Saint Charlie

Of course. I guess as a player after a really bad injury though you want a pitch where you are sure of your footing for the first game back. Although sure also he will be gagging to play! I think he will.

@JFBLucas: Absolute mudbath here in Bischofshofen. Should be an interesting one! #saintsfc Not ideal (obviously can't be helped). Wonder if they would risk Jay if the pitch is ****?

Looks an ok squad CB but he isn't good enough as a first choice if we want to retain our position. The Romanian Journalist who first mentioned the deal last summer said then that he was decent but not quite as good as Chiriches, and he has been a flop at Spurs so Gardos just playing to the level that he is IMO.

It is a problem. People can pretend all they like, but we put so much pressure on our new signings to perform immediately because we always have to replace key team members. Its great we have good enough players for it to be a problem, and there is possibly no solution. But it is an issue.

I'm not convinced we were ever in for him tbh. All Agent talk to force the price up for others. If we reslly wanted him we had a year to setup the deal. The press pretty much all had him coming here, so imagine we have other, more CL quality targets from our scouting setup.

Which would be pretty poor from a Club that presents itself as extremely professional and has had a year to study the specifics. If true or near true of course. Hopefully he just chose them over us, that way none of the clause stuff even matters.

To lose out on your top target because you havent agreed a fee despite the price being seemingly affordable will certainly be a massive blow to Koeman and the Club. But at least it hasnt dragged on into the season. Plenty of time to get a replacement before then.

@svenclaes: For those people who still doubt me: official announcement Toby Alderweireld will be in a few hours. No need to refresh @SpursOfficial.

Again...if Reed and Wilson feel they did everything they could to sign him since the end of the season then fine, nothing more we could have done. If Toby chose Spurs over Saints then fine, nothing more we could have done. But...if we didnt ever actually get to the stage of giving him the choice through never actually agreeing a deal with AM then thats disappointing, especially at the relatively bargain fee they are paying, the fact we had a year to plan our strategy, and that at least a month or so ago the player was happy to sign here. I would say that is a very fair summary and the legal action threat shows that in some way or other the whole thing certainly wasn't within our control.

They showed (by agreeing a price) that they really wanted me etc.

If they thought he was our player whilst Levy and Atletico were talking then its a little naïve IMO. At that point he hadn't signed a contract with Saints, hadnt been registered as our player so he wasn't our player. If the legal action leak was a stalling tactic maybe it has done the trick, but it massively smacked of desperation and somehow a situation we had control over switched around to where we are playing catchup to the extent we had to publically leak info about the deal - which is not the Southampton Way and was a big indication all was not well. We would have actually been better off had there been no option I think, it seems to have been the root of the problem. If the talk of us bidding 14m today is true then our situation is even more bizarre and seemingly lacking a good plan.

Its amusement, clearly!

I'm just confused as to what Saints were thinking/doing when it was common knowledge that Levy was going out to Spain to do the deal? Maybe they didn't believe it, but from the outside it does look like we just watched it happen, and three or four days after they had a fee agreed we still haven't - we were meant to be the frontrunners and had a year to plan our approach!

Palace apparently going for a strategy of adding 3 class players this window rather than building a big squad like WBA seem to want to. Good idea IMO and similar to what we did with Lovren, Osvaldo and Wanyama. Whilst one out of three didnt work, its better than signing lots of average players like James McClean.

Have liked the look of Will Wood from the U21s. Interesting to see how he does.

Again all fair enough. Its a cut-throat business, just in the same way we gazumped Stoke for Cedric, and always the risk with a quality loan player. As I said, as long as Reed et al have their heads held high in the knowledge they did everything they could then fair enough, you can't force anyone to sign.

Very true, but why have Spurs even become a factor. Atleti didnt want the player, so could it not have been done a lot sooner? They would have accepted the right offer I would imagine a month ago. I'm sure there are talks, but they don't get you a player. For some reason Spurs seem to have found it relatively easy to deal with them, possibly because they paid what he is worth without too much hassle whereas we waited until the clause expired maybe. Who knows?

Good point.

I know, some good sources saying its not done, I just mean the sheer volume of outlets in different countries saying it is very close suggest there has to be truth in it. Key questions for me (although will probably never know): 1. Why did SFC choose to leak the legal action stuff when they did? 2. Were Saints almost being too clever hiding behind the clause? 3. Had Reed been out to Madrid to try and do the deal before Levy went? Surely we should have been trying to get a deal done the minute the season ended? Toby said he wanted to stay and AM didnt want him and needed the cash. If they didnt want to do a deal at the 6.8m fee did we offer them more to get it done then?* Just has a feeling of being gazumped a bit, which given our position and the importance of the player, does suprise me. We are the ones scrambling around, which isn't like us. * hopefully we did, not saying we didn't - just putting it out there.

I saw a pic of him yesterday I think. He was injured, torn muscle I think but was back in training end of the season. I reckon we have just told him he isn't in our plans. Be interesting to see if Ramirez gets many minutes in pre season. Also there is going to be a Sharp/De Ridder/Isgrove this season who looks great pre season then can't transfer that into proper matches. I wonder who?

Loads of sources have said he has had a medical. Hard to know for sure but would be almost all media sources being wrong. Could be the case of course, but if the situation were reversed, we as Saints fans would be very confident of signing the player when virtually all sources report it as imminent. Its an odd situation allround, but too much noise to say its still 50/50 I think.

Couldn't see a thread on this. http://www.saintsfc.co.uk/news/article/20150707-southampton-arrive-in-austria-2532018.aspx First match tomorrow for the players who have trained since last week. No huge suprises in the squad but no Mayuka so he must be close to an exit (wouldnt suprise me if his contract was cancelled like Osvaldo). Gaston has gone, but not sure it means much. Also good to see which of the U21s are there but basically its all of them that are fit! Personal opinion: when you see the whole squad listed, there looks to be lots of attacking options, but it gets weaker the further back you move.

If he signs for them because he wanted to then fair play. I hope Reed et al can hold their heads high and feel they did everything possible to wrap up the deal between the end of the season and now. If so then fine. We knew how valuable he was to us, so expect we have made multiple bids from as soon as the season ended, as it was clear for a few months that AM were not going to sell for the (ludicrously low) clause amount. Assuming we did that, then there was nothing more we could, so we should admit it is a big blow, and then move on.

Rubbish. It was the same reaction when our move for Liam Fontaine collapsed.

Atletico maybe think they don't need to pay the clause because Toby doesn't want to come here, so there would never have been a transfer to Saints regardless.