Saint Without a Halo

Given the Sissoko fee what could we have got for Wanyama in particular and even Mane if we held out till the end the prices seem to be going up by the day and now by the hour

If Arsenal subsidies the wages why not?

Here it is tomorrow

True for half glass full but half glass empty says only 2pts compared to 7 Pts last year from the same fixtures Improvements needed quick

The medical is to ensure no long term deteriorating damage in order to protect the asset financially and make sure he can be insured against career threatening injuries it is not to prove his current fitness! If the injury is not career threatening it is not an issue

You could be right he is an Arab and plays for an Arab nation so could be interesting although he holds French nationality

If we didn't sell them we wouldn't get the new also until the young players see the gap and know they will be playing they are not going to sign there is always an element of chicken and egg We also need space for academy players too otherwise the best will not seek us out so not everyone is replaced on the market

2nd one isn't half bad is it

And here you have it ! We get young hungry players keen to make a name for themselves not has been son high wages happy to sit on the bench and see out there career We have worked hard to create saints as a destination for young ambitious players we get two to three years out of them and sell at a profit An ideal strategy for a club of our size and wealth and it enables us to slowly eat away at the commercial advantages of our bigger rivals and gradually increase our wage bills too and all in a stable financial set up

Why not we can do sparta

Here we go

Bloody taters calling for a Zlaton hat trick now

I am so sick of this big Man U love in from the commentators it's getting ridiculous

We are losing confidence

No we are Southampton not Man U

As another 50 years plus fan you have my sympathy Beowulf for some of the more ridiculous responses to your post Whilst I don't necessarily agree there is a reason to panick yet I respect your right to your opinion and concerns

Most important signing of th summer so far

The first stage is a group of four so we get three games one home and two away if we are in the same group as Pompey we will play them however there is only one academy allowed in each group. So we may fill in a gap elsewhere

We cannot afford to pay the whole team mega bucks without risking the club given our commercial income compared to others We cannot pay some players mega bucks without upsetting others leading to an uncommitted team or an inflationary spiral We have therefore decided to depend on young players wishing to make a name for themselves in the premier by giving them a stage and allowing the successful ones to move on this action means that unlike the top clubs who cannot guarantee good young players regular football we can and that means they are more likely to come to us and good kids are more likely to prefer our academy this is a model that works for us Trying to ape the top clubs high spending model will never work for us and trying to copy the Stokes WBAs etc who depend on older players past their sell by date to ensure player continuity would also risk the investment we have made to date to attract the best young talent and would be a retrograde step Our strategy and the efforts we have made to make our club attractive to youth either in the academy or joining our first team is what has brought us recent success This is a perfect self sustaining model that allows us to grow step by step commercially as well as compete regularly in the top ten Year by year we are becoming stronger commercially and whils still a long way behind the top six clubs or so in terms of income and profits we are widening the gap between us and everyone else We also get to see two to three years of great young players proving themselves against the best which gives us great results against top teams as well as seven consecutive years of league improvement and commercial growth year on year so not all bad is it!

Actually the same thing applied to clubs in league 1 when we were there only down there we were the BIG club

Koeman is obsessed with buying players originally from the Dutch league

No it is not a first team fixture they have invited Academies Anyway Pompey are likely to need the 10k prize money from the match

We are making our history as we go along unlike Everton who have to look back a long way to find theirs!

But the new contracts can surely come out of the additional bumper tv money contract that everyone else is buying players with and we are still Quiana in as mentioned in the post above

A record unlikely to be ever beaten although with premier youth teams now in the tournament I guess it becomes more likely