S-Clarke

Would kind of feel the club need to sort out the announcements for Cork and Fonte...

For his goal record, a bit of a snip. Given that Bony was 12-14m, Alves was £12-13m from the same league.

Nice to hear from Corky!

Love his passion.

Pretty dim time to have one of those q&a's tbh, what with the speculation and the fact the transfer window is open. It's obvious what 99% of the questions will be, and it's obvious he's not going to be able to answer any of them.

I can see both sides of the fence tbh. We've had years of the club peddling European/CL ambitions, we can win the league one day etc etc. We've finally established ourselves, have an excellent squad...and hey presto, it all gets sold off. It's very frustrating and I can understand the frustrations. But in my opinion, what people have failed to grasp is that the ambitions were always hollow and it would have been very naive to believe it all. NC may have had those dreams, but without the investment behind him they weren't going to happen. And once Shaw, Lallana, Lambert get linked with the top 4 - they will go, even if NC was here. It's probably the first summer we've had substitutional interest in our players from elite clubs, and it falls on KL's tenure - but it would have fallen on NC's door if he was here, and I'm pretty sure he bailed as he saw what was coming and didn't want to be seen as part of it. ML and now KL have provided us with a sound, stable and well structured football club. We're not going to be Man City, but we're going to be a solid, self sustaining model of a top half club for years to come. It will be bumpy from time to time, but the structure in place is pretty strong and will absorb most blows.

fair enough. but in general terms, that has been our model tbh. Rodriguez's, Corks, Mayukas, Wanyamas etc. I think there'll always been the odd 1 or 2 out of that zone, i.e Osvaldo and possibly Pele, but I think the clubs general remit is to secure young players, with the view of probably making a profit in a few years, it pains me to say.

Would be thrown straight back at them... A player at a club who are obviously above us, but a club who want the player transferred - so makes it a hell of a lot easier.

Gaston isn't a good example really. He was a player in a club at the same level, or slightly below us in stature and size. He wasn't on a big contract, and didn't demand a huge transfer fee. Our model is to buy young, up and coming talents.

Apparently Kroos is available for £25m, we should bid for him. He'll come for sure. etc.

But we're not going to do that as we have debts to service. Thinking that we're about to spend 60-80m on new signings is ill-advised as you're just setting yourself up for disappointment. I can see a max of £50m being spent, and that's an absolute max - probably not even that much to be honest. The rest will pay off the training facilities and previous transfer funds, and will probably go back into a pot to enable squad strengthening in additional windows down the line.

JWP has struggled as the seasons have gone on, I've noticed. Always starts pre-season well and the first few months is pretty much undroppable - he then tails off, loses confidence and becomes a bit part player for the rest of the season. A flaw in his make-up that's for sure, whether it's down to fitness....or confidence, who knows - but what I'm sure about is that there is a damn fine player there, easily a future England international if he nails an entire season.

Yes, but they're owned by billionaires who are bankrolling the club. We're owned by a billionaire estate, but they're not going to bankroll the club. We're a self sustaining top half at best PL club, and until people get their heads around that fact then they will forever be underwhelmed.

We need Hoddle, or we won't manage to finish 17th, yes?

As mentioned above, you're forgetting that the budget is the whole thing. Not just the players transfer fee. Wages, signing on fee's, bonuses, agent fee's - it all adds up. So a £25m signing in transfer fee, may actually end up costing 30-40 when you add on the extra's on top including the wages over a long period of time. I don't think we're set up or big enough to make a £25m signing at this moment in time.

It's a big job, but there's a long way to go. I think we've got a great man in place to attract the right sort though, and the club it's self has an excellent setup with regards to scouting and recruitment - so you can be sure that we are well aware of what what we need, when we may need it, and how much it's going to set us back. It'll be a tough job, but I think we're prepared enough to give it a damn good go.

Because we're Southampton and that simply will never happen, unless we're owned by a zillionaire who wants to bankroll us - which we aren't. The money from the sales will be reinvested to make the squad stronger, it won't be used on single player purchases in one go.

For god sake, cheers Dig Dig. I had a bet on Alpine posting the first ''WHY HAVE WE NOT SIGNED ANYONE'' thread, at the start of July. I thought that was easy money. Obviously not.

Of course we'll have a weaker squad, we won't have as good a season next year - that's pretty much a given, but I've accepted that. It's a change of guard, there's nothing we can do about it, the club are getting the best deals they can for the players who want out - so we have to get behind the replacements, who aren't bad quality really are they? But obviously we're not going to replace Shaw with another £30m left back, or Lallana with another £25m AMC - so quality wise, we probably will be weaker down the spine. But we may well have a stronger squad for it.

Cheers for all your info over the last few years. Looking at your last post though, ''2, maybe 3 important players will leave''.. Well, 3 have gone. Time to shut the door then! Would be happy if we stopped at that...

Good point, I know he used to. Maybe he has a hidden one...who knows. But probably for the best right now as he would have been utterly destroyed.

Christ, that's a blast from the past. I remember the pictures of him at Staplewood. and hours later, there he was at Reading. I think we dodged a bullet though, to be fair. He amounted to the square route of **** all.

Also interesting looking at his twitter....congratulated Luke on his move, but zilch for Lallana - not even a mention on his time line. Maybe he ****ed more people off than we realise with his big arse antics?

£6m ish is a pretty sound bit of business, as is £8mish for Tadic. Pretty impressive start to our recruitment.

Maybe a slight relevance to us and our GK hunt - Celtic are about to wrap up the free transfer of Craig Gordon. Gordon in, Foster out?