Saint86

He has the experience of promotion within a dressing room, and perhaps even more importantly, of relegation - and the moods, warning signs, and required motivations to optimise the dressing room. As stated before, i think we've got a good manager and will have a very strong season. The simple fact that he isn't Selles or Nathan Jones, and the fact that we're dropping down to be a dominant team will all provide a fresh start and refresh to the entire atmosphere around the club.

Could this means bye bye for Tella or Sulemana? If we are seriously interested it also indicates that Martin really is going to change style to adapt to more dribbling / ball carrying - A marked change from his Swansea team.

Yeah, he's 19 now - its a fine age for a player with potential - look at Tella who is about to turn 24.

I think we'll wait until we get towards the end of the window. Reality is that prem clubs are going to get desperate. There has been a lot of central midfielder movement already and teams are going to miss out and will make moves for some of our players. We need to play the market correctly and try to predict which ones when building our own squad.

A thread that further underlines both Fareham's and my confidence in JWP staying at saints. There basically isn't anyone else. Although for spirit, i'd pick Alcaraz - ignoring the reality that he's got the temperament of a firecracker that doesn't seem to have the engine to play enough minutes... plus he is even more likely to get sent off than Lyanco...

Nah, according to our non "tourist" fans its a fluke, we don't have any real fans outside the city and certainly not enough to run specific shuttle services to St Mary's 😄😂

I never realised we had a grouping of fans that think you had to physically live in the city to be a real fan of the club and not be "tourist" fan. God forbid you grew up in the surrounding areas such as Eastleigh, Totton, Romsey, Salisbury, the new forest or any of the surrounding towns/villages... Let alone if you've moved away from the city or have family ties? If this isn't a wind up its certainly a minority of fans. Would go so far as to say we would do very well to lose any fans with that particular viewpoint immediatley. Staggered that people can be that ignorant to the number of out of town match going saints fans, or quite how broad the Southampton fanbase is in the south / sout west, or indeed nationally... Let alone actually being critical of those fans?!?! I guess they thought it was coincidence that the traffic, parking, and train service becomes magically congested on any given matchday, and obviously a complete fluke that club run shuttle services to the train station as well. 🙄 I agree with SaintsFan86's sentiments above re anyone subscribing to those viewpoints.

Agreed. Baz is better than Macca, the decision to drop him once we were all but relegated was farcical as well. I would expect him to be more than fine at this level. Our defending was horrendous last year.

Yeah exactly, whenever you read stuff like that you flat out know its nonsense 😄. Club captain walks into local supermarket, starts declaring to random customers that he's leaving the club... but won't let them know where... just a sly wink wink nudge nudge and a "tata for now". All the while he and his agent keep quiet in the media and he leads the club's preseason media campaign 🙄😄. And playing devils advocate on that whole theoretical interchange, it would be more likely that he'd say that if he was staying... for the simple reason that if he was off, he wouldn't say anything 🧐.

We're going to get promoted don't worry.

Okay sure, if West Ham shove silly money and a player at us then fine, but we're pushing for £50M for JWP and i can't see them offering anything like £40M plus a player - sorry didn't realise we're operating in a world where we get exactly what we want for our players 😄. Reality is we're shoving high prices on them and hoping someone meets one of them so we can keep the rest - and my point is that will be Lavia before its JWP. If we do get £40M plus a good and young champ level CM to replace him then its probably worth it - Although still the debate to be had about continuity and consistency. If we're doing what SR said, and aiming to win the league - we're going to try and keep hold of as many of our best players as we can. Which means as few high value sales as possible, and rebalancing the defence and attack.

And to sign him we'd presumably lose lavia and JWP, whilst still needing to shift 4 expensive wage CB's and 2 attackers. So the point is, would you sell our best player (who will likely play every minute this season and score plenty of goals) for a reduced amount to west ham, to then sign a player they consider to have a lower ceiling, and which will ultimately weaken our midfield significantly over the course of a season - given that we will almost certainly sell lavia and likely don't need to sell them both? Its a bad trade. Think its more likely we shift players to reduce the wage bill / raise funds, then use some city style loans and players like smallbone / tella (and to a lesser extent the likes of Doyle/ballard) to fill out the squad. For example the links to the city kid as a lavia replacement. More than plausible we have a midfield 5 of JWP, Smallbone, Carlos, Sulemana, and Tella this year 🤷‍♂️. You'd still have the likes of Diallo, Edozie, Doyle around that. Would be a very tidy midfield for a possession focussed championship team - Without any signings. Mara, AA and Ballard up top to lead the line and run off the ball, find space etc. Tino/Bree/Larios and Perraud/Manning? as the full/wing backs. Baz in goal. And then you sort out 2 starting CB's from Lyanco, Janny B, ABK, Salisu (leaving), DCC, and Stephens. Isn't Macca now into his last year? Che, Tall Paul etc out the door with Lavia and 4CB's🤷‍♂️. The add some loanees.

He might know that West Ham are interested and that Downes is available. But lets be fair, that isn't really saying much - the whole world knows west ham want central midfielders right now, and equally JWP is a very saleable asset. Reality is that no one knows our stance on JWP or indeed JWP's stance (other than slapping a large price tag on him and putting him front and centre of media campaigns) - and tellingly that rumour doesn't give any info on that which is fair enough. As others have also said, we need to rebalance our squad costs via saving money on wages and through player trading. Within that we have assets that are clearly higher value potential sales - JWP is one. But if we manage to shift the bloat / dead weight elsewhere in the squad, i think it is unlikely we'll then need to shift both JWP and Lavia. We've already shift Orsic, Ely, and theo - and we currently have 6 CB's of which we are likely to shift 4. Its also very unlikely that we end the window with KWP and Adams imo. Tall Paul as well seems like someone destined to leave our wage bill this summer. Also, selling both JWP and Lavia in no way sorts out our issues in defence and in attack, and therefore i think its unlikely to be a priority for us. Given all that, i remain firmly of the view that its unlikely JWP is leaving. Also on Downes, it worries me slightly that he is consistently linked with a move away from West Ham as he should be targeting a lot of minutes there this season. They're a bottom half club with a need for good central mids. If West Ham don't think he's a development target, should we be considering losing our captain and best player to land him?

Exactly this. And anyone can see a breakdown of this in black and white with a 5min google.

Martin's swansea were 24th in the league for dribbles... It will be quite a step change for him to utilise the likes of Edozie and Sulemana.

They've lost circa 150M euros worth of players for a third of their value (see below) and replaced them with two average players. According to the BBC (https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/65622943), their wage bill was £180M last season - which was the highest outside the top 6 and compared to an income of £214M. They narrowly avoided FFP sanctions as of september 2022, and their income is expected to drop from £214M to £70M in the championship (again from the BBC). The article also states that they've also got an outstanding loan for advanced payments on player amortisation and tv revenue - which is secured against future TV money. Now they've been relegated they could well end up having to use the parachute payments to cover this. They are not in a great place.

In all blunt seriousness... His finishing is appalling, and "clearly being our best striker" is not saying much. I like him for his off the ball work and how he leads the line, but if he's not going to sign a new contract we'll likely be forced to sell him. We got relegated because we had Che Adams, Adam Armstrong, Mara, Tall Paul, and Theo as strikers. The one thing we absolutely needed last summer was a striker and this was a huge failure by the club... It really shouldn't be a challenge to spend £120M+ in a season and have better strikers than that!!

Absolute bullshit klaxon! I'm sure the players know what's gone on, and will be interesting to see how many they retain before the season starts. "The likes of Byers, Dele-Bashiru, Johnson, and Windass will be among those that Moore will be desperate to keep hold of while Galvin, Hunt, and Stockdale seem the prime candidates to depart". Talk about self destructing a pivotal summer for your club.

We may not be owned by the saudi's, but that won't stop us snapping up youngster on the side and then shuffling them around...

He needs competition for sure, but i would expect him to get game time this year. Strikes me as remarkably strong mentally (all things considered) and he's got good distribution and positioning as a sweeper keeper. He was a great keeper for league 1 level, he's grown and developed since then, and had a year playing at a very high level. Provided his confidence / headspace is there, we really should be giving him a year to develop at the championship. He was always a development player. What are we going to do, not play him, then get promoted and loan him to another championship side even though we wouldn't use him ourselves? Far better to play him regularly, develop him at a level he should be ready for, and then take that into the prem if possible.

Now this just sounds like Wanyama to me...

I'm going to go out on limb and say we won't be signing 3 defenders from one of the worst defences in the championship last year. If that happens, then i can only assume Sports Republic's entire scouting network lives/eats/sleeps in south wales.

This keeps popping up. Nothing has been said about JWP having or not having a relegation wage clause. What was said was that he didn't have a relegation release clause. Entirely separate things. I think it was rumoured that he has a highest earner clause, and presumably (if he has a relegation wage clause) he'll have a promotion wage clause - so he'll likely be fairly well protected on the wages front whatever happens. Whether his lifestyle can accommodate a 20-40% drop in wages, who knows?!? Its been said before, unless he needs the money or is offered European football, i think he'll give saints another 6months-12months to see how we're doing in the champ. His england career is likely gone without joining a top club and playing regularly, so his choice might basically be between becoming a potential Southampton legend (staying and getting promotion) or playing in a lower half prem club he has no affinity to.

Apparently there are only 23 levels in the formal bleep test?

Signing of the summer if we keep him? 😛