Summer Transfer Window 2026

[tdmickey3]

5 minutes ago, HarvSFC said:

Last summer he said we would sign a centre-back, a centre-forward and an attacking midfielder without the need of selling anyone. He delivered Joshua Quarshie, Damion Downs and nobody, until we signed Azaz following the sales of Dibling and Fernandes (+Onuachu, Sulemana, Bednarek and Amo-Ameyaw).

I believed him last summer, I believed him this summer. Maybe I need to stop and accept he's chatting shit to build hope and sell season tickets. 

Well, we need to get someone decent to replace Charles, THB and probably others who are as good, we are in last chance saloon for promotion, next season we will be skint if we don’t make it and turn into championship also rans

[LaptopSaint]

13 minutes ago, SouSaint said:

Absolutely no way Solak was lying here. 

🫠

Oh my god, the melting has started. Is it climate change? 

[hypochondriac]

17 minutes ago, James said:

Of course Solak had to say that at a time when the fan base was on the floor. There are still a couple of weeks left of the window so we have to wait and see but, so far, the Stewart replacement is a massive gamble, there’s nothing imminent on Charles replacement and the reported THB replacement is reportedly off to Burnley so it’s a wait and see. As I’ve said, in any other season there’d be no reason to worry re timing of replacements but this season a slow start will do some damage.

I think it will be very hard now to avoid a slow start. Even decent replacements for thb and who knows even Jander or Scienza at this point is going to make it terribly difficult to hit the ground running. 

Peretz 

Bree Stephens wood Manning 

Fellows Downes Bragg Dobbin 

Azaz 

Larin

Is substantially weaker. Yes we will bring replacements in but they will take time to acclimatise. Midfield and cb in particular is really poor.

Edited 3 hours ago by hypochondriac

[RedArmy]

2 minutes ago, hypochondriac said:

I think it will be very hard now to avoid a slow start. Even decent replacements for thb and who knows even Jander or Scienza at this point is going to make it terribly difficult to hit the ground running. 

Peretz 

Bree Stephens wood Manning 

Fellows Matsuki Bragg Dobbin 

Azaz 

Larin

Is substantially weaker. Yes we will bring replacements in but they will take time to acclimatise. Midfield and cb in particular is really poor.

Who said we’re selling Downes? 

[hypochondriac]

Just now, RedArmy said:

Who said we’re selling Downes? 

Forgot about him! Good point

[James]

3 minutes ago, hypochondriac said:

I think it will be very hard now to avoid a slow start. Even decent replacements for thb and who knows even Jander or Scienza at this point is going to make it terribly difficult to hit the ground running. 

Peretz 

Bree Stephens wood Manning 

Fellows Matsuki Bragg Dobbin 

Azaz 

Larin

Is substantially weaker. Yes we will bring replacements in but they will take time to acclimatise. Midfield and cb in particular is really poor.

It’s actually pretty imperative to get a win in the next couple of games minimum. The longer we stay on -4 the harder it’ll be to convince players we’ve got a credible chance of competing for promotion. No matter what we all think, if we are 8 points behind Burnley at the time, for example, Anel is deciding then that’s surely got to come into it.

[Disco Stu]

3 hours ago, SouSaint said:

Absolutely no way Solak was lying here. 

🫠

I'm holding off until the window closes before calling anyone a liar but it does appear he's over-promised (probably to get ST sales). We desperately need some positive news soon. Selling our best players, increasing our ST price and starting slow on -4 after last seasons disqualification is a recipe for a toxic environment at St. Mary's.

Edited 1 hour ago by Disco Stu

[Willo of Whiteley]

I mean, at this point we’re not selling Taylor Harwood-Bellis.

Let’s at least wait until he’s gone before starting the meltdown. 😂

[SaintsLoyal]

A deliberately timed article by his agent via the Pathetic, so that it gets brought up in the media presser tomorrow.

If Jordan Sibley has grown a pair, he will tell Eckart to make it clear, "We will only listen to serious offers done in the correct way."  

[Thripp87]

Villa will be utter shite in comparison to recent years if they think THB is the answer. He would get smashed to pieces in the Champions League.

[Saint NL]

6 minutes ago, Thripp87 said:

Villa will be utter shite in comparison to recent years if they think THB is the answer. He would get smashed to pieces in the Champions League.

Buying two defenders from the Championship is a bold strategy for the Champions League tbf

Just realised they bought AWB and hope to add THB to that. Wonder if they'll put a cheeky bid in for KWP or JWP as well.

Edited 3 hours ago by Saint NL

[LegalEagle]

Don’t get me wrong. I like THB a lot. But he is nowhere near top half PL standard and certainly nowhere near good enough for the CL. Konsa is light years ahead of him. Villa fans are in for a shock if this comes off.

[Wade Garrett]

51 minutes ago, Challenger said:

Sending that pillock up to Boro to get easily caught with his nokia is paying more dividends by the week.

 

41 minutes ago, qwertyell said:

The people responsible for utterly torpedoing last season, with the knock on effects drastically undermining this one as a consequence, got the club's full backing - to the cheers of that fan base, wibbling on about sticking two fingers up to Henry Winter or something. 

 

 

I wanted Eckert out of the club.  The club  are going to look like even bigger mugs if Stoke turn us over.  Huge game.

[Toadhall Saint]

17 minutes ago, Thripp87 said:

Villa will be utter shite in comparison to recent years if they think THB is the answer. He would get smashed to pieces in the Champions League.

He is to slow to be a great CB. Not an issue most of the time in the championship but PL & CL……..

[Polaroid Saint]

4 hours ago, Paul_B said:

Sounds like a load of old shit to me. Sorry to be blunt and no offence intended at all. You might well be right that the club are thinking this way. 

But the aim should be to win every fucking game and go all out for promotion, start, middle and end of the season. If we hadn't fucked about at the start of last season we'd be in the PL now. The club need to pull their finger out otherwise any decent remaining players left at the end of this window will be wanting out in January and there will be no "push for the playoffs in the second half of the season" at all.

I didn't say I thought it was what we should be doing, or what I would do or what I want the club to do. So yeah, I agree with you!

However, I do think it is very possibly what the club ARE doing. Or at the very least it's the base line they have set pending lack of suitable transfers (in/out) and the probable Tonda sanction.

[OnceaSaintalwaysaSaint]

27 minutes ago, Willo of Whiteley said:

I mean, at this point we’re not selling Taylor Harwood-Bellis.

Let’s at least wait until he’s gone before starting the meltdown. 😂

Exactly. The problem is Benfica was a non-starter, but you can see him going to Aston Villa because they've just sold their centre back and it's an upgrade for THB rather than some dead end premier league team. Still, hhope we resist the temptation to take a profit now

[Badger]

1 hour ago, James said:

Hopefully they have something lined up to happen a bit more quickly than the Charles replacement.

 

1 hour ago, pingpong said:

Not too worried as we can replace him with someone championship standard.  It'd be nice to spend the money on some quality up the centre of the pitch, no more wingers please 

Hoping it’s on par with the January signings, or deadline day last year then.

Think we’ve missed a few affordable and decent options this summer so far. 
 

[Oh no Mick Mills]

51 minutes ago, LaptopSaint said:

Oh my god, the melting has started. Is it climate change? 

Im kind of torn at the moment between thinking things will be fine , we'll sign a couple of top quality players for this level and over a 46 game season will be right up there in the top 1-4 positions....

On the other hand I can't let go of the thought that Sports Republic have converted us into a Championship side that are light years behind the level required to compete back in the Prem, and its hard under their ownership to see that they have the scruples to get us back to that level. ...are we being mugged off and all they want is to player trade 5/10m players into 20/30m players...end of.

 

[John B]

27 minutes ago, OnceaSaintalwaysaSaint said:

Exactly. The problem is Benfica was a non-starter, but you can see him going to Aston Villa because they've just sold their centre back and it's an upgrade for THB rather than some dead end premier league team. Still, hhope we resist the temptation to take a profit now

Going to Villa would be a good move for him I cannot imagine him wanting to play all his career for Southampton 

[LeG]

Solak hasn't lied...we just need to sell before we buy. Think back to when we sold Dibling and bought Azaz, Fellows, Scienza and Jander with the money in the final few days of the window. Spors is a master of this.

[Osvaldorama]

Wouldn’t be saints without copious amounts of drama. 
 

Selling THB this close to the end of the window would definitely be drama. So it will almost certainly happen 

[die Mannyschaft]

Just now, John B said:

Going to Villa would be a good move for him I cannot imagine him wanting to play all his career for Southampton 

That's a big step up with European football too so I suspect an improved offer of £22m or £26m plus some other incentive and the agents will be doing s deal. We have seen it with many players if they want to go then eventually a deal will be done. Or THB will go in Jan window.

[Dman]

12 minutes ago, LeG said:

Solak hasn't lied...we just need to sell before we buy. Think back to when we sold Dibling and bought Azaz, Fellows, Scienza and Jander with the money in the final few days of the window. Spors is a master of this.

Sorry but that’s a poor comparison. Dibbling, whilst talented with potential, was a young player who dipped out of the squad towards the end of the season. 
 

Stewart, Charles and THB (with probability of losing Jander and / or Scienza), are 3 key players who are the best in their role in our league. 
 

I don’t really like to comment on the window until it’s done as there are many moving parts, however, if anyone thinks we’ll even get within a sniff of top 2 (or 4 for that matter), they’re delusional. 

[CSA96]

11 minutes ago, Dman said:

Sorry but that’s a poor comparison. Dibbling, whilst talented with potential, was a young player who dipped out of the squad towards the end of the season. 
 

Stewart, Charles and THB (with probability of losing Jander and / or Scienza), are 3 key players who are the best in their role in our league. 
 

I don’t really like to comment on the window until it’s done as there are many moving parts, however, if anyone thinks we’ll even get within a sniff of top 2 (or 4 for that matter), they’re delusional. 

I think it’s a fair comparison from LeG because Dibling would’ve been a starter week in, week out if he’d stayed which is what was relevant to us as a Championship club at the time we sold and why he was replaced with signing two wingers in Scienza and Fellows 

Edited 2 hours ago by CSA96

[SNSUN]

23 minutes ago, LeG said:

Solak hasn't lied...we just need to sell before we buy. Think back to when we sold Dibling and bought Azaz, Fellows, Scienza and Jander with the money in the final few days of the window. Spors is a master of this.

We can only hope we can sign similarly decent players again. Of course it would have been better if we hadn't spied, won the play off final and had the money for Spors to sign better players for the Prem. But that's moot now. 

Burnley may have beaten us to Ahmedhodzic but for the money he was available for and his Championship pedigree, it's the right sort of player we should be looking at. 

[BotleySaint]

If the window closes and we've sold Charles and THB and not adequately replaced them, we'll be in for a long hard season. Those two and Stewart contributed vital goals that turned matches around last aeason. I'm preparing to be underwhelmed though.

[trousers]

28 minutes ago, LeG said:

Solak hasn't lied

Phew!

 

[SNSUN]

13 minutes ago, Dman said:

 

 

I don’t really like to comment on the window until it’s done as there are many moving parts, however, if anyone thinks we’ll even get within a sniff of top 2 (or 4 for that matter), they’re delusional. 

I don't think we're top 2 material this season despite how good our form was at the tail end of last season. The League is much stronger. But with the next six in a play-off spot we should be fine. But as you say, it's impossible to say until the window shuts. Larin and Peretz were good permanent signings, we just need to do that again a few times. 

[trousers]

34 minutes ago, John B said:

Going to Villa would be a good move for him

 

28 minutes ago, die Mannyschaft said:

That's a big step up with European football too

Talk of Villa always takes me back to 5th March 2022... Just over 4 years ago... There were Saints... 9th in the Premier League... with Villa back in 13th... They beat us 4-0... triggering the downward spiral to where we find ourselves now... 

Sliding doors and all that...

[SambaMaverick]

Why is anyone surprised THB would want to go to Villa and the club are in no position to really stop him, obviously fee permitting... even if we went up we probably would've had our hand forced. They're in the Champions League and he has aspirations of playing for England - whether it will work out that way for him is a different question.

I've got a decent amount of trust in Spors etc to replace THB, preferably with two defenders, before the end of the window. Hopefully we can grab a decent winger and a good replacement for Charles too - even if one or two of those are loans.

[Dan Johnson]

THB to villa is a good move for him, it’s a bigger club/higher level than I expected him to get. Could see a Palace/Everton/Brentford move, but to get a champions league club, fair play.

I was only saying today though, that I think villa will be 9th-13th next season, so many changes, lost their spine, Watkins could still leave and I’m not convinced the players their signing are adequate replacements, as much as I think THB is our best player, there’s still question marks over his Premiership potential especially at a level of club who will be aiming for Europe, only goes to solidify my expectations for villa this season, still it’s a good move for him.

£25m + achievable add ons most likely, totalling £30m.

 

[Hawkswood]

1 hour ago, Willo of Whiteley said:

I mean, at this point we’re not selling Taylor Harwood-Bellis.

Let’s at least wait until he’s gone before starting the meltdown. 😂

I agree but would take it one step further. Let's wait until the end of the transfer window before we smash the place up in anger and disappointment.

[trousers]

 

 

[Cuddles]

9 minutes ago, trousers said:

 

 

He looks weird 

[Cuddles]

[SNSUN]

7 minutes ago, trousers said:

 

 

Good signing for them. I guess they just wanted Anel more than we did. Someone of that calibre though would definitely improve us though. Decent money for a Championship proved CB at a good age. 

[Turkish]

27 minutes ago, trousers said:

 

 

Another one we’ve missed out on. That guy in France going to Wolves as well so that’s two in a week to add all the others. This window has been a disaster. £10m spent to standstill Dobin is money down the drain and a big Ross sized hole up front 

cheers Les

[skintsaint]

45 minutes ago, trousers said:

 

Talk of Villa always takes me back to 5th March 2022... Just over 4 years ago... There were Saints... 9th in the Premier League... with Villa back in 13th... They beat us 4-0... triggering the downward spiral to where we find ourselves now... 

Sliding doors and all that...

Two days after my boy was born...proper Jonah....😅

[Saint86]

1 hour ago, Oh no Mick Mills said:

Im kind of torn at the moment between thinking things will be fine , we'll sign a couple of top quality players for this level and over a 46 game season will be right up there in the top 1-4 positions....

On the other hand I can't let go of the thought that Sports Republic have converted us into a Championship side that are light years behind the level required to compete back in the Prem, and its hard under their ownership to see that they have the scruples to get us back to that level. ...are we being mugged off and all they want is to player trade 5/10m players into 20/30m players...end of.

 

Spors isn't Rasmus... But equally, significant harm has already been done.

[Disco Stu]

44 minutes ago, SambaMaverick said:

Why is anyone surprised THB would want to go to Villa and the club are in no position to really stop him, obviously fee permitting... even if we went up we probably would've had our hand forced. They're in the Champions League and he has aspirations of playing for England - whether it will work out that way for him is a different question.

I've got a decent amount of trust in Spors etc to replace THB, preferably with two defenders, before the end of the window. Hopefully we can grab a decent winger and a good replacement for Charles too - even if one or two of those are loans.

Who's expressed surprise that THB would want to go to Villa?

[Badger]

Infuriating to see other teams making these moves, and signings of players within our budget.
 

Others have strengthened the spine of their sides ( GK - as have we - but CB, MF, CF still lacking).

There’s another ten days of the window so not giving up hope, but as things stand (and with the THB rumour) we’ve clearly gone backwards. 

[JohnnyShearer2.0]

51 minutes ago, trousers said:

 

Talk of Villa always takes me back to 5th March 2022... Just over 4 years ago... There were Saints... 9th in the Premier League... with Villa back in 13th... They beat us 4-0... triggering the downward spiral to where we find ourselves now... 

Sliding doors and all that...

That was a horrendous game. The performance came out of nowhere and little did we know that was just the start.

Something changed.

[tdmickey3]

We wish Taylor all the best and thank him for his efforts and we are comfortable with things, we have a quality centre back and captain who will build a strong partnership with Wood, who will be given time to show what he can do

[Badger]

1 minute ago, Disco Stu said:

Who's expressed surprise that THB would want to go to Villa?

Think the surprise is that Villa as a CL side might be in for him. 

[tdmickey3]

2 minutes ago, Disco Stu said:

Who's expressed surprise that THB would want to go to Villa?

No one

[Disco Stu]

Just now, Badger said:

Think the surprise is that Villa as a CL side might be in for him. 

Yes there's some surprise there but it seems they need home-grown players. I've not seen anyone express any surprise that THB might want the move though.

[SambaMaverick]

4 minutes ago, Disco Stu said:

Who's expressed surprise that THB would want to go to Villa?

More referring to the fact people seem surprised/angry that we would let him go

[Badger]

Just now, Disco Stu said:

Yes there's some surprise there but it seems they need home-grown players. I've not seen anyone express any surprise that THB might want the move though.

Which should increase his value if that’s the case. £30m minimum plus add ons. 
 

[Saint86]

1 hour ago, CSA96 said:

I think it’s a fair comparison from LeG because Dibling would’ve been a starter week in, week out if he’d stayed which is what was relevant to us as a Championship club at the time we sold and why he was replaced with signing two wingers in Scienza and Fellows 

As would Fernandes, KWP, Bednarek, and even AA in January.

I actually think freshening up the squad isn't a bad thing in general - sides need that to change things up to move forward (or it gets too stale and comfortable). I wonder if Brentford fans were panicking every day of the transfer window whilst they player trading their way to consistent playoff finishes and building a new stadium in the 2nd tier? 🙄.

We have an owner who was pretty passionate about his commitment to the club this summer, and a DoF who has credit in the bank... And at the start of the summer pretty much everyone would have accepted at least 2 bigger names being sold. So far we've only lost Charles. People need to stop the panicking. 

[SNSUN]

4 minutes ago, Disco Stu said:

Who's expressed surprise that THB would want to go to Villa?

The Villa fans for one on their forum! They can't believe they're signing a Championship centre back to play in the Champions League. Despite the fact he played and scored for England and was one of our better players in our Prem relegation season. He may not be the same level but he's only 24. 

The fact for us is that he is our best CB and will be tough to replace but I wouldn't begrudge him a move to Villa and I suspect it'll be 25 million up front with extras up to 30 and a sell on clause. We can do business with that but it still blows that it'll come at this time of the window. I just hope it doesn't cause any unrest amongst others that might think their futures are above us.