January Transfer Window

[Gloucester Saint]

3 hours ago, East Kent Saint said:

OXO to Celtic then , have Saints missed another old boy or is the Scot Prem a bit second rate as they say in Naval terms ( ex princes excluded )

Had horrendous injuries and not what we need.

[Baird of the land]

22 minutes ago, Saint Pete said:

I can see what you are saying about being longshots for the play-offs and how that may have played into SR's thinking in selling Armstrong and placing more reliance/risk on Stewart keeping fit, you may well be right. But for me this attitude typefies the malaise that we are in as a club and the half-arsed approach SR take to decision making. It's how we have ended up with a 32 year old manager with little or no experience. "He'll do because he is in the club already, cheap and the players seem to like him. He might be a star in the making so why get an established manager with a track record?"

And now with our strikers: "Well, we're probably not gonna go up anyway so let's bank some cash for our top scorer and rely on a guy who hasn't scored all season and another who has been injured for most of the last 3 seasons". It essentially translates to "We're giving up" doesn't it? And if the proper permanent replacement for Armstrong is not coming until summer, surely we could have kept Armstrong on until then? If he could have continued scoring at same kind of rate and ended season with say 18-20 goals, I don't personally think it would have impacted his price tag much as more clubs are likely to be in the market is summer window than January. 

I don't really see it as half arsed. It's pretty cold and calculated. We're well off the playoffs, even if we go on a run and sneak into the playoffs that's no guarantee of winning them. Armstrong was likely a very high earner, who had dropped to the bench. There's no guarantee another club would come in and spend 7m in the summer or be able to take on his wages. That wage budget and funds can immediately be targeted elsewhere in the summer.

[Chez]

36 minutes ago, Saint Pete said:

I can see what you are saying about being longshots for the play-offs and how that may have played into SR's thinking in selling Armstrong and placing more reliance/risk on Stewart keeping fit, you may well be right. But for me this attitude typefies the malaise that we are in as a club and the half-arsed approach SR take to decision making. It's how we have ended up with a 32 year old manager with little or no experience. "He'll do because he is in the club already, cheap and the players seem to like him. He might be a star in the making so why get an established manager with a track record?"

And now with our strikers: "Well, we're probably not gonna go up anyway so let's bank some cash for our top scorer and rely on a guy who hasn't scored all season and another who has been injured for most of the last 3 seasons". It essentially translates to "We're giving up" doesn't it? And if the proper permanent replacement for Armstrong is not coming until summer, surely we could have kept Armstrong on until then? If he could have continued scoring at same kind of rate and ended season with say 18-20 goals, I don't personally think it would have impacted his price tag much as more clubs are likely to be in the market is summer window than January. 

Fair points. SR did seem to take the cheap option with Tonda, but equally they did rate him/trust him enough to bring him here in the first place. Personally I like a big name because it helps create the excitement and momentum that you need to get promoted. It's not the only route though.

Perhaps relying on an injury prone striker having sold your leading scorer does say "we are giving up", but I am not sure they have. They have allowed a guy to leave who wanted out and brought in a guy as backup for Stewart that fits the number 9 profile we really need. They could have sold AA and stuck with Stewart, Archer and the youngster who's name I find impossible to remember. The same goes for bringing in Peretz. Why do that if you had given up?

I also wondered how much his value would go down in the summer from the pretty average £7m+£2m. Perhaps if Wrexham and Boro offers were peanuts, then maybe the Wolves offer looked attractive as the club knows (after three windows where he was available) there are not many that can spend nearly £10m in the championship.

It's worth pointing out that Armstrong's current rate of scoring would mean 6 more goals. So, 17 in total. I keep reading he is a 20 goals a season man, but that's not where he was headed this year. 

[East Kent Saint]

31 minutes ago, Gloucester Saint said:

Had horrendous injuries and not what we need.

Quite , but may do ok in Scotland 😄

[Chez]

21 minutes ago, Baird of the land said:

I don't really see it as half arsed. It's pretty cold and calculated. We're well off the playoffs, even if we go on a run and sneak into the playoffs that's no guarantee of winning them. Armstrong was likely a very high earner, who had dropped to the bench. There's no guarantee another club would come in and spend 7m in the summer or be able to take on his wages. That wage budget and funds can immediately be targeted elsewhere in the summer.

Armstrong was available to buy last January. We only managed to loan him out. I would imagine Armstrong was available all summer. No one met our valuation. And obviously Armstrong was available again in this window. After three windows, I think the club may have had a good idea of the demand for him and the fee they could get.

[Give it to Ron]

58 minutes ago, Chez said:

Armstrong was available to buy last January. We only managed to loan him out. I would imagine Armstrong was available all summer. No one met our valuation. And obviously Armstrong was available again in this window. After three windows, I think the club may have had a good idea of the demand for him and the fee they could get.

Exactly and his loan at WBA went so well too. He has been out of sorts since that Norwich penalty miss and no goals since December 9th or so . 
Saturday will be telling if our new number 9 can do a job to replace him.

[Saint Pete]

4 hours ago, Chez said:

Armstrong was available to buy last January. We only managed to loan him out. I would imagine Armstrong was available all summer. No one met our valuation. And obviously Armstrong was available again in this window. After three windows, I think the club may have had a good idea of the demand for him and the fee they could get.

He was loaned out last January as it was clear he couldn't do a job in the Prem for us (no argument from me on that). But once we were back in the Championship, I don't see why we would have been trying to sell him then as it's pretty clear he is quite well suited to this level, isn't it? He's far from a perfect striker which is why he hasn't succeeded yet in the Prem. But he has a very decent record at this level no matter how people try to dress it up. So, no idea if your assumption that he was for sale all summer is correct but if it was its yet more evidence that those in charge of the club don't know what they are doing. Maybe Damion Downs was meant to be the SR replacement for Armstrong, but they didn't manage to achieve a sale in the summer! 🤣 Wouldn't surprise me at this point.

[Turkish]

7 hours ago, Saint Pete said:

He was loaned out last January as it was clear he couldn't do a job in the Prem for us (no argument from me on that). But once we were back in the Championship, I don't see why we would have been trying to sell him then as it's pretty clear he is quite well suited to this level, isn't it? He's far from a perfect striker which is why he hasn't succeeded yet in the Prem. But he has a very decent record at this level no matter how people try to dress it up. So, no idea if your assumption that he was for sale all summer is correct but if it was its yet more evidence that those in charge of the club don't know what they are doing. Maybe Damion Downs was meant to be the SR replacement for Armstrong, but they didn't manage to achieve a sale in the summer! 🤣 Wouldn't surprise me at this point.

We’d be trying to sell him as this club is obsessed with resale value. At 29 next week and 18 months left on his contract this window was the last chance we were going to get to get a bigger fee. Although there are other issues about playing style the simple fact is it was about how much he could be sold for, which it all it ever is about with this club. 

[Holmes_and_Watson]

3 hours ago, Turkish said:

We’d be trying to sell him as this club is obsessed with resale value. At 29 next week and 18 months left on his contract this window was the last chance we were going to get to get a bigger fee. Although there are other issues about playing style the simple fact is it was about how much he could be sold for, which it all it ever is about with this club. 

It's not as though we'd ever want to go back to the Lawrie's team building days shown in the programme @Gloucester Saint posted the other day though, is it?

Excuse me, I have some uncontrollable sobbing scheduled in... 

[spyinthesky]

3 hours ago, Turkish said:

We’d be trying to sell him as this club is obsessed with resale value. At 29 next week and 18 months left on his contract this window was the last chance we were going to get to get a bigger fee. Although there are other issues about playing style the simple fact is it was about how much he could be sold for, which it all it ever is about with this club. 

But isnt that the case for most/all clubs?

[Oldandtired]

For me the sad part in all of this is that the owners don't value Southampton Football Club, any prestige it might have left, any good name it might have salvaged, any aspirations for it the fans might have. It has become a business pure and simple owned and run by people who couldn't two hoots about the sport side of it.

 

Edited Friday at 10:50 by Oldandtired

[Saint NL]

There were some rumours that Saints were in for him on loan. There's no chance we could hope to get a player valued at £25m+

[AlexLaw76]

 

[swannymere]

22 minutes ago, AlexLaw76 said:

 

 Premonition?

[Turkish]

4 hours ago, spyinthesky said:

But isnt that the case for most/all clubs?

Name another club that buys every player with the main objective being what they can sell them for. 

[revolution saint]

4 hours ago, Saint NL said:

There were some rumours that Saints were in for him on loan. There's no chance we could hope to get a player valued at £25m+

27M for a player who hasn't scored more than 5 league goals in any season.  Probably market price but that seems mental.

[OldNick]

22 hours ago, Chez said:

Fair points. SR did seem to take the cheap option with Tonda, but equally they did rate him/trust him enough to bring him here in the first place. Personally I like a big name because it helps create the excitement and momentum that you need to get promoted. It's not the only route though.

Perhaps relying on an injury prone striker having sold your leading scorer does say "we are giving up", but I am not sure they have. They have allowed a guy to leave who wanted out and brought in a guy as backup for Stewart that fits the number 9 profile we really need. They could have sold AA and stuck with Stewart, Archer and the youngster who's name I find impossible to remember. The same goes for bringing in Peretz. Why do that if you had given up?

I also wondered how much his value would go down in the summer from the pretty average £7m+£2m. Perhaps if Wrexham and Boro offers were peanuts, then maybe the Wolves offer looked attractive as the club knows (after three windows where he was available) there are not many that can spend nearly £10m in the championship.

It's worth pointing out that Armstrong's current rate of scoring would mean 6 more goals. So, 17 in total. I keep reading he is a 20 goals a season man, but that's not where he was headed this year. 

I cant be arsed to look it up, but when he went to WBA last season I cant recall him scoring many

[OldNick]

6 hours ago, Holmes_and_Watson said:

It's not as though we'd ever want to go back to the Lawrie's team building days shown in the programme @Gloucester Saint posted the other day though, is it?

Excuse me, I have some uncontrollable sobbing scheduled in... 

that would be fantastic, but those days are gone where you could buy top players near the end of their career, even average players are multi millionaires and can retire without having to work their last few playing days out. 

[OldNick]

1 hour ago, Turkish said:

Name another club that buys every player with the main objective being what they can sell them for. 

I suspect Brighton, B'mouth, Brentford have an eye for that and Chelsea also

[Chez]

16 minutes ago, OldNick said:

I cant be arsed to look it up, but when he went to WBA last season I cant recall him scoring many

3 in 16 games I h=think I read on here. Was dropped towards the end of the season too.

[Gloucester Saint]

9 minutes ago, Chez said:

3 in 16 games I h=think I read on here. Was dropped towards the end of the season too.

Mowbray went through a spell of playing him as a central striker despite having managed him successfully at Blackburn coming in from the right. 

[West end Saints]

2 hours ago, Turkish said:

Name another club that buys every player with the main objective being what they can sell them for. 

Probably none including us 

Probably most have it as a significant consideration

Probably fans of most clubs feel, wrongly it is the case - nature of us fans

[Ex Lion Tamer]

4 hours ago, AlexLaw76 said:

 

This is the kind of thing that fans don't always see but I expect we inquired about a bunch of players including strikers but got turned down, leaving us with Larin as the best available

[Ex Lion Tamer]

1 hour ago, OldNick said:

that would be fantastic, but those days are gone where you could buy top players near the end of their career, even average players are multi millionaires and can retire without having to work their last few playing days out. 

Or they go to the middle East etc for a last payday

Edited Friday at 17:50 by Ex Lion Tamer

[Miltonaggro]

4 hours ago, OldNick said:

that would be fantastic, but those days are gone where you could buy top players near the end of their career, even average players are multi millionaires and can retire without having to work their last few playing days out. 

To have any chance of that project these days i think we’d have to already be established and competitive in the premier league, with the academy on par with 15-20 years ago. Hard to imagine the likes of Henderson or Bowen playing under Tonka. 

[Wade Garrett]

On 05/02/2026 at 18:51, Give it to Ron said:

Exactly and his loan at WBA went so well too. He has been out of sorts since that Norwich penalty miss and no goals since December 9th or so . 
Saturday will be telling if our new number 9 can do a job to replace him.

He can’t do any worse than Armstrong recently.  We became such a poorer team when he replaces Stewart.  Hopefully this new guy enables us to play the same way.

[Turkish]

18 hours ago, OldNick said:

I suspect Brighton, B'mouth, Brentford have an eye for that and Chelsea also

Not really, well at least not in the way we do. Can you imagine Saints signing Danny Wellbeck and James Milner? Theyve also got Solly March, Lewis Dunk and a few others who have been there for years still in the first team. Plus they’ve spent big money on quality proven players, as have Bournemouth, they’ve not bought cheap, hope they fly so they can flog them for 5 times what they brought them for. 

[Hodgey]

So transfermkt (I know - but I think it’s a good steer) has our yearly transfer activity as 8 players in and 13 players out (excluding loans). Invested £60m in players and sold £145m. So net is 5 players less and £85m banked/owed. Then 9 players out on loan and 3 in. 
For me this shows where attention was spent - getting players out and reducing expenditure. Obviously this has come at the expense of having a team competing for promotion. But the figures are eye opening and show how much adjusting you need to do when relegated from the top flight (and I think we did similar last time round). For context Leicester banked £57m and Ipswich £30m so you can see the clear correlation of spend and performance. Most championship clubs were flat or c £6m swing either way.

So the hope is that the hard work is done this year and we have saved a budget for a promotion challenge next year (more than that £6m). Worryingly you have 3 teams with US backing investing heavily - Wrexham £40m Birmingham £30m Swansea £15m. I see that continuing and unlike this season players will see at least two of those clubs as better bets than us, and of course we’d be behind the 3 relegated teams (Burnley you could argue). In short we are going to need to be much more focussed on acquisitions and punch above our resources in finding the right players.

It’s the striker issue that really worries me. When Ipswich’s highly competent manager is quoted as being unable to find anyone better than Hirst for a team gunning for promotion, we are going to have our work cut out (and we’ve not exactly got a great track record here)

[Baird of the land]

You wonder where we’d be in the table if we hadn’t spent 10m on downs/roerslev and instead had kept bree all season and someone like Larin on loan.

[saintant]

Good window that - sorted out the centre forward problems.

[Tommy Mulgrew]

Too late for January, but we seem to have got a 17 year-old Malian defensive midfielder lined up for the summer, Issa Tounkara:

https://sportwitness.co.uk/southampton-make-formal-offer-saints-want-to-finalise-signing-for-summer/

[SuperSAINT]

31 minutes ago, Tommy Mulgrew said:

Too late for January, but we seem to have got a 17 year-old Malian defensive midfielder lined up for the summer, Issa Tounkara:

https://sportwitness.co.uk/southampton-make-formal-offer-saints-want-to-finalise-signing-for-summer/

Was at St Mary’s today according to his Instagram 👀 

[SNSUN]

33 minutes ago, Tommy Mulgrew said:

Too late for January, but we seem to have got a 17 year-old Malian defensive midfielder lined up for the summer, Issa Tounkara:

https://sportwitness.co.uk/southampton-make-formal-offer-saints-want-to-finalise-signing-for-summer/

Good to see we're scouting young talent but I suspect he'll be at Valenciennes next season.

[Willo of Whiteley]

2 hours ago, Tommy Mulgrew said:

Too late for January, but we seem to have got a 17 year-old Malian defensive midfielder lined up for the summer, Issa Tounkara:

https://sportwitness.co.uk/southampton-make-formal-offer-saints-want-to-finalise-signing-for-summer/

Another multi-club model benefit!

[Dark Munster]

8 hours ago, Baird of the land said:

You wonder where we’d be in the table if we hadn’t spent 10m on downs/roerslev and instead had kept bree all season and someone like Larin on loan.

Not to mention replacing that clown of a goalkeeper who is now thankfully at Stoke (albeit for not long enough), and playing 4 at the back. In fairness, who could've seen that that was what we needed from the start of the season? (Apart from about 30,000 Saints fans.)

[Saint86]

9 hours ago, SNSUN said:

Good to see we're scouting young talent but I suspect he'll be at Valenciennes next season.

Apparently there is 2 incoming for £1m.

My first thoughts exactly that they'd be off to Valenciennes... Saints are basically signing them for the group, they'll move through the system and then settle at whichever club is a match for their abilities.

Still, at 17/18 years old, playing at Valenciennes wouldn't be the worst experience for them - one of them looks to be an absolute unit as well.

[SuperSAINT]

40 minutes ago, Saint86 said:

Apparently there is 2 incoming for £1m.

My first thoughts exactly that they'd be off to Valenciennes... Saints are basically signing them for the group, they'll move through the system and then settle at whichever club is a match for their abilities.

Still, at 17/18 years old, playing at Valenciennes wouldn't be the worst experience for them - one of them looks to be an absolute unit as well.

Who’s the other one?

[Turkish]

1 hour ago, Saint86 said:

Apparently there is 2 incoming for £1m.

My first thoughts exactly that they'd be off to Valenciennes... Saints are basically signing them for the group, they'll move through the system and then settle at whichever club is a match for their abilities.

Still, at 17/18 years old, playing at Valenciennes wouldn't be the worst experience for them - one of them looks to be an absolute unit as well.

Why don’t Gotzepe do this then? In the summer they sold Romelo a 6.4ft striker to Leipzeig for £20m who knows where the goal is, meanwhile we signed a 6.4 ft striker from Germany who looks like he’d never played football before. Couldn’t Romelo have been signed for the group and settled where his ability was matched- ie with us especially as this is the sort of player we’ve been crying out for for years.

We seem to be used to buy players to loan to the other clubs, or give them money by paying inflated transfer fees for their players - see Sanda, but were yet to see any single benefit of being part of a group despite being assured by MLG there were many benefits of being part of the multi club system. Surely after 4 years someone can think of one benefit, because I can’t 

Edited 3 hours ago by Turkish

[saintant]

3 minutes ago, Turkish said:

Why don’t Gotzepe do this then? In the summer they sold Romelo a 6.4ft striker to Leipzeig for £20m who knows where the goal is, meanwhile we signed a 6.4 ft striker from Germany who looks like he’d never played football before. Couldn’t Romelo have been signed for the group and settled where his ability was matched- ie with us especially as this is the sort of player we’ve been crying out for for years.

We seem to be used to buy players to loan to the other clubs, or give them money by paying inflated transfer fees for their players - see Sanda, but were yet to see any single benefit of being part of a group despite being assured by MLG there were many benefits of being part of the multi club system. Surely after 4 years someone can think of one benefit, because I can’t 

That's all down to Ankersen in my humble opinion. 

[Turkish]

12 minutes ago, saintant said:

That's all down to Ankersen in my humble opinion. 

That doesn’t really matter. Romelo would have been a perfect example of a player signed for the group to work in saints favour. Join Gotzepe, prove yourself, move to us. Instead we end up signing players and loaning them out to them or in the case of Sanda spending 5m on a player who is probably only worth 1m. 

[SuperSAINT]

9 minutes ago, Turkish said:

That doesn’t really matter. Romelo would have been a perfect example of a player signed for the group to work in saints favour. Join Gotzepe, prove yourself, move to us. Instead we end up signing players and loaning them out to them or in the case of Sanda spending 5m on a player who is probably only worth 1m. 

Romulo coming to us was the plan, I believe… We just messed up our prem season so it all went wrong.

[Oisin]

4 minutes ago, Turkish said:

That doesn’t really matter. Romelo would have been a perfect example of a player signed for the group to work in saints favour. Join Gotzepe, prove yourself, move to us. Instead we end up signing players and loaning them out to them or in the case of Sanda spending 5m on a player who is probably only worth 1m. 

You could argue it was the intention for Romelu to move to us but we messed it up by getting relegated. But actually this further illustrates what a terrible model it is. Players are humans who have their own plans … why on earth would he want to play championship football for saints when he can play in Europe for Leipzig.

A multi club model can work if you have a global super power like Chelsea or Man City sitting at the top. Of course all the players want to play for the big club and the clubs are loaded so can anfford the gamble.  
But we’re not that. The model most like ours is that of Watford. And it sucks. It’s not successful, drives mediocrity, churns managers and players, creates disconnect between the club and supporters. It’s terrible.

 

[Matthew Le God]

This nonsense again! Do people forget the each time it is debunked!?

Rômulo Cardoso stated in interview part of the reason he joined Göztepe was because of Saints being in the same group. But given our relegation and a club like RB Leipzig bidding for him he was not going to join us in the Championship. Had we stayed in the Premier League then he may have.

Edited 2 hours ago by Matthew Le God

[StrangelyBrown]

1 hour ago, Oisin said:

You could argue it was the intention for Romelu to move to us but we messed it up by getting relegated. But actually this further illustrates what a terrible model it is. Players are humans who have their own plans … why on earth would he want to play championship football for saints when he can play in Europe for Leipzig.

A multi club model can work if you have a global super power like Chelsea or Man City sitting at the top. Of course all the players want to play for the big club and the clubs are loaded so can anfford the gamble.  
But we’re not that. The model most like ours is that of Watford. And it sucks. It’s not successful, drives mediocrity, churns managers and players, creates disconnect between the club and supporters. It’s terrible.

 

I don't think the model is the problem. It's the execution of the model.

SR have proven themselves to be incapable of making the model work.

[Turkish]

1 hour ago, Matthew Le God said:

This nonsense again! Do people forget the each time it is debunked!?

Rômulo Cardoso stated in interview part of the reason he joined Göztepe was because of Saints being in the same group. But given our relegation and a club like RB Leipzig bidding for him he was not going to join us in the Championship. Had we stayed in the Premier League then he may have.

So it didn’t benefit us at all being part of the group as he didn’t join us because he went to a bigger club 😂😂😂😂

[Oisin]

6 minutes ago, Turkish said:

So it didn’t benefit us at all being part of the group as he didn’t join us because he went to a bigger club 😂😂😂😂

Indeed - well and truly “debunked” 😂😂