Convict Colony

Calum Chambers @CalumChambers95 · 6s I would like to take this opportunity to say thanks to everyone at @SouthamptonFC for everything they have done & for making this possible.

https://twitter.com/SouthamptonFC Officially confirmed

As an aside I just noticed Koeman has nearly a million followers !!!!

bbc article just gone up http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/football/28497920

Villa Fans on Vlaar potentially joining us "If Vlaar has any ambition of playing in the Champions League he should probably move to Southampton and he'll be a Liverpool player by the time the window shuts...."

That's what I thought but maybe he followed him at Feyenoord, un-followed him when he left and now he is doing it it slots him back where he was ? Too bored to test it though, I'm off to the celtic forum to cheer myself up.

Clasie has just recently started following him again apparently though. http://www.tribalfootball.com/articles/feyenoord-star-clasie-keeping-tabs-southampton-and-koeman-4028710

He's just posted this, not a playervin sight Ready for #Training!

The first 5mins of The True Geordie's latest transfer video does a pretty good summary of our current state. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktf4RnI3ykw&feature=youtu.be&a

I hope the force is not strong with you.

Apparently FC Porto as really pushing to sign Clasie according to their fans forum with the quotes coming from his manager though it leads me to suspect he is doing the Tadic/Hamburg approach to getting something done quickly. "FC Porto is not going to give up the battle for the signature of Jordy Clasie. Feyenoord did prefer not to sell, after the departure of a number of contributors to the midfielder but the club from Portugal seems not many of those words to attract. It is intended that the Clasie teammate of recently attracted Bruno Martins Indi going to be. According to Wessel Weeze Berg, the manager of the Dutch international, Porto will be the next time an attempt will venture to weeks at Feyenoord. Clasie loose "He is the captain of the club Feyenoord and does not need the other outgoing transfers the money. But the negotiations have not yet stopped. FC Porto does not give up and will continue to fight for him," said the representative of O Jogo. However Weeze Mountain'm not sure it will eventually come. transfer to a Feyenoord will only count as an "exorbitant amount" is provided for the 23-year-old Clasie. "I can only say that negotiations are still in progress, as FC Porto Clasie would like to have., But a deal is not easy," he told yet know." The fans seem to be linking Kongolo to Stuttgart as well !

I think the beginning of this week will be the low point for us as fans and the momentum and positivity will begin to increase later in the week as more signings are made and we ratched it up as we move towards the 1st fixture and then the end of the transfer window.

Have to say the Man U fans actually seem like normal fans but I suppose the people who post on there are the uber interested and not like the 99% who support for ego inflation reasons. Some very salient points were made although I did notice how no-one could ever spell Schneiderlin

Saw this hidden in a celtic article - http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2707830/Celtic-agree-1-2m-fee-Standard-Liege-striker-Tony-Watt.html#ixzz38iHHQtP3 Southampton meanwhile have cash to burn after the sales of Dejan Lovren to Liverpool and Calum Chambers to Arsenal and are poised to return for goalkeeper Fraser Forster after an initial bid was rejected by Celtic last week. They are also keen on central defender van Dijk who was a stand-out success for the Scottish champions last season.

Yeah I read the express article yesterday and thought it at least outlined some intent to spend although I wasn't sure if the 50m includes the tadic/pelle fee's or if this is an additional 50mil ? Reckon they have assed McCarthy as being the back up right back given he has played a few preseason games and selling chambers just makes sense for back up RB otherwise we'd have too many.

This is the time for us to become the Red Bull Saints http://www.saintsweb.co.uk/showthread.php?45145-The-Red-Bull-Scenario#.U9W-KoCSwXI

I think maybe they have Mccarthy lined up for the back up right back spot (he played in a few friendlies there) so can understand if we sell Chambers cos he is coming through to sit on the bench otherwise we'd have too many right backs. To be fair I am not opposed to selling players based on the strength of various spots in the academy as its good for the rep of our academy to attract more and more players. Also I keep clinging to the hope that Les knew that these players wanted to leave back in June (except chambers) and has agreed deals with their replacements already but cannot join still due to the world cup cos to be reactionary to each individual's transfer would be shocking given our slow ability to sign people.

I think everyone is a tad harsh on Les, we are only half way through the transfer window and yes we have and may sell further some of our leading players to either champions league or Man U which to be perfectly honest is acceptable for a large fee as we are not that big. However the papers have an agenda to sell news and more importantly the news that gets clicks or papers sold is linking players to the big clubs so we only hear about so and so going to this club or that. No journo is going to really splash "SAINTS linked to" on the back page, they don't get bang for their buck so we hear f.uck all about the potential in's and therefore only hear or want to hear half of the story, the negative which equals abuse of the board etc etc. I think at the end of the transfer window (1st Sept) we will have equally as good and in certain positions better players than the end of last season (again they will be new but I expect their end of season report cards to reflect this) with increased depth in the squad as well. The challenge is turning them into an effective team and not do a sunderland (but I think was more to do with the ketchup ban). The team is greater than the cult of the individual.

hahahahaha

we all know Jose

Posted the update in the transfer thread but I think we are going for Timothée Kolodziejczak at Nice so maybe this was a slip of the tongue after all.

Not sure who specifically they guessed (wasn't listening until i heard Koeman) but Eric and Jan were apparently at Brentford yesterday to watch Nice play according to Sky Sports news (video of them). Take your pick my guess would be our old favourite Timothée Kolodziejczak who was at mistake for one of the goals http://www.whoscored.com/Teams/613/

Thought I'd chuck this in here since there are a billion threads ranting or raving in some guise or other. Nice article in the Times this morning. Everything must go for a reason Southampton may have lost some of their key players, but the exodus could yet turn out to be good business YOU can take a thick black pen to the list of Southampton league appearances last season and cross off the names. First, Adam Lallana, 37 starts; gone to Liverpool for £25m. Second, Luke Shaw, 35 starts; gone to Manchester United for £30m. Fourth, Rickie Lambert, 31 starts; gone to Liverpool for an initial £4m. Fifth, Morgan Schneiderlin, 31 starts; offers under consideration. Sixth, Dejan Lovren, 31 starts; going to Liverpool for £20m. The deletions don’t end with those stalwarts of a team praised for passing and playing their way to an eighth-placed finish last season. Another teenage English full-back, Calum Chambers, is close to joining Arsenal for £16m. Jay Rodriguez is fancied by Tottenham despite the England forward having weeks of cruciate ligament rehabilitation ahead of him. And the man who selected and led them last season? Mauricio Pochettino moved to White Hart Lane within a fortnight of its conclusion. The scale of Southampton’s big sale is unprecedented for a solvent club that has just finished in the upper half of the Premier League. In Pochettino’s case it eased the decision to jump two rungs — and a considerable rise in pay and status — up the top-tier ladder. In the coach’s calculation, cashing in on the best of St Mary’s young Englishmen like this would require a difficult overseas shop as the club’s youth ranks did not offer immediate replacements. Pochettino had already lost the executive chairman in a mid-winter dispute over future strategy. To describe Nicola Cortese’s approach to directing a football club as aggressive would be an understatement. Cortese drove Swiss industrialist Markus Liebherr’s 2009 takeover of the club, devised the strategy that took it from League One to the top tier inside three seasons, and then implemented a new five-year plan he describes thus: “The question for us was not if we could win the Premier League but how. If you don’t think of winning the league, you will never even get close to getting into the Champions League.” On the way there, Cortese seemed to steadily generate enemies with his abrasive methods. In January, he resigned his position amid reports that he had saddled the club with the best part of £30m of unpaid transfer fees in the three and half years since Liebherr passed away. Under daughter Katharina’s control, a switch of financial strategy is evident in this summer’s sales. Fraulein Liebherr’s way, though, should not be seen as a simple decision to sell the team’s silver and count up the returns. The transfer-market balance sheet cannot be fully assessed until after the window closes, and Southampton are said to be “working on five or six deals” to replace the departing players. The best part of £20m has already been committed to successors for Lambert and Lallana — Graziano Pelle, an Italian striker who has scored 50 goals in 57 games for Feyenoord, and Serbia midfielder Dusan Tadic. New coach Ronald Koeman has impressed survivors from last season’s squad in pre-season with one first-team regular describing the Dutchman as “a very good trainer, very focused with good methods”. Koeman appears to know exactly what he bought into at Southampton, backing his own ability to use half of a likely £100m-plus transfer take and convert it into at least as capable a squad as last season’s. “That’s the story in football, players come and go,” Koeman says. “The most important message I gave them was that we have to keep the philosophy and the ambition of the club. There is money to spend and to continue the quality.” While the scale of the personnel turnover is a genuine issue, what makes the idea viable are the grossly inflated fees Southampton have been able to charge for their England internationals. No one outside the Premier League would even consider paying £25m for Lallana, fine passer of the ball though he is. Ten of Lambert’s two-season haul of 28 Premier League goals have come from taking penalties or free kicks, and, at 32, his preference for operating as a chance creator rather than a finisher may not be missed. The laws of football economics dictated that both be sold regardless as Southampton simply couldn’t match the opportunity and wages on offer at Anfield. Same principle for Shaw, whom Cortese kept at the club last summer by arranging a switch of agent, a new contract and a promise of a transfer a year hence. While Manchester United did not appreciate Jose Mourinho’s contention that paying the salary Shaw is now receiving at Old Trafford would have “killed the stability in our dressing room”, when Chelsea cry foul at a teenager’s wage demands it’s obvious those were beyond Southampton. That a 19-year-old with one competitive international appearance is now burdened with the highest transfer fee paid for a full-back, underlines the wisdom of his sale. Southampton are exploring the possibility of replacing Shaw with Marcos Rojo, a 24-year-old Argentina international who started the World Cup final. Asking price from Sporting? €15m (£11.8m), or slightly over a third of the income from Shaw. Consider that they own a fruitful academy, and Southampton’s grand summer sale makes more sense yet. If Koeman, Liebherr et al rebuild astutely perhaps it will be the buyers who end up on the wrong end of these bargains.

Did he make it to the stadium as part of the bike ride or is he still lost somewhere in wilstshire