Southampton Banter Archive June 27 2014

27 Jun 2014 21:46:15
So basically mopo being given 50m to spend was b. t, we heard rumours of a 60-70m budget for koeman, oh wait that's what we've just got from srl/shaw/lallana so in other words the only money out would be from transfers not kl dipping into her pocket, and sounds like these sales were all in place desite the lies from reed/kreuger, all we need is dejan to go and the board have royally f. d us, championship here we come before being sold of to some dodgy thai business man whilst that cow runs away with a pretty sum and managed to destabilise another another company

28 Jun 2014 09:21:04
i posted weeks ago that krueger was brought in to do a specificjob on saints by miss leibherr
he is doing that job which is assett stripping the club
i got shot down by other posters for saying what I said
i do not trust him or les reed they are just leibherr puppets
forestsaint

I have no insider knowledge, but to say RK & LR are Leibherr puppets, well of course they are as they are employees. As long as we don't sign Bendtner, I'll still have hope that we still have ambition.

No ambition, as mentioned 'asset stripping' but leaving just enough hence koeman to flog the club on and walk away with big profits

27 Jun 2014 18:01:20
Lallana and Shaws deals were well in place and have been for a while. Feel quite betrayed by the board who have hinted at no sales.
I feel this goes two ways with the gather:
1. He knew about the deals way before his appointment and has been guaranteed money to spend on the players he likes
2. He didn't know so it wouldn't surprise me if he left after the clubs statements of 'we don't need to sell our best players'.

I am personally going to hate seeing Lallana in a Liverpool shirt next year, hope he will be a flop and comes straight back to us :-).

27 Jun 2014 18:29:20
sorry but
once a selling club
always a selling club despite what krueger and reed say
lovren will be next
forestsaint

If we continue to sell we won't attract better players than we sold.
I hope Lovren doesn't go as that'll be another quality player gone, who I don't believe we could replace

27 Jun 2014 16:37:27
Sad day for us, loosing Luke is gutting it really is and looks like Adam is off to. I wish them all the best, but no point dwelling on it now as we know our academy will keep bringing young players in, it will be a transitional period for us next year, so I think now is a more important time then ever to tie down the core of our team, like Corky and Fonte who are both in their last year of their contracts. I think if there was going to be a deal for Lovren it would've happened with Lallana so I reckon he could stay, as it's going to be a transitional period for us the signings we make are going to be crucial in building our team for next year. We need to be really carefull in who we sign, as very soon we may have £70m to spend on players and can't do a spurs, I've found interesting our little debate on weather to sign English or foreign players and have being swayed into thinking that now would be a good time to sign a solid English core to the squad, but with a mix of a few foreign players to play in positions were there are not good enough English players available, what does everyone think? I reckon we need a GK, LB, CB, AM, ST, obviously some players will come from our academy but as we're in a transitional stage I wondered what everyone else though we should do?

I'd like:
GK: Fraser Forster/ Jack Butland
CB: Steven Caulker/ Micah Richards/ Inigo Martinez
LB: Matt Taggart/ Ryan Bertand/Bruno Martins Indi (if Matt isn't quite ready)
AM: Shaqiri/ Adam Jonnson (maybe)
ST: Alexandre Pato/ Garry Hooper (maybe)/Bojan (maybe)/ Danny Ings/ Victor Fischer??
Not rumours more of a wish lift of one of each of the positions needs to be ambitious with an English backbone IMO, thoughts?

Forgot to mention Carlos Vella, would be a great addition

I think any English player signings are going to sting us on the price, we need to look for those continental bargains, particularly from teams which need to make a quick buck.

Shaw's sale is great money, Lallana's too although I had always thought he would stay with the club his whole career. It's disappointing but I think it's necessary, too many times last season he got burnt out in the 2nd half, we need a CAM who is a constant threat for the team.

27 Jun 2014 17:48:08
we have been betrayed by the club and by KL in particular. I just wish she would put the club up for sale, and I have been saying that that is probably what she has in mind after asset stripping the club all summer long.
Reed and the hockey coach are just yes men I saw them coming from day one , they convince no one. The difficulty for us fans is that we are dealing with cash hungry germans, they know they can afford to sell our best players and still sell the club as a going concern for another 150 million a tidy profit on their investment. I just feel sorry for fellow fans, but the writing was on the wall from the day Cortese left, and confirmed when Pochettino left. its not rocket science i'm afraid.

Yes it's not a period of positive noise from the club other than the great sums of money we are raking in, but why on earth does this make you think so badly of the board? We have signed a manager who is better than Pochettino both in experience and tactically and that is thanks to the board who have clearly sold the clubs vision well to Koeman. It's nonsense to say were going to be going backwards, this is a transitional period we were all made aware of since January

Montecristosaint complain if reinvest poorly or not at all, but it's the not the boards fault, if players want to leave we can't do much about it and we'll have a decent sum of money to spend, now who does everyone want to sign? Adding to what I said, De Vrij, Van Dijk would also be good at CB, also think if we've raked in 70m SaintsFan29, we can afford English players as I doubt the players I mentioned would go for much as most would have either just been relegated and would want to come back to a premier league side, want first team football and are on their clubs transfer list, with exception of Adam Johnson as Sunderland will want to hold on to him, but think he'd be a great signing

Yeah but what grinds me is that we shouldn't be having a transitional year. It'll be a year of transition but we've completely forced it on our selves when we should have been continuing to build stronger. Instead we now have to rebuild and it was totally unnecessary.

Personally I'm mixed on the whole. Shaw was good business, but we gave him 10 years of development and he barely gave us 2 and that really annoys me about his total lack of loyalty. Lallana I feel is on the @rse end of his peak, about to hit the autumn of his career. It's a good deal to get good money for him now as I sense he will not get any better and will only start dropping off these next few years, let's face it, even in his peak he doesn't have the legs. But on the other hand this guy was Mr. Southampton, meant to see out his career here and become a legend. Ultimately he's jumped ship for the same reason as every other mercenary.

Whilst I understand all the sales so far at an individual level as a whole it's a terrible picture. We are selling our top talent at the first time of asking; we're developing top players but not for our own team but for our direct rivals. They strengthen, we weaken. And I don't see us signing better then what we had, yes we have the money but what £20-30 million playmaker for example is going to move to us? Not to mention the fact that in less then 2 months we will have sold the fans 3 favourite players; the ageing club legend, the best prospect we have and the potential one club legend. Who do the fans now get on the back of their shirts? Whose names do they sing in the stands? We have ripped out a massive part of what the modern club is and it will be impossible to replace, both in sentimentality and practicality. So whilst I 'get it', all the sales, it's still more of a negative then a positive, and barring an absolutely outstanding transfer window of purchases, will have long lasting consequences.

Oh and Montecristo if you had any idea what asset stripping was you would not have mentioned it. If transfer revenues go back into purchases it's a moot point. Equally players do not qualify as assets to sell, assets would be things which the club owns, like Staplewood for example, rather then employees. For further clarification of football economics read Stephen Morrow's The People's Game or John Samuels' The Beautiful Game is Over.

27 Jun 2014 20:47:57
Suggest you doom merchants wait to see who Koemans brings in. Maybe there are certain players who played under MP who he doesn't see as essential to his plans and he can cash in and bring in those who fit his blueprint? Happens with most clubs eg. Liverpool, why should Saints be different?

Exactly St Martin, we need to see who we reinvest in before we start complaining

I disagree, we are entitled to complain regardless, it's called freedom of speech and also to fans it's an emotive subject.
I'm in agreement with TJ, there is no loyalty, all the comments made by Lallana at the end of last season and now he's moving on.
Also, as my previous posts, we will not attract better players if we are (and we are) selling our better existing team members, these aren't just squad members but first team regulars. If you sell your better players you're less likely to attract the higher-calibre player, and saints also have a wage structure they need to adhere to.
Getting back to the pivotal point, I do not see us moving forward from last year, it shouldn't be another transitional year, it should be building on and improving on last year.

I've seen many names mentioned as possible and plausible replacements for those that have and are going, however, they're not proven premiership players and there's no guarantees they'll be able to adapt to the EPL.
We are losing our identity as a club if it all becomes about signing foreign, unproven players

To end on a positive note, I'm glad we have Koeman as our new manager and as other posts mention we need to give him time

28 Jun 2014 09:45:23
So, Liverpool will sell Suarez and this will stop them attracting quality players??

I may very well agree with you IF AND WHEN Saints fail to sign quality replacements, but to base your comments upon media speculation about who Saints may sign is IMO not based upon them showing any accuracy in such past speculation. Why should they be right now?

But the money will be reinvested and the ambition to push on is still their, it would only take one big name eyecatching signing to get the media's and players attention that we mean business pluss a couple of crude edditions and we should be fine

Saint Martin, the analogy of Liverpool selling and attracting and saints doing the same bears no resemblance at all. Liverpool's name is known around the world, their name alone attracts quality, and their historical and cultural identity.

As for signing quality replacements, yeah, they may well be, however, I don't doubt for a second that they will better what we've sold, and I'm not naive enough to think so. The board will want to keep to the wage structure, which I entirely agree with, however this will restrict the player we will attract, no ifs or buts.

And as for the money being reinvested in the squad, when, over what period of time and what will that 'quality' look like?

28 Jun 2014 18:14:04
TJ trust me I take no pleasure running the Board down but the fact is it was more than obvious what KL was up to, we had enough pointers to confirm what was likely to happen. Its so difficult take any positives from what is going on, we cannot blame the players for wanting to move on. My only crumb of comfort is that this saga will end before long, logically Liebherr will sell the club soon when all the deals have been completed she won't want to face the music when the season starts. She has ruined her father s project its that simple. You mentioned financial concepts, well its my area so let me explain that when speaking of assets they are classed as either tangible or intangible. Players are intangible, whilst the tangible are as you point out the ground facilities etc. cash and so on. Where Kl is concerned knowing that intangibles are difficult to assess until you have sold them, she has opted to sell them all, as she knows that the club as a tangible asset will still be worth as much after player sales as before.
Its all very unpleasant hurtful, but the minute she appointed Krueger and reed I knew what we were in for. There were other indicators as well Cortes and MoPo leaving, the refusal to pay bonuses thereby making her task of selling players easier.I am still hoping I am wrong, but I have a nasty feeling there is more to the Bendtner story than we think, and I dread to see what players actually come into the club over the next few weeks. I just hope that she does sell the club before xmas, to give Koeman and the new owner time to repair the damage done, but it will take years to replace the truly wonderful players who will have left us this summer.And it could all have been so different. If anybody thinks Cortese would not have kept this squad together they are dreaming, He would have the players believed in him and so did most of us. Tragic times

Here here montecristosaint.

27 Jun 2014 15:41:11
I would be happy if lallana leaves and we sign clement grenier dusan tadic and rafa silva to go as our CAM

27 Jun 2014 15:34:05
So with Lallana seemingly out who do we think should take over the captaincy? For me it would have to be Schneiderlin (assuming we don't sell him too - please don't), been with us for a long time and is always one of the first names on the team sheet. Other obvious option would be Fonte, however I feel if the rumours regarding centre backs are to be believed he may not be a regular starter next season.

27 Jun 2014 17:50:06
we have no chance of holding on to Schneiderlin Lovren or Chambers i'm afraid.
But take comfort from the fact that Liebherr will soon be history if my hunch is correct.

27 Jun 2014 15:12:59
Southampton CEO Les Reed has promised to reinvest the money from Luke Shaw into the team. Koeman has around £50 Million to play with (including the Lallana fee recieved).

He'll have even more if the Express story of Lovren to Arsenal is true.

27 Jun 2014 14:52:38
Been a sad day for Saints fans. Great business for the club in terms of the transfer fees, but never nice seeing two of your own walk out the door, especially after Lambert went as well. Fingers crossed Koeman uses the money well and swiftly to bring in some top replacements before pre season. I have faith Reed and Koeman know what they're doing. COYR

Red & white, thank you for saying something positive! just wish the naysayers would get behind the club, we haven't kicked a ball yet & according to some its all over.

coysaaaaaaiiiiinnnnntttttsssss!!!

27 Jun 2014 13:50:35
So moving up one place in the league has cost £30m!

27 Jun 2014 00:28:57
I reckon Koeman is going to do what poch is planning, which is to leave, bringing his best players with him, so many players rumoured from feyenoord and they all look brilliant, as for the shaw deal, I think what we could do with £30-35 million would be something man untd can't, we could get replacements and backups for everywhere we need improvement, and we certainly won't be buying one young player who hasn't fully blossomed yet for an amount that big.