Saint Charlie

I think its fine to be a stepping stone club, but you have to manage departures better. You cannot sell the number of good players we have without a detrimental effect. Im not paid to run the club and Im sure its difficult, but tell some of them they could go next year, or in January if needed. Its not selling the players thats the concern, its selling them all over the same summer that is mental. Koeman IMO has the hardest PL job. Good luck to him and a mid table finish would be a top effort.

Good summary and probably right. Also they will big up the chance to learn off Ferdinand. Redknapp is persuasive unfortunately. He would be a decent buy at that price, has PL experience that we lack a little and also improves the English quota again.

Great opportunity for those players to play in the PL shopwindow. Plus big pay increase.

Our best players are being sold. Probably five. But its ok.

Worth a thread of its own to avoid the bedwetters who have hijacked the transfer thread. http://www1.skysports.com/football/news/11704/9388836 Be a shame if we are beaten to a player we want by a promoted side but their bid has been on the table ages and they havent done it yet.

You are spot on. In other news, looks like we have hit the release clause in Caulker's deal but he is probably going to QPR. http://www1.skysports.com/football/news/11704/9388836 Be a shame if we really want him and are beaten by a newly promoted side.

Sorry but we have lost Lambert, Lallana and Lovren plus Shaw. I would say thats the spine of the team. And thats without mentioning Morgan. I know its fashionable to call people trolls etc, but do people seriously not realise this? When you mention Chelsea they have lost those players through choice and replaced with better ie Fabregas, Costa etc. So that argument is pretty poor.

Simple reasoning: 1. We have sold our three England World Cup players, will sell Lovren shortly and possibly more. Spurs or Villa havent done that. Nobody else has sold the spine of their team. 2. So far we have brought in two players and lost 3 nearly four. 3. We havent addressed, so far, ANY of the areas that we were weak in last season. In conclusion, so far we are weaker than we were at the start of the window and therefore so far are having the worst window because that possibly only also applies to Swansea. Not rocket science. Can anyone name a team with a worse window so far and be serious in saying its been worse than ours?

We are unquestionably so far having the worst window of any PL team, by quite some way.

Core are basically the ones we have sold plus Schneiderlin who we still may sell and Jay Rod. The actions really don't match the quotes.

Exactly.If you were Vlaar, why would you leave Villa for Saints? Surely from an outside player point of view it looks a mess. Look at our squad in Belgium. You can almost count on one hand the number of proven, decent PL players.

End of the day, Reed set the success criteria as being overall stronger and so far has massively under delivered. If he didnt mean it then he shouldnt have said it. But he has a habit of saying one thing and doing the other. Really need to get a move on. Early fixtures the best run too, if we struggle in those then the December run wouldnt be nice..

Of course we do. But so far we have reduced the wage bill quite substantially this summer as well. Regardless of who we bring in it will probably only equal last years, assuming we lose Lambert, Lovren, Lallana, Shaw and Osvaldo - many of whom were high earners. Does anyone really see us spending 40 or 50m from here on players? If not then what Reed said just isnt the case. http://www1.skysports.com/football/news/11700/9346624/transfer-news-southampton-to-reinvest-in-squad-if-star-players-leave-says-les-reed Reed: "We will only make decisions based on what’s right and best for the club, so if we do sell players then it’s guaranteed that any revenues we make will be reinvested in the team," he said. "There’s a logistical job to be done there because we do want to bring players in and improve the team so it’s important that, whatever happens, when we do kick off on August 16 that we have improved the team and the depth and strength of the squad with the players that have come in, even if players may have gone out. "However, our intention is to keep all of our core players – I wouldn’t want people to think I’ve just opened the door for transfers, that’s not the case." Well on Aug 16th we are going to have to have done some to have improved the team and the depth and strength of the squad. Right now it is massively weaker.

Certainly won't need any non sales money this summer. Big profit even if we do spend more.

At least Reed said all the cash would be reinvested in the team. I make it easily another 55m to spend, and thats without Morgan maybe going. Reckon we will spend maybe half of it.

A Serbian Twitter site said they would be suprised if Tosic could even get a work permiy as he has only played for the national team once in the last few years. Said he is a good crosser but poor defender. Sounds like Fox.

Fair enough Guan. Just seems from the outside like we are always reactive rather than proactive. Quite a change from last summer where it appeared we knew which players we wanted, and went and got them. Leta hope for some good news the next two weeks. Will have a huge bearing on our chances this season. Very rarely do the teams scrambling around in the last week of the window do much good.

The Sun article quotes come from that presser.

Adkins probably said Saints are bigger than S****horpe. When was the last time we finished above Spurs, or had a higher average attendance than them? What do people expect him to say in a Spurs presser? "It's good here but Southampton was amazing and I really miss the club and it's new home made stripy kit."

Lovren is IMO a better player than Vlaar. He was better in the league last season, and is very well suited to the PL. Vlaar is decent, but nobody would happily swap a fit and happy Lovren for Vlaar, would they?

Wide player for certain would be one. Would think he means a Central midfielder too if Morgan leaves. Wide player a must if we are playing 4-3-3 IMO.

He was woeful in the 4-1 at SMS but is usually fairly solid. Would have been a great buy to partner Lovren, but hard to get excited about him as a replacement as he is a worse player than Lovren is, so result is a weaker defence overall.

Reed was keen to big up the recruitment team in June and said we were moving in on targets and lots of players wanted to play for us. Wonder if either of our two signings were on the list, or if thats all been sacked off now.

Its just the reality of the situation. Whats wrong with any of those points? No point pretending its great and he will sign this week, or next week. Have sold three, its four weeks til start of season and we need 5 or so more signings, yet its still outgoings that there is more news on.