30 Jul 2014 22:07:05
How's this for a theory:

Cortese started out last season by telling Saints' players (and new signings) that they are to get to a Champions League position and they will receive bonuses for performances. Lovren, Wanyama and Osvaldo would have all signed on with this notion and possibly Ramírez and Rodriguez the year before.

During the course of last season though, Cortese left. My thought is he was telling the board they have to keep spending money if they are to get to a Champions League spot and that is why he was spending lots and incurring debt with the intention of paying it off over a few years. However the board felt that this is not sustainable business. Though that may be the way Man Utd, Man City, Chelsea etc work they have the commercial backing with a large fan base around the world; which we sadly do not have (yet).

The thing with Cortese leaving is he was the head of the ambitious drive to Champions League that the players and Pochettino were sold on. Though the board would like to get to Champions League as well, they cannot do it as fast as Cortese wanted. The drain on funds would ruin the financial integrity the club has been building since Liebherr bought the club. Pochettino saw this was going to happen and, though Cortese asked him to stay to finish the season at least, he knew the board were not going to push for Champions League as the following season's objective. So although he was offered a new contract he stalled to allow Tottenham to offer him a contract; which would include European football.

I am pleased with Saints bringing in Koeman though. He is a straightforward manager with a track-record of successfully working with teams like Feyenoord who lose their best players and bring through the youngsters. With his current run of friendlies I am content but I think we will see more signings come through to help bolster the line-ups.

Why are the main players all going though? Surely Koeman would want them to stay and would encourage them to stay? Of course he does and he has been doing that. The truth is the players now feel bigger than the club's readjusted objectives and their agents are stirring it up in the background to get them better deals. Saints knew they were losing Lambert, Lallana and Shaw. Lambert was genuine with his approach though. Why did he go for £4m? Because West Ham put a bid of £10m in the January window. He wanted to go that window but Saints asked him to see the season through and if his boyhood club came calling we would let him go. I expect there to be other instalments on top of the £4m for how many performances he has with Liverpool, but they are still cheapskates. I say they are cheapskates because of the way they got Lallana. While on England duty the players were exposed to top league players who are on better wages that Saints cannot offer. In a sense Lallana and Shaw were tapped-up by the other players to go and play for Liverpool and Man Utd. So when we first rejected the initial offers for both players they then said they wanted to go. We cannot meet the wage demands that the top clubs would offer, but if that wasn't the case we would have got more money from the sales if Lallana and Shaw said they wanted to stay. Then again if they wanted to stay we would not have sold them anyway and they would still be part of this team. Still, we have now seen that Lallana is now out for a few months and Shaw has been told he is not fit enough, so the transfers seem to be very worth our while now.

What of the other players that have gone? Lovren deliberately stirred up trouble because he knew he could be on better wages (possible double what we have him on currently) and so it was worth him forcing a move. Chambers had said he did not feel his future lay at Saints and knew Arsenal were going to come in for him. Again, they were willing to offer better wages despite him being young and not completing a full season with Saints. Good business for us again.

Why have Saints put premium prices on the players? Surely that would encourage teams to come in for them despite that? In part yes that is probably what Saints are doing. We were not going to let our players go for pennies but neither did we want clubs to completely look away as it allows Saints to wipe the slate clean of those players that were on the contracts Cortese set up for Champions League objective and therefore did not want to play with us anymore. Koeman is involved 100% and I think his style is "you're either with me or you're out" and more signings will be made.

Ramírez is unlikely to go, hence why we have not heard many, if any, rumours about him leaving. This is because he is already on good wages, he now has the chance to start every game now Lallana has left and it is not worth his while pushing for a move to another club where, though he may get a little improvement on his wages, he may not start any games. Osvaldo will go; not because he wouldn't work under Koeman but because he has not had a happy time here and so Koeman is OK for him to go for the right deal. Schneiderlin and Rodriguez are to be the core of our team (apparently) because they were the better performers out of the Saints' line-ups. However now Schneiderlin has had a twitter outburst it remains to be seen whether this is now the case. He is also said to have been involved in a bust-up this morning with two other senior players at the training ground today, which is not good for morale. We shall see how that develops.

Liebherr is not selling the club. She wouldn't have sold the club before the exodus as they club had debts outstanding that would deter potential buyers. In the same way she would still not sell the club in its current condition as the main assets are the players. Though we are making a profit on our sales the value of the club has gone down. Also Liebherr and the board cannot justify moving all that money to their own pockets so I believe their statement of reinvesting into the team is genuine. Some of the funds will go towards new wage deals, the payment of the training ground and paying off the outstanding transfer debt Cortese incurred during his time at Saints.

When Krueger says be patient I believe he really means be patient: Champions League is unlikely to happen this year and maybe for a few years more, but gradually they will be in the financial position to push for it, but right now we do not have the global brand and commercial backing to support this move.

Patience in the transfer market can be very tense as well; we cannot sell Champions League as a way to bring in players. It has never been our style to bring in household names anyway; not since we miraculously brought Keegan and co to Saints all those years ago. Our style is to bring in foreign players who play well and in the style we want from clubs that are not part of the big three leagues: the PL, Bundesliga or La Liga: Tadić and Pellè were in the team of the year in the Eredivisie as an example. Our strategy is to give these players the step-up and give them a chance to prove they are worth more than the money we pay for them with the possible intention of cashing in on them for double to quadruple their worth to the "big" clubs. Our young English stars are now profit-makers as well. Long are the Lowe days gone where he would take off the Bale sell-on fee for a quick buck. Making £60m plus on three academy players who cost us very little in comparison to develop is seriously good business. Families are now pushing more and more of their youngsters to the Saints Academy because they have seen that we give them a start in the senior side and it could mean decent career-starters in a money-making league.

Krueger has said three signings should be confirmed this week. I, like any other Saints fan, hope this happens with possibly more to come. However I do like the look of Pellè and I feel he is already better than Lambert in that same role (if that is blasphemy on our hero I am sorry, but Pellè's hold-up play is superb and he seems faster). More is to come from Tadić but with Ramírez I can see that becoming a deadly. Out of the youngsters starting I think Isgrove, McQueen, Reed and Targett are looking very good and I wish them well in fighting for their starts in the line-up.

This is long-winded, and most of it is made up of theories, but that is how I believe the situation is and I think that though we are off the boil on the Champions League front I do not believe it is doom and gloom as most of the Saints fans make it out to be. This also brings up a lot of talking points that I am sure people want to chip in on.

1.) 31 Jul 2014
'Champions League is unlikely to happen this year' - understatement of the century. We will be lucky to get top half this season.

2.) 31 Jul 2014
31 Jul 2014 18:48:34
Agree with you 100% Saint90. I think that all of this is a necessary part of the development of Saints from "provincial" club to "European" club. There comes a point where your team is almost good enough to compete for a top 6 place, we were almost there. Now our "star" players have proven that they have what it takes the "big" teams come sniffing.

IF ANY SAINTS FAN TELLS ME THEY WOULD NOT SWITCH WHERE THEY WORK IF THEY GOT TRIPLE PAY & A MILLION CASH I WOULD LAUGH IN THEIR FACE!!

It goes like this;
look after yourself
look after your family
look after your friends
look after your people.

Cheers