trousers

Alps - would you be up for all of us clubbing together to buy you a season ticket (inclusive of return flights and accommodation)? You always go into rational posting mode for a short while after attending games during pre-season and its all rather pleasant

This

How is encouraging players to grow curly hair going to help matters?

Checking for over reactions on the Saints Web Forum I would guess

Keep your voice down. We don't want the meltdown brigade on here realising we may have bought another gem for a third of the price we sold the player they replaced...

The stated aim of the club is to "breed success, not buy success", either via the academy or bringing on young players from elsewhere.

Any idea if that was in reaction to AM coming back to us to invite us to beat Spurs's offers each time or did AM keep us completely out of the bidding loop? Cheers

Jrod 2nd half then I guess? subs: K. Davis (GK), Cédric, Gardos, Wood, McQueen, Little, Seager, Hesketh, Rodriguez.

Anyone know if Spurs are looking for an U18s coach? #justwondering

Quite an interesting week all in all then....

I'm very confident that I'll get home this evening. Something may happen to prevent that but I'm still confident it'll happen. (a.k.a. Trousers Weak Analogy Tactic (T.W.A.T.))

So, to summarise, Toby has lied to the club (and by extension the fans) about his intentions? I still don't get why AM were seemingly happy to tie up the deal at Spurs' opening bid price when they knew they could likely get significantly more by creating a competitive bidding situation. Seems bizarre from a business perspective.

[vine]enI3Wn2JFhO[/vine]

Southampton FC ‏@SouthamptonFC At 1pm on Wednesday 8th July 2009, Markus Liebherr completed his takeover of #SaintsFC. Six years later, #WeMarchOn.

Southampton FC ‏@SouthamptonFC Quick update: tonight's game against @DieRotenBullen will now kick off at 5pm BST – one hour earlier than previously announced. #saintsfc

That assumes that the contract contained provision for us to exercise our 'right to buy' BEFORE Madrid paid the reported £1.5m buy-out sum. The prevailing opinion seems to be that we *couldn't* pay the 8 million eruros until either Madrid declared that they didn't want to exercise their buy-out option OR the buy-out deadline passed. It would seem that Saints thought they had a watertight contract whereas AM seem to either have a different interpretation or are happy for Saints to take legal action if we 'dare'.

One word of advice if I may. Probably best to precede such posts with a #pragmatism klaxon# as some people might self-combust before they get to the end

Because, until AM paid the £1.5m we knew that we could get him for £6.9m (according to the contract). We also knew that we had time to table a higher amount if/when AM paid the £1.5m. What we didn't know is that AM had decided (for whatever reason) that they were going to string us along by not paying the £1.5m until a deal had been struck with Spurs. We'll never know what AM's reaction would have been if we'd offered them, say, £12m at the end of last season. Maybe they'd have turned it down because they had been speaking to Spurs in the background for months already and, for whatever reason, they never intended selling Toby to us, regardless of the price. One thing is for sure, we'd have had people on here saying we blinked too soon if we ended up getting him for £12m when we had a seemingly watertight contract that said we could buy him for £6.9m if AM didn't pay £1.5m by a certain deadline. Were Saints naive? Possibly, but with a large dose of hindsight thrown in for good measure. IMO of course.

All sounds very plausible to me. Cheers for posting sir

Reading between the lines, the "legal action thing" appears to have been a last roll of the dice, a long time after Spurs made their offer to AM. If that chronology is correct, then us playing the "legal action" card wasn't a game changer as it would appear AM had already decided BEFORE that stage how it was going to pan out. The most unclear thing in all this is why AM seemed happy to go with the Spurs offer without coming back to us to see if we'd exceed Spurs' offer (i.e. why didn't they see an opportunity to get more money out of the deal, as any good business would?). Toby stating to AM that he wanted Spurs and not Saints would seem the most plausible explanation.

Adam Blackmore ‏@bigadamsport Ultimately it came down to Alderweireld choosing Spurs over #saintsfc - unclear yet as to whether Saints will pursue compensation

Probable / possible explanation here: http://www.saintsweb.co.uk/showthread.php?53653-Toby&p=2211332#post2211332