Professor

Some of the fantasy used to try to justify what the Kruguer and Reed have done are ingenious, but they are just that - fantasy. The suggestion that the Board had to sell players or couldn't stop a player leaving when he said he wanted to go doesn't match the evidence: 1. The Board stated that no players needed to be sold that the manager wanted to keep - so was that true or was it not? 2.If a player could not be kept to his contract after saying he wanted to go, how could the club 'negotiate' a large fee? To negotiate a fee must mean the club had the option of refusing to sell, otherwise the buying club would have offered less, or even very little. The large fees indicate that money was the deciding factor. 3. For the Chairman to state that Schneiderlin will not be sold, shows this position has always been available and could have been taken with any of the other 5 sales. 4. Despite saying money from player sales will be used on the team, there is minimal evidence of this, with only two players bought and the third a loan. Whether Kruguer will keep his word over Schneiderlin remains to be seen and if he does it may well be because he is trying to hang on to whatever credibility he thinks he still has rather than the need to stop the sales after 5 have already bolted. Ironically, keeping Morgan may not be so important now, since the cohesion of the settled side has already been destroyed leaving rebuilding as the only option. Of course, Morgan could be part of the rebuild but with new players all around him, that isn't as key as it was before the team was pulled apart, the proviso being that his replacement would need to be of similar quality. I'm sure fans would like him to stay, but then fans wanted all the others to stay as well, with the club adding to squad as promised. That promise has not been kept so it is logical to be sceptical as to whether the Morgan/Jay promise will be kept either. Loyalty to the club, does not require loyalty to a board that is open to charges of incompetence and dishonest public statements. If they do now spend the balance of the £90m, and something of the so called £30m transfer budget that had already been talked about before any players left, they could rebut those charges, but they have very little time to do so and a huge confidence gap to overcome.

Hassocks has clearly gone down hill since I went to school there. In my day we had much better things to do than waste time with this sort of thing. I would recommend getting a life or at least going for a pint at The Greyhound.

It does seem that the fans who have reacted against the board have had some effect. Obviously, Kruguer and Reed will not admit to a change of direction and will claim that they have done everything right from Day One; that deciding to sell half the team was in the club's best interests. But those who believed them and even defended them, can't take any credit if that plan has changed. Fans demanding refunds, and probably failing to sell 800 tickets for tonight's game at Brighton, may have had an effect which blind loyalty can never have.

Good move these loans because if we are relegated they will leave and not be a burden on the wage bill in the Championship. IN the meantime the £90m war chest is preserved to use in other ways, such as paying a bonus to our brilliant board members and a dividend to the club owner.

FFP is anything but fair play. It simply means that the wealthy clubs can use their financial muscle to create more off-the-field income and spend it on players. Some of it is fictitious income such as selling player's advertising values or the naming rights for a stadium, to subsidiary companies of the owners for inflated fees. A wage cap, a transfer limit and other regulations could make the game fair but too many vested interests will resist that as hard as possible.

You have to wonder how marketable the game will be when its just the same six teams playing each other week in and week out. But at the moment the grounds are full and Sky gets so many viewers that they can dump millions into the trough for the snouts to gobble up. Can't see any prospect of things changing until genuine football fans wake up to the fact they are being taken for a ride.

Just trying to be helpful - - here's a template the club could use over the next few weeks:- Statement – (fill in name of player) moves to (Fill in name of club) Despite the club’s determination to keep all its successful players, (Fill in name of player) has made it clear that he no longer wishes to play for Southampton FC and that he sees his future elsewhere. The club is not prepared to keep players who do not want to be here and do not share our vision for the future, therefore terms for transfer have been agreed which are extremely advantageous to Southampton. Ralph Kruguer, our inspirational chairman and Les Reed our incomparable Executive Director, will continue to work tirelessly to take the club forward and are committed to acting with the interest of the club paramount, as demonstrated by this courageous decision. Much as we would have liked (Fill in name of player) to stay, we wish him well in his future career.

A good example of English irony - that it is possible to think that the previous five sales should have been refused while also thinking it is wrong to refuse the 6th. That is entirely logical, because an invisible threshold has been passed. The team has now been so decimated that hanging on the last one or two will make no difference. Morgan was a key cog in the wheel but with three of the back four having been sold, keeping the existing DM no longer makes much difference. You might as well now sell the lot and start again, but those responsible for this destruction should not be welcome in Southampton.

Taking money for season tickets while you are telling the fans that no players will be sold who the manager wants to keep, when you have actually sold one and promised to sell others already amounted to taking money on false pretences even before going on to sell two more, all of whom were contracted to club for long periods. If I'd bought an ST this year, I'd have been in the queue phoning to demand my money back. As it is, I bought a ticket from them for the Brighton game this week and I now have no intention of using it. I will be sending it back and asking for a refund, just to make a point. Sussexsaint said he thinks Morgan should have spoken to the club before expressing his frustration on Twitter. Maybe, but shouldn't Kruguer have spoken to Morgan before using his name on Sky? I suspect most of us liked what Kruguer said until we found out he hadn't cleared it with the players concerned. Its no good Kruguer going into PR mode, if what he says has no substance and promises aren't delivered. Kruguer must overrate himself because he comes out to do these interviews because he thinks he will be more persuasive than Les Reed but the last time he did this his words proved to be hollow and he promptly went into hiding for about 6 weeks. I can see him leaving the boardroom at the next meeting with the words "I'm just going outside and I may be some time."

This is right. Deschamps, the France Manager commented when bringing Schneiderlin into the squad that he doesn't play for one of the prominent teams. Playing for a relegation candidate side would be even worse. If Morgan was not properly consulted before Rambling Ralph spoke on Sky, it is likely that bridges are irretrievably incinerated

Of course, if Everton sell half their first team, then Barkley might change his mind, but surely no team in the top half of the Prem would do that........

Rather silly comment because if Barkley was likely to leave in 12 months he wouldn't have signed a new contract with Everton. Remarks like this, intended to suggest that our board couldn't have stopped the player exodus are frankly puerile.

Of course a club doesn't have to sell a contracted player just because the player wants to leave. If that was the case, transfer fees would be much lower as the selling club would have no negotiating position. But Kruguer and Reed decided to sell anyone who asked to go as long as they could get an acceptable fee. Saying No now, after having said, Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes, is simply unsustainable. The assumption many who heard Kruguer on Sky must have made, was that the club had held discussions with Morgan and Jay to have their agreement to what would be said about them, but once again Kruguer shows utter incompetence. As Fitzhugh Fella said, the time to take a stand was when this started. That stand should have been accompanied by signing players, which fans were told they would. That would have shown everyone, including the squad, that the club were serious about going forward. All Kruguer is trying to do so now is to bolt the door after most of the horses have gone and its too late. The only sensible way forward now is to let any players go who want to go provided proper prices are still attainable, and every penny should be spent very quickly on assembling a new team. If Kruguer and Reed have a shred of decency, they will resign immediately after the transfer window closes.

If someone was hitting berkshiresaint on the head with a hammer and only stopped when passers-by protested, he would thank his assailant and apologise for having misjudged him. This warrants a prize for the most foolish thread yet.

Great plan Ralph. We will sell 5 players, including 3 of the back four and then rebuild the team around those that remain, giving the manager maybe a week before the first match, to assimilate the new players into the side, and if that doesn't work out what he hell?, we've got until 1st September. Main thing is to keep your eyes on the puck.

Spot on. To your list can be added Man City and Chelsea but beyond those 6 clubs the rest are just cannon fodder. The system is designed to keep the wealthy clubs at the top and only rarely will televised games be between two of the cannon fodder so that most of the TV money goes to the chosen 6. At the same time, there are pages of newsprint in the redtops, devoted to these clubs and when the rest get a mention it's usually just a scrappy combined paragraph. All of this is designed to keep the body of football followers focused just on the teams where the money is. Everton have been the nearest to breaking into the glamour group but even they had their manager poached and at least one international player.

As I have suggested before, you can always justify selling any one player, but what you can't justify is selling half the team. This should have been snipped in the bud -p which was the sale of Lambert while we had no manager and contrary to the stated club policy.

You can't say no one has deliberately lied. Its is a matter of record that statements were made that were untrue. Whether or not that was deliberate is open to conjecture. You can have your opinion, but others can have theirs and are just as likely to be right.

Its good news like the man who has his car stolen and then says, that's lucky, they've found the luggage that was in the boot. But you've still had your car stolen. If this is true, it confirms that the other approaches for players could also have been turned down. I wonder if its not just Kruguer's credibility but that Morgan would have been the straw that broke the camel's back - in this case, that Koeman might have given him an ultimatum. To all the head in the sand optimists who have been saying that the board have only done what they had to do, this shows that protests by the fans over mismanagement can have an effect. Unfortunately, even if 3 signings are made we are still only back to evens on numbers and with three of the back four gone, no certainty as to whether the replacements will be as good, which is still short of the promise to strengthen the squad that was made by Kruguer and Reed. This won't get me to use my ticket to go to Brighton just to watch the reserves.

Sorry David, but that's a rather arrogant thing to say. That in effect your own opinions are accurate but alternative views, however many of them there are, are invalid and can only be due to 'brainwashing'. And BTW, I was also supporting Saints in 1959 as they came out of the 3rd South, and in all those years, even the Branfoot era and the latter years of Lowe and Wilde, I do not recall any occasion when the playing staff have been decimated as they have been now. Selling one or two players if the club needs the money is one thing but selling almost a whole first team is beyond belief. If you are honest, and I'm sure you are, you will admit that you would not have believed this if it had been predicted to you on 11th May.

Any player who is told by his agent that another club will double his wages would be interested and might ask if he can go. But his employing club can simply say 'NO' not while you are contracted to us. That answer can be put politely and positively but however explained, it still amounts to the same thing. The player can then consider refusing to co-operate with his club unless they allow him to leave, to which the response can be disciplinary action. A player not performing on the pitch or out of the team will lose opportunities for international call-ups and will soon not be a target for any other clubs either. The potential damage to a player's career should focus his mind on seeing out his contract.

Last time I went to Liverpool it was to see Saints beat Everton. I certainly won't be going to this game to watch the reserves get a good hiding.

Players are only paid in accordance with their contracts. If the contracts are so generous, it hasn't prevented nearly the whole team walking out. Hearsay isn't the best base on which to make a judgement.

The Daily Mash was fun but returning to the serious stuff, hope and wishful thinking is no substitute for evidence. We have a Board that has presided over the unprecedented dismantling of a top half premier league team while making public statements through the Chairman of the Board and the Director of Football that have proved to be so inaccurate that (1) the honesty of the statements when they were made has been challenged, and (2) the competence of the club management to carry out its stated intentions is in doubt. If that has caused major upset amongst the club's fans it should be no surprise that it has done the same amongst the players. The scale of the crisis might prompt the Board to change its approach but if the sales continue as rumoured, it may be too late to recover, in fact it may already be too late. The panic action will presumably be to buy in some replacements but as we've seen before (Ramirez and Osvaldo) even international players bought for club record fees is no guarantee of performance. Buying some players might keep the attendance up at the first home game but if the club is in the relegation zone by September they might struggle to get decent attendances after that.

Back in May, Reed explained that the club's large scouting network had identified a list of quality players who wanted to come here. Not a single player on that list has in fact joined with the only two incomers being the two introduced by Koeman. If, when Koeman was told that Lambert, Lallana and Shaw were leaving he told Reed that Pelle and Tudic could be the replacements, it would have been very difficult for Reed to turn that down as Koeman might not have taken the job if his first ideas on rebuilding were rejected. Reed has now said that the club is targeting players and hopes to conclude some transfers. Koeman will know who those are and he must have given Reed a view as to whether those names are likely to provide what is needed but whether it will happen is another thing altogether. Reed has said we must be patient, and he does have 5 weeks to complete those transfers, but by then we could be bottom of the table. If we also have a disillusioned manager by then, there could easily be another vacancy.