HarvSFC

Broja, Long and now Adams all need replaced. Mara's not ready, so we definitely need two more strikers incoming, to take the total up to three in my opinion. With five subs depth is very much needed.

So, we're going from needing two new strikers for the season, to needing three! Going to have to see who the replacements are, but it's another gamble. We should be looking at around £30m for Adams. Same price as Ings, but obviously the contract dictated that.

Soon to be a £35m-rated player!

That was pretty miserable, Saints are well and truly back. I feel that the main objectives for the summer transfer window were to sign a starting goalkeeper, a starting centre-back who's ready to come into the first eleven straight away and a quality striker. We've arguably only met the goalkeeper objective and even he struggled to get anywhere close to the Tottenham goals today, not that they were his fault. We've been signing squad centre-backs for years and that's left us with crap like Bednarek and Lyanco filling up the squad alongside the long-serving Stephens. All of which we can't get rid of, and then signing potential like Salisu, who is very much still learning based on all of his performances since January, or is he doing a year long Ramadan? We needed a Lovren, Alderweireld, Van Dijk this summer. Proven quality, but again we've gone down the potential route who can't get in the team ahead of Valery, or Stephens. Then our sole striker signing, who we've still paid good money for, despite his age couldn't even get in the match squad, unless he's injured? I also think it's fair to say that while Aribo could get away with playing as a striker in Scotland, that it isn't his position in a higher quality league. Too often he was playing with his back to goal, when his best attributes are picking up the ball deep and then running at the defence, which he couldn't do today. It would be like asking Lallana to play as a striker. Lavia did look very good though. Really hard to believe he's only 18, as playing in central midfield in the Premier League as he did today usually takes years of experience. Hopefully he keeps it up. My biggest defence of Hasenhuttl was that while we weren't winning matches and going on poor runs, for the most part we were still playing well and causing teams issues with our press. It was just crap defending, mistakes that let us down. But, I know that hasn't been the case for most of this year and it's worrying that it's crept into this season, especially with a new coaching team, which I thought could make a difference. The days where we were dominating matches for 45 minutes and then not turning up for the second half were better than this, as at least we got some entertainment for 45 minutes. Today and most of this year, it has been a chore to watch Saints. Passing it around in defence until we give up possession, allowing the opposition to regroup and not having any quality to break them down, only managing two shots on target, while Tottenham had eight. I remember when we were full of energy, forced the opposition into mistakes and didn't give them any room to breathe, Bertrand taking a quick free-kick against Arsenal, passing to Ings and getting a goal from it. But, for some reason those days have gone and we're slow and laborious now. That's when it becomes difficult to support the manager. It's becoming, or has even became what it was like supporting the club under Pellegrino and Hughes. The 4-2-2-2 formation has seen us go on some miserable runs, but it's also seen us go top of the league for the first time and flirt with a European place for a period last season. I would like to largely put the poor runs to a lack of squad depth/quality, and I'm not sure why we've just discarded it and gone to a pretty stale formation that was as dull as dishwater throughout pre-season and now sees us getting pummelled in the Premier League, while we've hardly laid a glove on the opposition. Forster must have been sat on the bench in glee this afternoon. Additionally, our strongest line-up consists of S. Armstrong and Adams. Lord knows what they were doing on the bench today, or why Adams was left as an unused substitute, while we brought five others on instead of him. Crap decisions. We MUST do better next week.

Too slow still, watching Fulham taking the game to Liverpool is a stark contrast to watching our centre backs pass it amongst themselves before losing possession. Take Valery off for Adams at half time, move Aribo into the 10 position, so that he can pick the ball up deep and run at them, rather than playing with his back to the goal and hope he wins a free-kick. On a more positive note, Lavia looks like this summer's Livramento. A real composed, easy to watch central midfielder at just 18. Ryan Sessegnon with his first ever Tottenham goal in three years, losing points from a winning position. Saints are back.

Where’s the booking? Royal on a yellow would be a good advantage.

Weirdly, he did look okay again at Brighton last season after flopping at Celtic and performing badly for Brighton previously. Didn't recapture his goalscoring form, but he couldn't have it all. I don't think Brighton fans are too happy, either. As a depth option, Duffy's okay. Colwill's the delayed Dan Burn replacement, but letting another centre-back go, like us, they feel they're short of experience and now depth there. As for Coady, I know we've experimented with playing with a back three this pre-season, but I wouldn't like it to be the long-term plan. Same as Wolves are now moving away from it and they know that Coady can't perform as well in a back two, hence why they're moving him on. For us to go for him, we'd need to commit to the three at the back formation. But, anyway, Everton, as close to his home as they are, we never stood a chance, so no complaints here.

So, if Will Smallbone does well at Stoke, does he become a £35m player?

And Alan Nixon thought Everton would get him for £15m.

KWP being front and centre of the third kit announcement. That's promising.

Harry Kane being the example from last summer.

Adams was our second highest league scorer last season with 7 goals and is pretty much guaranteed 5-10 league goals a season. We already need to replace Broja's 6 league goals from last season. Now, we could replace Broja's with Broja himself, if we were to sell Adams. But, I also couldn't see Broja adding the other 7 to his goal tally at this stage in his career considering he got 6 in 32 last season. Undoubtedly, Broja does have the higher career ceiling and will likely hit 15 a season at some point. However, we have so many youngsters coming into the team this summer, that are unlikely to hit the ground running and need bedding in that we need the more senior known talents of players like Adams and KWP for this season. Next summer, should the outfield youngsters of Lavia, ABK and Mara grow into the players we're hoping for, then we can probably afford to sell one, or two players within our first eleven, as we did in the summer of 2014. But, for now, given there's so many questions over the current squad, we need to play safe. £20m to Nottingham Forest isn't a good deal, either. I've posted before all the striker flops, who have transferred for around £20m and more.

If they can put £50m down on Cucurella, you'd hope we'd expect them to do the same for KWP, especially given the English price boost.

Leicester suffering the loss of their owner will have had a big impact on their financial flexibility as well, as it did us.

Damsgaard was very impressive at the Euros, but his stats in Serie A are pretty poor. Sampdoria have done well to get £20m for him and again is another one with many question marks over his head.

Vestergaard was signed mid-August with Leicester panicking that all of their centre-backs were out injured. We might need to get through a couple of matches before a club begins to panic and looks to Bednarek, an experienced Premier League centre-back and international for an answer. Unfortunately, Everton don't seem to have a lot of money these days, as they'd be the club you'd bank on making a panic signing.

Would be very useful combined with our 70 minute drinks break + JWP too.

The next stage of JWP's development is to make those late, edge of the box runs and get some more open play goals. We know he's got the technique, its just about executing them in the Premier League. He can then become a Beckham/Lampard hybrid. KWP/Aribo down the right excites me too. Two ball carriers with nice footwork and athleticism who can cause some real problems.

Weird team. Bazunu keeps dropping in and out of the match squads, neither centre-back you'd want starting against Tottenham and I thought Redmond's days were done here, despite rating higher than Elyonoussi. Overriding positive is Perraud's playing and it's only pre-season.

Remember every summer of the “unsellables”, who were handicapping the club in the market due to previous mistakes. Forster, Lemina, Hoedt, Boufal, Elyounoussi and Carrillo. All players, who weren’t playing very much, but wanted to see out their well paid contracts and who we could only loan out before eventually letting them go for free, or pennies. Now, this summer, say if Mara flops and isn’t playing, do we reckon he’s going to want to sit around on his contract, or will he try to reignite his career elsewhere. I’d go with the latter. These are all players who have came to us for first team Premier League football, not to put in half arsed performances every other week while cashing in and posting on Instagram about their life of luxury (Hoedt/Lemina). Additionally, all of these signings will be on a fraction of what the aforementioned six were on, meaning that as long as we don’t get relegated, some of them can be affordable mistakes, as there isn’t a single club in world football who gets every transfer right. It just makes a lot of long term sense at the moment as long as we don’t get relegated. This is only the start of the new era, the first transfer window and when/if we do sell a player for a large profit then we may start looking to spend on a higher calibre of player, because we can afford to, which we can’t now. West Ham’s new signing of £30m+, there’s every possibility he becomes another Haller, as he’s only hit double figures once in his career, which was last season. He’ll be on big wages too for that fee. So, it’s either a £15m relatively low wage risk, or a £30m+ high wage risk, who we potentially can’t get rid of because of that. We’d also make a bigger profit on the former due to the initial outlay.

Braithwaite's a shocking footballer who has somehow blagged his way into Barcelona because of their well known financial issues. Shoot this one down, Benjy.

All sounds good, I know Adams said he wanted to win the Premier League here when he signed, but it's unusual for a Southampton signing to say they want to become one of the best footballers and win lots of trophies, which won't necessarily be here, but it's exciting to be a part of the journey. I've commented on us picking up players cheaply because they've ran their contract down this summer. But, Mara signed a new long-term contract at Bordeaux in March, we only picked him up for a reduced fee because of Bordeaux's financial woes and from reports he's been wanting to move to a club who would give Bordeaux a fair fee this summer. So, from a character point of view it's looking hopeful that we'll get good money for him if he does fulfil his promise.

Edozie looks like a talent on the YouTube videos. But, again, also looks a bit slight. Hopefully he's the next Sancho, which I mentioned yesterday and we're getting in between the move to Germany. 😂 Also, remember last summer when it looked like Livramento was set for Brighton and then we were linked and all of a sudden he was a Southampton player.

Not a Premier League side, but the model we're following looks to be very similar to the one Borussia Dortmund have been doing for a number of years now. They do sign dud youngsters themselves, but their focus on young players has seen them pick up Jadon Sancho and Erling Haaland in recent years, selling them on for profit, while Jude Bellingham will also follow in a year, or two. Sancho being £8m with no first team experience, Haaland for £20m after hitting 16 in 14 in Austria and then Bellingham was £25m after Birmingham retired his shirt number. All would've been affordable for us this summer. Dortmund have also never been able to keep hold of their best players, be it them going to Bayern Munich, or the Premier League, but they've consistently been in the top five of the Bundesliga since 2009. Now, of course the Premier League is a more competitive league and Dortmund are much bigger as a club, but when the next Sancho does come through and is wanting a move for first team football, you'd hope with us being closer to home and in the Premier League, they may decide to come here instead. It is a huge gamble, and nobody's saying it isn't. Nobody knows what's to come for this season from us, but the rewards could certainly be exciting and I'm happy that we're trying something new after getting it so wrong in the last five years. We could've just remade the same mistakes, like we've seen a number of clubs, including Southampton do over the last few years.

At least we aren't managed by Mark Hughes. Similar to when we were getting beat 3-0 by Derby in pre-season 2018.