Saint Without a Halo

This is why I believe the dry bed brigade are wrong to entirely blame the ex manager and players for being disloyal in reality they were probably very loyal it is the club that changed lost their confidence failed to give them a vision of where it wanted to go and that money from sales would be reinvested in better players. I also believe Mopo would have stayed if they had limited sales to Shaw but he did not believe the intent of the club and he has been proved right. There is never smoke without fire and I refuse to believe a close knit team suddenly unravelled and became full of so called mercenarieh without a significant catalyst from the inside. Have we forgotten how the team closed ranks around Fonte over the Osvaldo affair! Is that the behaviour of a bunch of money grabbing mercenaries?

The board either had an assert stripping agenda and blatantly lied or are just purely incompetent and couldn't keep their word as through a combination of inexperience and mismanagement they allowed circumstances to get out of hand by allowing a few sales to become an exodus through misreading why the team were still there and what they wanted. Either way it makes little difference to the end result

Well the way things are going if he sticks around he will certainly get game time! So that's one problem solved then

I agree there is no excuse however it is dressed up!

Good post and very true our communication has been atrocious what is our strategy how are we intending to deliver it at least if this was clear we might understand! When you add in the departures to date the comments by many players, the Morgan comments in the echo from some months ago above and the report on Mali from the Swiss papers, I am not filled with confidence that the club know what they are doing or that they are even capable of completing 6 or more good transfers in less than 6 weeks I hope I am wrong and those with dry beds are proved correct!

Can you from your side therefore confirm that until this summer no one was interested in any of our players of course neither of us can confirm our views without being involved closely however I always like to work on the basis of probability It is highly unlikely the main spine of our team and manager suddenly all decided to become mercenary over night it is far more likely there was a catalyst inside the club leading to this exodus. i.e. they knew the club intended to sell its assets and drop its ambitions and its bid to be different from other run of the mill clubs leading to this mad rush to get out. For the naïve approach and its inability to manage the need to sell a couple of players whilst retaining commitment and ambition in those remaining the board must be held responsible. the whole way this sad scenario has been managed from the beginning has been nothing short of a disaster as whilst it is true the board is raising cash it is also true the price of the club as a going business continues to drop and could drop by more than the cash brought in by the end of the coming season Koeman now has one hell of a job! I hope he turns it round it is possible but is it probable?

Your view is the money is available to secure the future of the club! This begs the following issues 1) Is the money really available for the club? and until a reasonable amount of the 85m or so collected to date is spent (i.e. excluding Chambers and Morgan) how can we be sure? 2) Do we really need so much money to secure the future of this club wouldn't say 30m be enough 3) Even if all the money is to be reinvested how are we able to attract the good players we need given to the outside world all at the club are looking to leave 4) If we get in new players in the last few weeks what about the risks? are they going to be good enough?, will the team gel in time? will they have the spirit to succeed? Yes it is possible we will go out and buy a new team and all will be rosy but is it likely/probable? the probability drops with every passing day and every latest sale!

So all our players and manager who were largely a loyal and committed team all suddenly overnight became mercenaries chasing money and fame and wanting out! It was already been stated that no other premier club that has stayed up has ever lost so many first team players in advance of a new season the question is why has it happened to us and who let it happen? Yes players are ambitious some even greedy however for this cancer to run so deep and so rapidly surely something inside the club is rotten too and we are seeing the symptoms only after it spread to the fruit?

Have you stopped to question why they are all suddenly not committed to us it is so easy to blame the money and CL football etc yes that has and will always influence players but what did the old board do to overcome these temptations that this one so obviously seems incapable of doing. If I was a player and had just seen a successful team I was a part of being systematically dismantled I would question what am I staying for too. This could and should have been dealt with since NC left but appears to have been left to fester to an extent that the board have a revolution to deal with amongst the playing staff that has even infected the home grown up and coming players the likes of chambers They were not rotten apples last year ! what changed? Also do you really believe all this money we are making will be reinvested?

Have they got incriminating photos of someone on our board if not isn't it finally time for someone on saints board to at last say enough is enough and FO Liverpool at least until we have got some decent replacements in! If this money is really there to be invested why the F do we need more. Also surely Jrod is the easiest one to keep as he is injured and by the time he recovers he will be able to see the new fantastic team we are assembling and buy into the boards great ambitions and will not want to go! (even if he goes then he will surely be worth more fit than injured)

Given the number of players we need to replace and the fact that usually one in two don't work out meaning we need twice as many we will have to sign 2 to 3 players a week for the rest of the transfer window just to stand still. (Rather unlikely given out of the queues of excellent players ready to join us according to Reed two months ago none have appeared as yet) Add to that the need for the players to gel as a team with no pre season and the fact we need to reinstall some sort of a spirit and ambition back in the team to get them motivated I would say the chances of success are already low and getting worse on a daily basis. Also I do not personally believe the money the club is making will be all made available to Koeman and I think he has one hell of a job on his plate and I hope he succeeds despite all the hurdles being placed in his way!

This

Are you sure that all the money will stay in the club?

Does the club have the money? lets see how much we spend! I would hazard a guess it will be less than last season irrespective of whats coming in! Also which decent player wants to join a club selling its best assets and where everyone appears to want to leave!

He was worried about the Russian sanctions!

If it was just Chambers leaving I could almost go with this! however its not is it!

This is a ridiculous assertation. Anyone wanting to change a squad would do so gradually over a season or two as most managers actually do. How is any player expected to want to join us, when it is plain to all, few of the team we built here, want to stay. The question should be why is this the case and how was it allowed to happen by those in charge (was it just incompetence or planned all the time?)

The thing that hurts most is not the individual losses, if it were one or two good players a season then so be it, but that our pride in developing and enjoying , our own team from the academy has gone and we will now be no different to many other lower league clubs making do with foreign mercenaries none of the big boys want or those wanting to use us briefly to showcase their talent and any youngsters we can showcase in between, all in an effort to stay up and keep getting the TV money. Our experiment to try and be different appears to be well and truly ended.

Do you really believe with whats going on we can finish 14th! the club has no spirit left. Koeman has one hell of a job here I guess he is being well paid for it!

So it now appears Chambers Loveren Morgan and even Jay Rod are available what happened to Reeds promises? Also with Shaw Chambers and Adam leaving what does this say to the likes of Ward Prowse, Isgrove, Targett etc other than "get into the 1st team play 20 or so matches and move on"! It appears even our plan to bring on develop and form a team with at least 5 or more academy graduates is coming to fruition much earlier and we will field a conveyer belt of young untried players hoping to attract expensive suitors as opposed to gradually developing players for our first team! Is that what Reed meant when he said we don't need to sell, have significant transfer monies and we are kicking on? Probably when he said there are many players wishing to play for us he meant our series of yet untried and inexperienced academy graduates. If not why have non of these series of great players wanting to join us appeared yet, as the only players who have joined us since his statement have been those identified by Koeman after he arrived and as such are extremely unlikely to have been on the long list of our scouting team that Reed referred to. Why would any good player join us now when it is obvious to all outsiders, all here, are trying to get away. From all I can see to date our plan appears to be not that different from that that previously failed with Lowe and his Dutch experiment. . There has never been a club in the premiership that wasn't relegated and had its settled squad devastated in terms of players leaving and wanting away to the extent ours seems to be. The board are totally responsible for what is happening at our club and cannot blame anyone else, unfortunately to date they appear to be very naïve inexperienced and have lost the plot. Is it a wonder Mopo left if he knew what this seasons plans were I am beginning to have much more respect for him if he left because he knew his team and hard work was about to be dismantled and it now makes sense when he say Spurs are a bigger club as they would never allow what seems to be happening at Saints to happen. I really hope Koeman can pull a team of foreign mercenaries and untried academy players together capable of keeping us up because surely that has to be our only target now!

Its a preseason match fairly meaning less other than to get some fitness

We had loads of players very keen to join us (Reed) We are going to kick on (Reed) We had ample transfer funds(Reed) We do not need to sell (Reed) Running out of time to prove these statements are true! six weeks to go!

Cant keep away form his boyhood heroes for long then!

Of course other clubs can buy him whilst injured as long as we are willing to sell and they price in the risk to them. i.e. he will bring in a lot less injured than he would fit. so it is not in our interest to sell unless we actually believe the risk of him recovering is low and the buying club believe it is higher and price accordingly. The medical is usually to ensure that his fitness matches the basis on which they have priced nothing less and nothing more.

Losing our team spirit and commitment as well as the rumoured signings of players such as a 29 year old journey man left back (who was an un played sub for Pompey in their relegation year) are both not conducive to a high tempo pressing game. A pressing game is dependant on having a lot of young fit highly committed players who will play for each other.