Lallana's Left Peg

Seems very low considering the calibre of teams reported to be interested in him.

They have the cash, they could have pushed through the deal any time they wanted. This was always going to be Schneiderlin's problem this summer - at the price he'd rightly command, he was never likely to be the first choice of any Champions League club. So he has to play the waiting game. Arsenal sound like they don't like the fee, and Man Utd seem to fancy someone else more. In the meantime we potentially miss out on targets but that is just unfortunate. I hope he stays but worst case could be Arsenal come back in for him late as the only interested bidder at a price well below our valuation and Morgan throws a strop.

Pretty sure Morgan has been played by them - the rumours are that they kept telling him they would get the deal sorted and now if they turned their back on it I am not sure he will be a happy bunny at all.

We didn't agree a fee until Spurs had agreed a deal and Toby was having a medical with Spurs. My belief is that we would have either had a better chance of signing Toby, or at the very least would have known earlier of his desire to go elsewhere, had we agreed a fee with Atletico in a more timely fashion which would have allowed him to sign if he wanted, or made him tell us to wait or just 'no'. Then we can move onto other targets instead of being made to look like fools.

A fee we could enforce, which enables the player to sign. That's what I typed. Not enforce the player to sign.

Not one we could enforce and enable the player to sign though.

The club would have been able to move onto other targets and I would have no complaints. I'm not saying there is a scenario where Toby would have signed. Nobody knows if one exists. I'm suggesting that our chances of signing him would have been better if we were the only club to agree a fee (or rather, the first), and that if he didn't want to sign we could have created a situation where we found this out far sooner. So personally I do not think the club are blameless based on how this played out. It's not the end of the world, we'll move on etc. But I don't agree that Saints did the best they could in the circumstance.

And we would have found out about this situation far earlier on rather than have the scenario that while the player was having his medical at Spurs we had our Manager saying he still expects the player to sign and the club were still briefing the media that we were confident of signing him. We got played and didn't do ourselves any favours whatsoever but apparently the club did absolutely nothing wrong.

And we'd have found out much sooner if we had agreed a deal with Atletico and put Toby in a position where he either signed or he didn't. Not after he had already agreed terms and was having a medical with Spurs because they agreed a fee for him.

Despite agreeing terms with the player and him being happy to join, we couldn't sign him until his loan ran out. In the meantime we took the opportunity to go back and forth with Atletico around the fee and whatever complications there were around the clause. But that loan agreement ran out at the end of June and we never ever got to the point where Toby could have come over and signed. We never had that opportunity because we were faffing about. In the meantime Levy flew over to Spain and in the course of 48hrs agreed a deal, and 48hrs later Toby is a Spurs player. If Toby's mind was made up and it was Spurs then that is all very well but we never ever got to a point where the moment we could have signed him, where Toby would have had to either say yes or no. By the time we agreed a fee he was having his medical at Spurs. We could have known one way or another the first few days in July. Not the moment Spurs swooped for the player before we gave him a chance to sign. And what is what is annoying.

Completely agree.

He is quite clearly squad fodder for being homegrown, but I guess every player backs themselves to make an impact and has faith in their own abilities to do so - whether that is misplaced or not. Delph is 25 now, so not really that young, but shouldn't be happy about being on the bench though.

That's going to set some expectations again - I suspect the club must think they are close to a signing in order to say that.

Is that not what happened? Despite willing to pay more than the clause, we spent a long time talking to Atletico about it and the player left elsewhere. Why not make the proper bid for the player the moment we learnt of Spurs coming in? It was well documented they liked him, as early as May I believe. We dithered, there is nothing in the Les Reed interview that suggests otherwise.

So while we were dithering about with Atletico around the clause we allowed Spurs to come in with a bid (a very public one) and by the time we got our act together he already had his head turned and was signing with them. Sorry, but the club are not absolved of blame here. Still feel like this could have been sorted much sooner before Spurs were on the scene.

Yeah I bet threatening the selling club with legal action was a great idea for someone you wanted so much

My favourite Spurs zing in the transfer market: Petit signing for Arsenal instead of Spurs.

Yeah that sounds viable to be fair.

Interesting that Fonte would know. I always thought the club would keep transfer activity from players for various reasons, the only exception being when they want one of them to tap a target up!

It's a lot of clubs who are far bigger than us and would be appealing to our Manager. He is already talked of as a Barcelona Manager. If you think he is more likely to sign a new deal with Saints than move on after three years then I think you need to take your Saints tinted glasses off. It is far more likely, in my opinion, that he moves on after three years. I don't think his default will be to sign a new deal with Saints even if he doesn't have something lined up. He hasn't done it in the past, and I see no reason for him to do it again.

And in the time since he has left Feyenoord for Saints, do you believe his Managerial stock has risen or is it the same as when he left Holland? Thus, whilst I agree the pool of clubs he may leave Saints for is less than that which he would leave Feyenoord for, his Managerial stock has also risen which means he is more likely to get a better job. And I think you over-estimate how much of an attraction Saints are for a Manager like him - I could name lots of clubs I think he would leave Saints for. Chelsea Man City Arsenal Man Utd Liverpool Spurs Real Madrid Atletico Madrid Barcelona Valencia (though maybe not after his last experience there) Bayern Munich Dortmund Schalke Juventus Inter Milan AC Milan Roma Lazio Napoli Porto PSG Lyon Monaco Well over 20 there. Look who manages some of them now - Koeman will be a wanted man in two years unless he does something very wrong at Saints.

He was many pundits choice for Manager of the Season last season. He was linked to the Barcelona job during last season. He has let his contract run down before and left with dignity. I'd say there is every chance he leaves Saints when his deal expires based on his prior actions and his rising stock in management, which would suggest the original question asked by the poster is correct and he is more likely to leave at the end of his deal than sign a new one.

Well to be fair he left his last club without a club to go to.

I heard a bit about how this works when Man Utd purchased Anders Herrera - apparently he had to buy out his clause and Man Utd gave him the money to do that. Something crazy like that. Could be BS. Imagine having £30m dropped into your account

If the kids are good enough they will play. We had a 'golden generation' that has been taken away from us. Our Academy is outstanding but we won't always produce players who go on to be full England internationals in their teenage years.