Professor

I am genuinely sick of the way football is being run and the snouts in the money trough, so like few others I feel like giving up on football altogether. As far as our club is concerned, of course, players come and go but to follow a club there needs to be some continuity over the years. This sale of virtually the whole team is unprecedented and worse still it has been done voluntarily by a management that has consistently misled the fans throughout, even down to Les Reed's last statement. I won't wash my hands of the club I've supported for over 50 years but as long as these people are in charge, I won't give a penny of my money to them and I won't actually care about the results next season, in fact I will probably be glad if they are relegated as the best way of getting rid of Reed and Kruguer, and hopefully the Leibherr woman as well. I feel sure that Koeman has been misled and will be surprised if he sees the season out.

Why should they care, but it's not down to them. The sales have been agreed by our own Board, advised by Les Reed. What is left is not the Saints any more.

This brings the total of sales to 7. What's wrong with Davis, Boruk, Fonte and JWP? Aren't they good enough to sell?

The illness excuse for the Bournemouth game last week was a blatant lie. Reed should not be the slightest surprised that fans are not staying calm when they are being treated with utter contempt. Of course Chambers wanted to leave, because with all the other players going he could see very well that the club has no ambition and that the immediate future is a relegation struggle. This is going to make it much harder for players to agree to come here and you must wonder what Koeman, Pelle and Tadic think about what has happened. I suppose the happy clappers will be telling us to wait until 1st September and then if the kids who are thrown to the Lions can't cut it in the Prem, not to worry because there's always the January window.....

Reed and co still need to sell one more before they can be accused of selling half the team. But very pleased I'm not using my ticket for Brighton on Thursday as I don't wish to see Saints' reserves masquerading as the first team, or to see future players of Liverpool, Arsenal etc., turning out in Southampton shirts

So Les Reed is very disappointed that Chambers has gone to Arsenal. What could he have possibly done to avoid the disappointment......

Any club that targets lower half Prem is a potential relegation candidate. West Ham finished 13th last season but were only 7 points above relegated Norwich. Norwich spent much of the season in the second half of the table above the relegation places, but took the drop.

This is very persuasive. The Board did nothing for two weeks at the end of the season while Pochettino was agreeing his terms with Tottenham. They then told us that they were 'hoping' he might stay, as if there was ever any prospect of that, or if by then it would have been in the interests of the club to keep him. They had the option of sacking him for disloyalty, but would have had to pay him his £2m so it looks like they were putting money ahead of the interests of the team at a time when they were getting £80m from the Prem League anyway.

Hard to make a firm prediction while we still don't know if the unlikely will happen and several quality players will be recruited but even if they are, it looks like we will be in the bottom three before the transfer window closes. Based on the situation as it is now, I predict relegation and the resignation of Koeman before the season is out, citing lack of support from the board. If that support starts turning up in the next 2 weeks, things could change but its hard to be optimistic. If we haven't made a significant signing by Thursday, I won't be using my ticket for the Brighton friendly and it looks like I might be saving some money by not bothering to go to the SMS this season. As a fan who loves this club, withdrawing my attendance whilst the management is acting unacceptably, is about all one individual can do.

You can make an excuse for selling any one individual player but you cannot excuse selling half the first team. Even Unbelievable Jeff and NickG combined would struggle to write a statement that had any conviction. Add to that the dishonesty of the previous interviews by Kruguer and Reed and its hardly surprising that the club is losing the confidence of its fans. So a couple of players might be signed and fans should see that as OK? Well, so far its 4, soon to be 5, out and 2 in, both of whom came because of links with the new manager. Reed's promises about players clamouring to be here was empty rhetoric as none have turned up. Some posters have said there will be a statement when we sign a player - of course there will, as any new signing has to be announced, even if it is a 15yr old goalkeeper from Torquay. What is pointless, is a statement of excuses from the club for allowing the team to be dismantled. Pointless because there is no excuse. When it was clear Pochettino was going the club could have acted immediately by putting a block on any player sales and announcing that to the public and the football world. They could also have also have identified specific targets to strengthen the squad, for example, a GK and a CB, and had those names ready for the new manager on his appointment. But instead, cashing in the assets has been the priority. As fans, we might as well write-off this season and possibly the next year or so until the club has new management, and preferably, new ownership.

JohnB, in answer to your question: 1. When you sign a player you negotiate a length of contract, for example in Lovren's case, 4 years from 2013-2017; 2. When a club makes an offer for a player you don't want to sell, you say 'not for sale' (you don't say 'not enough money'); 3. When the player says he wants to go because he can get more money somewhere else you suggest he looks at his contract and that he comes back to you when it has less than a year to run; 4. If the player then makes threats about not turning up for training, or not playing to his best, you tell him he may suffer financial sanctions and that he may be dropped from the first team squad, pointing out that after a few months his career will have been damaged by his own actions. There are plenty of examples of clubs retaining players who want to leave so it is case of how it is handled.

It appears that the first mistake was the biggest, the selling of Rickie Lambert while he still had years on his contract, and doing so contrary to the publicly stated policy of the club while there was no manager in place. That decision signalled that if offers came in, other players would be allowed to break their contracts as well and we now know that Lallana and Shaw were given the same promise that Lambert had. The second mistake was failing to be honest with the fans by making statements that were untrue. That created a loss of confidence in the Board which has got close to crisis proportions. Unrest amongst the fans is also likely to have an adverse effect on the players. True, there are fans on here who remain optimistic and who still trust the Board but the sceptics need to see some action in order to change their minds. We all love this club, but even the most loyal fans must have some doubts about the judgement of the people currently in charge.

Duplicate post

Sorry WC, but you make Les sound almost schizophrenic. Wasn't there a Sci-Fi story of someone who had no control over his hand, which did things he didn't want it to? If it wasn't Les Reed, as Director of Football, who approved the sale of players could it be that his right hand signed the papers against his will? As I said, I don't know what he has done, but if he isn't responsible for shepherding half the team out of the door, who is?

Really not a good idea to compare us to Liverpool. They have reluctantly sold one player on disciplinary grounds, as we have had to lose Osvaldo but otherwise Liverpool are buying quality internationals whereas we appear to be in the process of selling virtually all of our stars. Anyone claiming not to see that Liverpool's strategy is aimed at staying in contention for the Championship, while ours indicates a downward past, really isn't being honest with themselves. Things could change if the £30m transfer fund and all of the money from player sales is reinvested in the team but as each day passes that looks less likely. Replacements must surely be brought in but with only very limited rumours of who the club are looking at the idea that we might end up stronger, as Liverpool are, is fantasy..

After the video of Kruguer's disastrous interview, Les Reed did all he could to repair the situation by the interview he gave in which he told fans everything they wanted to hear. The trouble is that much of what he said wasn't true. Whatever else Reed has done in his time here he has to take responsibility for what he said and what he has done since. There is a crisis of confidence caused by allowing player after player to break their contracts, so if that isn't down to Reed, who is responsible?

Rose tinted spectacles are one thing but refusing to see the evidence when its in front of you is quite another. To say that things aren't bad because something good might happen later is just self-delusion. If something better happens to offset the bad, then by all means readjust your assessment but until then fans are right to react to what they see. Its also possible that adverse reactions by fans might have an effect on the decisions being made within the club, which so far have been contrary to their public statements. You only have to compare our depleted squad with the other squads in the Prem, including even the promoted sides, to see that finishing 7th is a fantasy, even if a few players are purchased to fill the gaps. The big question is whether Koeman has been misled because he is too good a football professional to stay around if he has been.

When did we sign Rojo? Last I heard we had only signed Pelle and Tadic, Oh! and Neal Osborn. In the meantime, as well as the three that have gone, Lovren and Chambers are virtually out of the door while Schneiderlin, Rodrigues and Fonte appear to be waiting near the exit. Even if we did end up with a total of 7 new players, which manji implies, we could still have lost more than had come in and how on earth do you get a team to perform if it is cobbled together in a rush after the season has begun with players who have had no pre-season and don't know each other? But it isn't going to happen anyway. 4 or 5 new signings on top of the two made is just about inconceivable in the current situation.

Not the language I would use, but I agree with the sentiment. Batman's quotes from Les Reed's video look accurate to me and I struggle to find one that is true. For Matthew Le God to say he couldn't understand the point looks disingenuous. The only consistency from Reed and the club is that they say one thing and do something else and unfortunately, despite Koeman's apparent frankness, he risks getting caught up in it. We shall see what transpires over Chambers and Lovren but for the OS to say they weren't at Bournemouth because they were 'ill' makes me feel ill as well. If Chambers did pass a medical at Arsenal on Thursday, how come he was ill on Friday. Unless the club take some urgent action to deal with the crisis amongst fans ( a few with their heads in the sand excepted of course), there are going to be some empty spaces in the ground this season.

By 1st September we may already be bottom of the league with 1 point if we are lucky. Points dropped in August can never be recovered and by 1st September its too late to do anything about it.

You don't need to pay any more than the player has already accepted when he signed his contract. If he wants to leave for more money elsewhere when the contract ends, so be it, and if the club want to sell him when there is only a year left, fine, but letting the whole team know that contracts can be torn up is bordering on stupidity.

Pochettino said that he thought so. At the end of 2012/13, he predicted competing for a top four place in 2013/14 and for a time the team were up there, even with the unexpected failure of our most expensive signing, Osvaldo. Pochettino may not be in our good books any more but he was no fool. More likely he could see that the ambition of the club left when Cortese left. To imply that it wasn't possible is more foolish when you consider that we had a team packed full of multi-million pound players, some of whom had cost nothing. The dismantling being undertaken is unforgiveable and is by choice because players can be held to contracts and counselled on why breaking a contract can seriously damage their career.

It would be more convincing it was true but the money for the departed players hasn't been spent on new players, only some of it, in fact less than half of it. As the sale of players goes on, that gap will get wider and wider. The selling of half a team is unprecedented and it certainly marks the end of any ambition to have a team competing for a European place with 50% home grown players. Instead the team has become nothing more than a shop window. Koeman seems to be as helpless as the rest of us and will simply do the best he can with what he's given but in the end most football matches are won by the teams with the better players, and that is no longer Southampton because our better players will be playing elsewhere. I do wonder how all of the dissatisfaction amongst the fans will be reflected in attendances this season. If gates drop I wonder if Kruguer and Reed will even care because the money from player sales will still be in the bank, or back with Katherina Leibherr as the return on her 'investment'. 'Angry' just isn't a strong enough word for how I feel about it and I have never felt like this about my club in over 50 years, not even when Ian Branfoot was here.

Whilst it is conceivable that there could be an offer that was just to big to refuse, that doesn't mean you should announce that to the world. Many other clubs do just what Badger has said that our management should do - just say "not for sale and don't bother coming back with a higher bid because the answer will be the same". If you suggest at what figure you would deal you simply encourage the other parties.

If Chambers is going there would be no purpose in Koeman playing him tonight but whether or not this rumour is true, Clyne is our first choice at RB so Chambers wouldn't be a major loss as long as the fee is used to strengthen the team.