Saint Without a Halo

I thought English players cost more but we are being asked 16m by Sporting for Rojos a 24 year old Argentinian International according to the Express but they have just sold 21 year old Eric Dier apparently a Highly rated England Under 21 international defender to Spurs for only 4m. Maybe they think we are desperate? Also I wonder if Dier was on our scouts list if MoPo has bought him!

80m left to spend in 31 days so I make that approx. 2.5m to spend every day!

Is he one of the many players our scouts identified who were all desperate to join

Does it need a medical?

Or we don't want to spend the money? Kruger did say it would be spent on transfers or wages (loans)

A mate who speaks French for Morgan? and only 22 so room to improve Interesting that he plays for Algeria and his older brother for Tunisia cant be too many brothers that play each other internationally!

This is spot on and the reason it has never been done before will become obvious with each day passing

I await actions not more words

Spot on there is a modern Arabic saying that says if you keep changing the washing powder brand and your clothes are still dirty then the problem lies with the washing machine!

44 years for me and yet I remain inclined to have more sympathy with the players Morgan has been one of our most loyal players and stayed with us 6 years on the journey down not only the journey up for someone like him to want away so desperately tells me there is something very, very, wrong at the heart of our club.

That is obvious in normal circumstances but current circumstances are anything but normal he has just seen five of his best mates and the heart of our team leave and we are asking him to be loyal to a board strategy and level of ambition he has no faith in and then the club announce they have reached a tipping point and he has to stay!

We have had one for months!

Or the club should have talked to him before announcing he is staying?

It all ok Kruger says he is staying the club have obviously been communicating with him regularly to keep him on side!

He already has the Fergueson red nose too

When you put your money in a house or in fund you are investing it! NC convinced and sold the Southampton project to ML as an investment. The investment was based on putting money in to increase the value of the club and the assets(the players). To do this you had to improve the football move up the leagues and access the TV money. To do that you needed a ruthless businessman which NC was and ML appreciated and trusted. Where did Kat lose money? ML invested 15m at the outset and lets say we take a conservative view that investments of 10m a year in league 1, 20m in the championship and say 30m in each of our 2 premiere years were required over and above the clubs income (excluding the money from selling ox too) that adds to a total of 115m invested at the top side By all accounts at the end of last season the players were worth 120m and the club over 100m that gives a value of 220m and a return of 105m in 5 years. Pretty good business by anyones standards! The fall out between NC and KAT was purely about when to cash in. NC felt there was more value to be added KAT by all accounts didn't want to risk more and wanted to cash in now as it appears she is now doing or she has a different plan which is to blood in a lot of youngsters and sell them every year for 50m to 100m assuming we stay up and develop players (come in Mr Koeman) So not sure what your spunking money comment is all about if I had a few million I would let NC spunk it about if I got more than twice my money back! ML agreed to the business plan and the investments by NC and this continued whilst he had control of the monies as executor to ML's will. KAT inherited control last year after the will was executed and her and her advisors had different plans on how and when to cash in than NC did.

Agreed but you also don't let yours go first! it would have been very easy to manage one in one out as a policy they were all on reasonably long contracts.

Bringing in Koeman fits perfectly if your plan is to consistently bring forward good youth surrond them by a few older players who will stay for one or two years max and then sell both types on This is exactly how Feyenoord operate

I think we made it so difficult for them to stay they were left with little choice and I believe we could have kept them!

I hope you are right but based on evidence and performance to date I'd rather have NC than this lot! As a person by all accounts he appears to be obnoxious but as a Chairman he was spot on and gave us supporters some of the best years ever.

Herein is the big conundrum for the board how did this close knit team a number of whom shared the fantastic journey up from league 1 suddenly all turn into money grabbing mercenaries inside 6 months?

So Chambers was on a huge contract with bonuses too and we needed him off our books these excuses begger belief based on this all our incomings (when they eventually appear) must be on less than Chambers no wonder we are having problems convincing the big raft of excellent players who want to come here to put pen to paper.

Very convenient for the board to blame 1) the greedy staff (players and manager) 2) Cortese Amazing isn't it how they are tarnishing the reputation of one of the best and most close knit teams we have ever had to justify their own incompetence From the outside it looks to me like the club was run much better and tighter under NC than anything this lot have managed so far! Conjecture of course and I am still waiting for them to prove me wrong! So far everything they have said in public has been laced with untruths so why would I believe this latest leak!

Why was it? it was working and financially stable too!

Ah but that is where NC was different! He did make money! The club plus the [players are worth more than the initial and subsequent investments made. That is where he was sharp committed single tracked ruthless and clever. He saw that he could only get better value out of the footballing assets if he improved the clubs footballing future and traded up as he went along always ensuring the value of the club and players was greater than the money put in. A plan that works as long as you continue to grow which we did! It was NC that saw the possibility with Saints and introduced it to ML. It was principally a business proposition and a very clever one at that. It also needed a man of his single minded ruthlessness to implement correctly something ML understood but unfortunately his daughters advisors didn't.