Matthew Le God

Ours is on a completely different scale, scope and specification to Stoke's. Theirs only cost £13m, compared to the eventual £40m at Staplewood.

Only a handful have spent £40m on an upgrade, like Saints are doing.

You assuming that is down to injuries... when perhaps it might be that he is playing for a very good Dortmund team and had more significant competition for his place.

Video evidence may make for uncomfortable viewing. 1 Batman, 1 cup.

Can we hold you to that?

Yep, its only to foreign clubs in January. He'd have to wait until closer to the end of his contract to speak to English clubs, but agents probably do so regardless.

Saints again linked with Dortmund's Sven Bender.... http://www.bild.de/sport/fussball/borussia-dortmund/sokratis-fuehlt-sich-ueberfluessig-41415424.bild.html

Long's fee was widely reported as £12m and Mane missed games due signing very late in the window, playing in the African Nations Cup midway through the season and also was rested on the bench after some other international dates in Africa.

Feyenoord apparently looking to sign Vejinovic as a Clasie replacement... http://www.telegraaf.nl/telesport/voetbal/feyenoord/24175894/__Feyenoord_gaat_voor_Vejinovic__.html

That is merely a rehash of the Telegraph story that this thread is based on.

I fail to see how that would influence Soares' choice of clubs as Lisbon had agreed a fee with both Saints and Stoke. So anything between Sporting and Saints concerning Rojo is irrelevant to his choice. He came to Saints because... - we have a better team with better players - Fonte's influence perhaps played a role, as would working for someone of the standing in European football of Ronald Koeman - we have Europa League football - have better facilities; bigger stadium and the £40m of upgrade at Staplewood training ground is more impressive than Stoke's training ground Its just the Stoke paper ignoring that and looking for conspiracy theories.

Juanmi was reported in many media sources as meeting his €7m (£5m) min fee release clause and Sporting CF say the Cedric Soares deal is "up to €6.5m (£4.7m)".

Maybe I was listening to the Portuguese version of Dave Merrington.

Why isn't it? He said he would like us to sign "promising players from the Championship" and I said that players from the Championship cost a fortune in comparison to two Spanish and Portuguese internationals from continental clubs. That seems pretty relevant to me.

If a Spanish 22 year old or a Portuguese 23 year old only with a few caps were at another Premier League side, I doubt we could sign them for £5m and £4.7m respectively. A decent season for a player in the Championship and clubs start putting £10m+ valuations on them!

Thats not how I've heard Portuguese commentators pronounce it.

I get the impression the club like to announce things so it can break at a good time on SSN to get maximum exposure, circa 5pm to 7pm. They'll probably do it at 2:30pm now!

I had this thread open for a while and only saw Saint_clark's reply once I hit post.

Alderweireld is an A.Madrid player, Luis is a Chelsea player; any swap deal wouldn't involve Southampton other than A.Madrid paying the clause in the loan deal. What does Bertrand have to do with it?

You can't expect Saints to sell them and replace them straight away with starters from the academy, the bar to reach our first XI is very high now. The squad is packed with internationals for youngsters to compete with for a place in the starting XI. Despite that, last season they gave Premier League debuts to... Matthew Targett Jake Hesketh Dominic Gape Jason McCarthy Ryan Seager Plus... James Ward-Prowse Harrision Reed Sam Gallagher ...have all played for the first team. How many other Premier League clubs do that towards the top of the league? We still have Bertrand & Forster, plus Rodriguez is now back for next season... as the football cliche goes... he'll be like a new signing.

Villa are reported to be paying him £65,000 p/w, matching his Man City wages. He also apparently turned down £90,000 p/w from Sunderland! http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/transfer-news/aston-villa-agree-micah-richards-5866880 Plus as a free agent he'd be asking for a huge signing/agent fee.

Perhaps Saints would make Liverpool dropping out of the race for Gomez a condition of any deal for Clyne? Would then leave Saints with two right backs in their squad... Cedric Soares as first choice and Joe Gomez as his understudy.

I don't think Saints have revealed the value of any transfer under Liebherr ownership.