Professor

This close season is beginning to look too much like last year. The ultra loyal supporters on here (and loyalty is a great asset, but it can harm your eyesight) have been saying don't worry about the lack of signings, or missing out on players in June, they'll be announced on 1st July. Oh Yes? Don't worry about not bidding for Mackail-Smith, Saints have targetted someone better. Oh Yes? Don't worry if no one comes in as the existing squad is good enough. Oh Yes? Adkins has consistently said he wants to strengthen the team with 2 or 3 quality players yet the only signings have been existing players signing longer contracts. This sounds very much like the things Pardew was saying last year, only he didn't make any significant improvements in the close season either. The constant in this is the Chairman so could it be that Cortese is saying one thing to his managers and the fans but is doing another? If dedicated fans start to question the club's ambition you can be certain beyond doubt that any potential transfer target will do the same. To get the best out of a new player from Day 1 they need to be involved in pre-season but time for that is now very short so where is the evidence that we have any ambition for the coming year other than to play a season in the Championship?

The Complacent Few (CF) might not want to remember that it was Brighton who 'walked the League' in L1 last season, not Saints. The gap would have been even larger if Albion had not secured the title with so many games left that they didn't need to keep trying and they actually took their team away on holiday before the last games of the season while we were still looking over our shoulder at Huddersfield. Since then, Brighton have lost two good players, striker Murray and winger Bennett but have replaced both with equal if not better quality. At least one of the CF has said on here that he wouldn't have wanted Mackail-Smith for Saints as he wasn't good enough or young enough to be worth the fee (reportedly £2.5m potentially rising to £3.25m). Wouldn't want a player who recently won a full international cap, even if it was only for Scotland, and who at 27 is just reaching his best years. Fact is that CMS is two years younger than Rickie Lambert and the same age as LB (27 this month). We are told that Saints did not make a bid for Mackail-Smith, yet we are supposed to have been chasing strikers Maynard and Sharp, who didn't want to come here. In contrast, CMS says he chose Brighton over other bidders because of their ambition. But we didn't have the ambition to even bid for him! For those on here who have been saying that Brighton will struggle next year, they'd better hope that's not true, because it looks like wherever Brighton are, Saints will be below them unless some serious action is taken very soon.

Very possible, with Adkins again talking about wanting to bring players in. If a player has more than one option and the money is not massively different, the club that is showing the greater ambition is likely to be the choice. By the end of today we may have a clearer picture of SFC's ambitions. Lets hope its positive.

This sounds like the neutral sort of comment that any chairman would make when acosted in public but if Cortese is serious in taking the club into the Prem then we do need quite a few players that are better than what we already have. Its all very well to have faith in this squad to hold its own in the Championship but it takes a long stretch of the imagination to see the current first team, with no additions, being in the top 6. If there have been bids for players as reported, than surely both NC, despite his comment, and NA think the present squad needs strengthening.

Its not just left backs he hasn't signed. How many players is (sic) Adkins signed for us at all? Is it just Chaplow? But Nick gave us good advice the other day when he said don't believe rumours in the press. Still, entertaining to speculate though and if this was true I'd have to send my scepticism back to the bus station.

Dale was Not Wanted On Board in Southampton. Good luck to him but with due respect Saints are hopefully looking for a more established player in CMF.

The reason for signing new players early has already been stated in this thread: More choice of the available players before they go elsewhere and having them play in pre-season to adjust them to the team and vice versa. That doesn't mean there isn't still time, obviously there is, but points dropped in August are dropped for good as we discovered last season, so ideally, you want your strongest side available from day 1. Some people are suggesting that we don't need to strengthen and that the squad is already good enough. Whether that is true may not be apparent until after the first 3 or 4 games but it didn't seem to be Adkin's view as weeks ago he was talking about adding quality to the team. But what many fans are looking for is how activity in developing the team is an indicator of the management's intentions, by which I really mean Cortese and the Leibherr family. At the moment we don't know, and as the days pass the determination to take the club forward looks less certain. If Nick G is right and there are one or two top quality signings just waiting to happen but not until August, then fine but until we see the evidence many people will remain sceptical.

This jibe at someone else's opinion suggests there are quite a few idiotic managers in the Championship. Some of them have even been allowed out to manage the England team. As for Nick's other argument that not having signed anyone so far this year is just fine, after all we didn't sign Rickie Lambert until 10 August in 2009, but Nick might have forgotten that in 2009 we didn't have a manager until the end of July and he then moved very quickly. Rumour is we do have a manager now and maybe he's out there competing for the best players but just not getting his man.

Disapointed that I have to agree. Its not just that its close season when there will be fewer topics but the abrasive, even antagonistic, attitudes that are bound to discourage debate. Sometimes I wonder if we are all supporting the same club.

Matthew if you can't see the comparison, maybe look a little harder. All the OS had to do was acknowledge that this was an update. The press on the other hand, are hardly likley to say here is a story from yesterday's Daily Mail......

We sometimes see justified complaints about The Echo reprinting stories from other papers but the OS has outdone them by recycling its own past news about the Swiss trip. We still haven't been told if it is Interlaken again but I'm booked into my fav hotel in Unterseen, so if they are around I may see them up at Kleine Scheidegg. If not, my Swiss Pass on the trains will get me to the games anyway.

This is very well put. Howver, if signings are from English clubs there has usually been some advance indication simply because the fans network is so wide. It's where a player comes from abroad that we are less likely to hear anything until pen is put to paper. But an overseas player probably has more need for pre-season than the existing squad.

Leeds, Barnsley, Ipswich, Millwall, Leicester. If the existing first team can win 3 of those games, the Complacent Few will have some grounds for satisfaction and the rest of us will admit we worried too soon. But 6 points or less and we'll be in the bottom half of the table. Adkins wasn't amongst the Complacent Few when he talked about the need to bring in some quality, so maybe the signings are just waiting to happen, but until something is announced that makes the first choice 11 stronger most fans (excluding the CF) will rightly be questioning whether the Cortese Target is still the genuine aim.

As we don't know what the results of the first 5 games are going to be this is a rather silly post. If we win the first 5 games would there be a single fan who would want to change the manager? On the other hand, if we were to lose the first 5, even the most loyal supporters would be having doubts. Since both of those scenarios are unlikley, we shall have to wait and see just how we have done after 5 games and then the arguments can take place based on facts, not speculation. What we do know at the moment is that Adkins has said he wants to strengthen the squad with two or three players of extra quality and Cortese has set out his vision. Whether we were interested in the players that we've been linked with by rumour, who knows, but several of those do appear to be going elsewhere. To get a quality player to choose your club its not only the wages on offer that matter, as pay by other clubs may be in the same ball park, but you have to convince players that yours will be a winning team. Sven, Maclaren, Allardyce, etc, may have an advantage in profile and expectation that Saints don't have at the moment, which could make some players more expensive than they are worth to get them to choose Southampton. But if we make one quality signing, the second one might be easier. Despite Adkin's achievement last season, he doesn't yet have the profile that Alan Pardew had as a former Prem manager so unlike some of these other managers, Adkins is not an automatic draw for players who are in the market. That is not a reason to sack him, that would be ridiculous, but it does mean that more effort is needed, and probably more money, to get the players in that Adkins himself has said he needs.

Cortese's stated aim of not just getting to The Prem and being a bottom half or yo-yo club, but becoming a top 6 force raised expectations. Maybe it was never more than an aspiration because to achieve what NC said he intended would mean a transformation of the club. Whether or not there is any strengthening of the squad this close season, its looking too late for it to be transformational for the coming year.

Dear Mr Delldays, Thank you for your concern. As a Saints fan for over 50 years I am keen to see my club back in the top level and at the moment I don't see any evidence of what is being done to achieve this. It may, of course, be happening and we are just not aware. Either way, this is not 'upsetting' but it is worthy of comment and debate. There may be a school of thought that having just got to NpC you need to take it slowly, but the risk is that many years could pass while others are trying harder. Even when a club tries hard, promotion is far from guaranteed. Norwich did not sit back and take a breather, instead thay appointed an ambitious manager and signed higher quality players. As it happened, for them it worked, but for Leeds who have tried hard since they got promoted, it hasn't worked yet. If, unlike Norwich and Leeds, SFC is sitting back to 'consolidate' they will not attract the Maynards and Mackail-Smiths, who will want a winning club. Perhaps in the next week, we we see evidence of Saint's ambitions, but if not we may have to conclude that the target for 2011/12 is just to stay in the NpC, for which we probably don't need any new strikers at all.

Just a reminder that before discussion turned to whether Nigel Adkins was the perfect manager this thread was about choosing which striker of 3 suggested targets would be best for Saints. The point has simply been made that we may not have any choice if all three choose offers from other clubs with high profile managers who are more active in the transfer market. Players do not only want money, they want money plus trophies. If two NpC clubs are offering the money but one looks more ambitious and more likely to achieve promotion, thats where the player will go.

If the report today that Steve Maclaren is after Maynard for Notts Forest we can probably rule that one out. There could be a chicken and egg situation that quality players are more likely to sign for a club that is demonstrating its ambition by the status of its manager and whether it is actively making signings. Like it or not, NA does not have the status of some of the people now managing in the NpC so the first signing is important and the longer it is left the more the problem may arise that players we want may choose not to come.

The pressure on Wenger is to win a trophy now, so he needs players who can go straight into the first team. That is not AOC so it seems unlikely that Arsenal would spend a large slice of their budget on a player for the future when it is next season that is crucial to Wenger's reputation.

Just a reminder that someone thought the rejected bid of less than £3m was from Ipswich, not West Ham.

The press have obviously decided that West Ham and Sam Alladyce are news worthy (ex-Prem, London club, high-profile manager, etc) but with the activity at West Ham all being reported it does seem that Cork might not be going there or we might have expected to hear by now. Does not, of course, mean he's coming here but if he did, he'd give Hammond a run for the CMF spot.

If they are to be based in Interlaken again, why not say so?

This financial gulf between the Championship and The Prem is a huge blight on football, fed mainly by fear. We all know that clubs at the top of fear not making the Champions League and the rest fear relegation. Ultimately the system just transfers the massive TV money into a few pockets, including players, managers and agents. There's nothing fans can do about it, but its obscene all the same. It will be very interesting to see if the UEFA fair play rules have the effect they hope.

Agree about needing improvements to the team to hold our own. We have been told some signings will be made but how many and the quality is the deciding factor. If there is no improvement with at least 3 first choice players, I can see Saints being in the bottom quarter although if that happened I think the threat of relegation would result in some January signings. Hopefully it won't come to that because the team strengthening will begin soon............

If anyone wants to question why some people are complaining about the lack of signings so far - this is why; that the longer you wait the less choice you have as targets are picked off by other clubs. For Saints to be serious about competing at the top of the NpC the club needs players of the same calibre as those being signed by West Ham and others. Maybe the 5-year plan includes 2 or 3 years in the Championship