Football/Actualites/Transferts-monaco-piste-weston-mckennie-milieu-de-schalke-04/1159438 If we do like him then its not a suprise Mitchell does as well - we have been in for lots of the same players since he left, most recently Disasi.

Bednarek must be on peanuts relative to others as is still on his initial contract when he was young and unproven. I am very suprised he hasn't signed a new contract before now, so the possibility that he doesn't want to cannot be ruled out. Hope he does but if he won't then this summer or next Jan would probably be his highest point in terms of value.

Great signing for that price, and unusually for a Saints signing, you pretty much know what you are getting. Its about as low risk a signing as we have made in years.

https://www.footballinsider247.com/southampton-make-move-to-beat-leeds-united-to-attacker-signing/ Link to Harry Wilson. Assuming we try to offload Boufal, I think we will peobably try to sign one "no10" so interesting to see if there is anything in this.

Because "just about done" does not equal "done".

Not saying that we are not interested in Mangala but has anyone seen it mentioned anywhere apart from that one Twitter account? Some of its other tweets are dubious to say the least.

Of course its not, and it can go both ways as we have seen with Forster. I recall Semmens or possibly Ross Wilson saying in one of the fans forums that we try to sign players knowing we can increase their pay with a new deal if we would like to. Whilst its ultimately impossible to know what talks happen, I feel we could sometimes be a bit more aggressive in doing this a bit sooner when players have shown their value. For example, had we tried to extend Clyne and Wanyama one year into their 4 year contracts then surely that would have agreed to that? Salisu could be a good example as reports indicate he may sign for four years. If after his first season he has done well, I would hope we try to extend his deal then, as otherwise the optimal selling point is not very far away. Leicester seem to do this well, Chilwell signed a 5 year deal this season which means they can ask for mega money, Maddison about to as well. Good mechanism to protect your club.

As is normal, the Spurs fed journalists are stating the difference in the PEH and KWP fees is still £3m. You can't rely on any fee reports apart from the fact that the truth will be somewhere in the middle of the two sides briefings. Regardless of the specifics, we swap a player who didn't want to be here for a player who does, and who solves a position thats been a problem for us ever since we sold Clyne. Hopefully in future we can avoid letting key players, especially young ones, get down to just a year left on their contract.

And that he has changed his mind about wanting to play for a team in the CL or EL.

Fulham spent £30m on Zambo Anguissa so Im sure they would have paid £15m for a key player from their promotion season.

Apart from it may not be our choice to sell him. Assuming we want to keep him, he holds all the cards. He either gets a new contract at Saints and presumably the promise of being considered a genuine first team player (in which case would we actually replace PEH as doing so would revert Reed to a backup role which he doesn't want). Or he says he would like to join Fulham, and presumably Saints must then sell for whatever the agreed option price was. I think most people would value him considerably higher now than last summer, especially Fulham. Worst case scenario, it would be a shame to want to keep him and then have the blow of him saying no and then having to sell for much less than he may be worth. All based on assumptions now, but will surely have an impact on what we do in centre mid transfer wise. Of course, RH may not feel he is quite up to it and be happy to take the cash if used towards someone else. Update - its an £8m option according to the Telegraph. Could probably have got double that from them I reckon, without the option. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2020/08/05/harrison-reed-consider-8m-switch-fulham-following-southampton/

"Fulham are keen to take up their option to sign Reed on a permanent deal, although the agreed price will fluctuate significantly based on whether they achieve promotion." https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/football-league/harrison-reed-interview-fulham-vs-cardiff-championship-playoff-southampton-a9638901.html%3famp ‐----------------- I guess we have to hope that we agreed an unrealistic option, like asking a Belgian club to pay £8m for Hoedt. With Fulham promoted and Reed a key player who is flavour of the month you could see them paying OTT for him, similar kind of money to what we got for Targett. But wouldn't suprise me if the option was more like £8m to £10m which would see us lose out. I guess we won't know for now, but if you were him then surely you would be keen to stay at Fulham where you are likely to start the PL season in the team.

Could you remind me why his number of goals is at all relevant? I would guess Spurs would sign, you know, an attacker, if they wanted goals.

He will already know his salary offer as part of making the decision to go there. He isn't doing anything wrong, neither are Spurs, nor Saints. Its just a negotiation. When it happens the Saints reporters will quote a high fee, the Spurs media a lower one and the truth will be in the middle.

I realise the revisionism always happens on here when a player is leaving but some of the comments on here show why a lot of people don't have a clue. Before all this played out he was a nailed on starter for us, easily ahead of Romeu who many on here rate highly. Yes he isn't David Silva, but he has a particular set of skills and football is a team game where you need a balance of attributes. Hasenhuttl rates him, Mourinho rates him, Ancelotti rates him. Ajax rate him. Pep rated him, even if he didn't kick on as initially expected.

Wishful thinking re Hojbjerg, we cannot sell him to a club he doesn't want to join. The other clubs are irrelevant, he will go to Spurs because he wants to. He can go for free in less than a year so Sainta not in a strong position and eventually will take what they can.

We won't offload Valery and even if we did we wouldn't be spending up to £15m on a backup RB. I hope we get KWP. He has proven his suitability, which would be rare for a Saints signing as so often we require adjustment from either a different country, lesser league, or both. KWP is as close to a no-brainer signing as Saints will be able to make, and IMO about £15m is reasonable fee.

Obviously we wouldn't need KWP and Cash so will be interesting to see what happens. By all accounts Cash is a good player, hence other PL interest, but we know KWP fits to our system so hopefully we can agree a deal for him. Interesting that both would cost easily double what our seeming first choice (Zeefuik) would have done if he wanted to join.

I think there is probably a deal to be done with Vestergaard. He won't want to be 4th choice and is doubtless on decent money that Saints would be happy to shift. I'm sure we have a young player or two lined up in the event that he goes, and clearly not a senior, £15m plus signing that some goosers suggested.

Sorry - seems it was a fake account of the Leicester writer for The Athletic saying they are pursuing a deal for McKennie and likely to beat Saints to his signature. School holidays...

Presuming he had visited Staplewood before agreeing to join (which he seemingly did a while ago) I doubt quarentine rules make a difference as he doesn't need to be in the UK, just like Djenepo wasn't last summer. According to AS he did his medical in Spain at least a week ago, and presumably is off on holiday somewhere or back home in Ghana. https://as.com/futbol/2020/07/25/primera/1595699835_322531.html Sure it will be announced next week as it seems to be a done deal.

All the reports from Spain say its done from their side and they are waiting for Saints to announce it. Covid backlog for what exactly?! You only get one shot to impress, Jimbo.