Saint86

I read that as him just saying that as a criticism of other clubs that have the luxury to build their squads unsustainably / have owners that can put money in regardless, whereas we are building our team on a tighter budget. The alternative take that fits certain fans' narratives (but is not something the manager would do) is he is openly criticising the current owners.

Thank you Minsk!

Based on the photo the club have continued to use, I'd say they weren't keeping an eye on the scoreboard...

Think a lot of saints fans got into it when it was Anka and they were giving out silly offers. Now its Sheldon and the reality is that he isn't good enough for people to bother paying for it.

circa 3min 50seconds 👌🏼

I'm sure i remember being told it was Cortese that was spending money we didn't have as well. Yet it would seem financial ruin has only really been a threat after he was ousted and Les got his hands firmly on the wheel 🙄

Yeah i know what you mean. I don't want to be too harsh on the guy so give him the benefit of the doubt and assume its because he started out at the echo. But it could equally be the case that he's simply happy to print the easy stories he gets from the club and just doesn't really give that much of a toss re doing more in depth pieces/research. I suspect you could give quite a few people the press contacts he's got and you'd get at least the same level of output 🤷‍♂️.

Well, lets just be grateful we survived (barely) and hope that shit never happens again 😅

For reference: https://theathletic.com/1941621/2020/08/11/mohammed-salisu-southampton-transfer/ Its not so much the fault of The Athletic in general. Carl was tapped up to be the united journalist and poached accordingly - it was always his dream to cover the hallowed goings on at Old Trafford . But he's one of the best sports journalists out there imo and his articles and level ability to ingratiate himself with club figures when he was here really helped - as did the fact that he wasn't actually a saints fan jsut pumping out biased fan articles. Dan replaced him coming from the Daily Echo (i think?), so realistically he's got to work himself up to being at the same level to someone who is a very good journalist - not the easiest boots to fill. I also think he suffers from being too close to the club.

Nice breakdown, I'd group them as follows - looking at it from a general blur of value for money perspective / money lost etc perspective. Good value signings (total = £86m) PEH (12m), Bednarek (5m), Redmond (10m), McCarthy (5m), Armstrong (7m), Adams (15m), Ings (£20m), KWP (12m). Reasonable signings (or perhaps too early to tell - total 70.2m) Gabbi (14.5m), Djenpo (14m), Salisu (11m), Diallo (12.7m), Vestergard (18m - almost put him below as we could have spent this elsewhere with today's recruitment) Bad signings: (including carillo/hoedt/lemina below = 97.5m) Boufal (16m), , Ely (16m), Gunn (13.5m), Absolutely disgraceful signing: Carillo (19m), Hoedt (15), Lemina (18m) So of your £253.7, we outright wasted £97.5m in my opinion - thats 38% 🥳

Carl Anka (used to be the saints writer but was poached by United and is sorely missed) has contributed to a piece in the Athletic regarding terrible transfer windows by premier league clubs. He's put southampton forward for summer 2017 - and in fairness it does highlight some of (because sadly we all know it wasn't just that window) the absolute car crash that was presided over by our previous board, and how they hamstrung us at a time where we had a lot of potential, and instead almost ruined the club. I know i've made the point previously, and although Ralph and Gao are far from universally popular - at least with them and Semmens, Crocker and Co, the clearing of the deadwood, and the restructuring we've seen over recent windows. I do think we're starting to work our way back to, "the Southampton way", and developing a team with great potential for the future again. At the moment at least, i think we're in a position of relative stability, we have a plan, and the right people seem to be on board for the long haul whilst the owner isn't meddling. Ofc, that can all be upset by poor results, fan sentiment, or a change of ownership etc. Anyway, i think the piece adds an interesting layer of information and perspective to our most recent business - Of which i would say we've had a pretty reasonable window at the current time. Apologies if already posted. (Note - I'll post the relevant section from the article here and let the mods decide whether its okay to be up on the Saintsweb site.) Southampton in 2017: Ignoring the four Ts A good transfer window is all about the Ts: a club must recognise good playing Talent at the right Time, who make a good Tactical fit for their team, and then eventually make the deal for a reasonable Transfer fee. Every club in this feature is in it because they got their Ts mixed up in one too many deals. The truly dishonourable mentions often come from a club squandering a large amount of money after selling a star player. But there is something in Southampton’s summer at the start of the 2017-18 season which makes it stick out as a terrible transfer window as they managed to get the Ts wrong and squander an historic opportunity to solidify their position in the league and, to top it all, then saw their star player leave. To set the scene: Southampton had finished 2016-17 in eighth position in the Premier League and as unlucky losers to Manchester United in the League Cup final. Manager Claude Puel’s prosaic, yet pragmatic football inspired little love from the fanbase, and Virgil van Dijk had made noises that he saw his future at Liverpool rather than St Mary’s. In came Mauricio Pellegrino to steady the ship (and get confused with Manuel Pellegrini, and predecessor Mauricio Pochettino). He knew Van Dijk was probably going to leave in the near future and that he had to build some sort of spine for the side to compensate for the Dutch defender’s imminent departure. What he and the club endeavoured to purchase were: Jan Bednarek, Wesley Hoedt, Mario Lemina. That’s one centre-back (Hoedt) who was bought for £17 million, made 45 uninspiring appearances for the club before being shuffled off for a nominal fee this summer after two and a half seasons out on loan; a defensive midfielder (Lemina) who was bought for £15 million and once shared a player compilation video of himself on Twitter in an attempt to leave Southampton (also left for a nominal fee this summer); and one decent centre-back (Bednarek) who only came good in November 2019 under Ralph Hasenhuttl, who was the successor to Pellegrino’s successor. In the January window of that season — yes I’m cheating a little bit here by going over more than one window, but this story needs to be complete — Van Dijk departed for £75 million. Pellegrino asked Southampton to spend the better part of £20 million on striker Guido Carrillo, adding another slow player to what had become a turgid team. Southampton finished fourth-bottom in 2017-18, saved in part by a freak accident (a collision between goalkeeper Alex McCarthy and centre-back Jan Bednarek in a six-pointer at Swansea City forced the latter to go off concussed. Manolo Gabbiadini came on for Bednarek and within four minutes had scored the game’s only goal. Five days later, Swansea went down with three points fewer than Southampton.). Another bad transfer window the summer following saw the club lose their position in the Premier League middleweight positions to become relegation battlers until the arrival of Hasenhuttl in late 2018. It was a transfer window so bad Southampton now operate with a soft £15 million cap on future signings as they don’t feel they can be trusted with bigger deals. - Carl Anka, for the Athletic.

The rumours for Ings was 150k per week? Also, selling Ings means less than his then current wage has gone onto JWP's contract 🤷‍♂️

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/58262263 Lawro has us down to lose 2-1. Party time!

Is everyone now happy with the summer transfer window, despite some pretty embarrassing comments earlier on?

Does anyone know what the development fee is likely to be / include? Lots of Everton fans expecting 3-4million plus a healthy sell on fee.

Don't disagree there. With him and Ralph at the helm we do at least seem to have some mutual trust and an actual strategy for what we're doing. We could be on the cusp of a good few years if things go well and we can maintain some stability. Of course that can all go out the window with anything from bad form to a club ownership / takeover issues.

Watched his introductory video. Seems like a cracking lad to be honest, extremely pleased and enthusiastic about joining saints, ambitious, bit of a cheeky chappy. The kind of youngster any workplace would be wanting to hire and give a chance... the fact that hes rated as one of the best young full backs in the country is an added bonus 😆 Looks like with Semmens and Ralph, the clearing of the dead wood, and a couple of windows of decent transfer activity - we can almost see the "Southampton Way" rematerializing. Just a shame we had Reed (****) and wreck it Ralph in power for so long as they almost totally derailed the club for a few years. Crazy to think the amount of time and cost associated with shifting the Reed era deadwood just to get to a point where the finances allow us to start signing youth players like Tino and Thierry for circa £8m all in. People don't like Ralph, but if we'd continued down the lines of Puel, MoPe, Hughes etc the club would be in a very dark place now. Almost certainly relegated, not developing youth players, more stars leaving, and saddled with the huge wages and debts of overpaid journeymen.

Will be a bit of both in reality - best case scenario.

Playing Livramento as much as we are is going to certainly help sell the club.

I'm actually finding myself slightly enthused by this transfer. We've got a fit Romeu in central midfield - and when he is back to his best he is a rock for us. Salisu is a beast of a defender and is only going to get better. And our wing backs and wing play is actually quite tasty now, we certainly carry a threat. What was evident today vs United, was that we struggled to create much from the CDM positions on the field, and players such as Romeu, Salisu Djenpo etc were giving away the ball when the middle became overwhelmed. lyanco addresses these problems directly. He's very good on the ball, can spread play or do tidy passing, and can bring it upfield. I can see him able to step up to support Romeu/jwp from deep and give us that extra support in the centre. All I can say, is that Ralph/Semmens etc. certainly no how to buy players that fit the roles we need. They've sold players for good money (all things considered this summer), and spent it to put round pegs in round holes with players that excel in the strict attributes they really need for those positions. I wasn't too keen on Lyanco previously, but as i said, i now find myself strangely optimistic about what he'll add to the side 😅

How have we signed this kid? And for £5m as well!!!! I don't understand. I also don't understand how we have fans complaining about the quality of our recent signings when they've all been on the average to very good side of the spectrum.

Yeah, a very good first half in fairness.

Whats happening, we've changed shape when in front? What is this.

Apparently queues outside the ground are hundred of yards long.... Are saints going to be the only club in the country that cant get home fans in in significant numbers for the first game? Absolute car crash of a club atm. At least fans won't see us getting spanked.

Strange that Ralph stated there were no injury concerns in his presser then!