The quiet success of Southampton, who can now afford to keep stars like Sadio Mané

[SuperSAINT]

Sam Wallace article @ The Telegraph:

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2016/06/01/the-quiet-success-of-southampton-who-can-now-afford-to-keep-star/?

[Saint-Armstrong]

Main bits of info from that story:

 

 

1. Anyone wanting to buy Sadio will have to make it our biggest ever sale (so more than the £31.5m we sold Shaw for)

 

2. Victor will be allowed to leave but only if we recoup our initial outlay of £12m

 

3. Saints don't want to sell and aren't entertaining bidders for first team players

 

4. Saints didn't even bother having a meeting to discuss the Koeman/Everton rumours

 

5. Would be no surprise if Koeman extends his contract soon

 

6. Likely to be a quiet summer. Wanyama allowed to leave but no other concerns. Probably buy some good quality in.

Edited 1 June, 2016 by Saint-Armstrong

[Saint Charlie]

Really good article. Thanks for posting.

[SuperSAINT]

1. Anyone wanting to buy Sadio will have to make it our biggest ever sale (so more than the £31.5m we sold Shaw for)

 

YES

[washsaint]

Really good article - lets hope this summer is uneventful with 2 or 3 in and only 1 first teamer (wanyama) out

[notnowcato]

Positive article, does have a feel of a club placed article rather than journalistic opinion - possibly wishful thinking on my part.

[ScepticalStan]

Glad that we're finally going to show some muscle when it comes to the Mane transfer. The guy has funnily enough, actually had a fairly naff season all-in-all - apart from his burst of goals at the end; so much so that I'm not convinced he can really do any worse next season.

 

At the other end of the spectrum; I can absolutely see him notching 20-25 goals in the Premier League alone. Bottom line is he's a bloody brilliant player and won't lose any of his transfer value for having one, rather than two years left on his contract; the value of his transfer fee will be on account of the competition for the players signature and inevitable bidding war that follows. We should hold firm.

 

Victor we can sell and replace; but for the love of God lets do that sooner rather than later instead of going into our opening games of the season half-cocked like we did in this one.

[Monkou]

I´d happily sell Mané for 40m to be honest. He would be much easier to replace than Wanyama will be.

[doggface]

Smells of PR job, but if it comes off then all well and good. The proof is in the pudding

[Saint Charlie]

I´d happily sell Mané for 40m to be honest. He would be much easier to replace than Wanyama will be.

Respectfully disagree.

 

Especially when you see people suggesting the likes of Redmond, Sisto and Townsend as replacements.

 

Mane has scored probably about as many goals this season as those have in their whole top league careers.

 

The reason Mane would go for £40m is because players of his attributes, potential, versatility and goal ratio sre quite hard to find. We would be replacing with most likely an unproven player and usually you wouldn't want to do that with your key attacking player.

 

I would be happy to keep another season even if we then got a lower fee because he is such a key player and from a fan perspective someone who entertains.

[Mowgli]

Smells of PR job, but if it comes off then all well and good. The proof is in the pudding

 

It sort of balances all that dross that comes out of the Daily Mail troll, Martin Samuel

[Toadhall Saint]

Respectfully disagree.

 

Especially when you see people suggesting the likes of Redmond, Sisto and Townsend as replacements.

 

Mane has scored probably about as many goals this season as those have in their whole top league careers.

 

The reason Mane would go for £40m is because players of his attributes, potential, versatility and goal ratio sre quite hard to find. We would be replacing with most likely an unproven player and usually you wouldn't want to do that with your key attacking player.

 

I would be happy to keep another season even if we then got a lower fee because he is such a key player and from a fan perspective someone who entertains.

 

This

 

I cannot remember seeing a player with feet as quick as his.

[trousers]

Bit of a misleading headline isn't it?

 

Its never been a case of not being able to "afford" to keep our best players whilst still under contract, its more that we've reluctantly let them go because they made it clear they didn't want to play for Saints anymore. We didn't have to sell any of them for financial reasons, did we?

 

(I haven't read the full article yet, just commenting on the headline)

Edited 1 June, 2016 by trousers
@

[Unbelievable Jeff]

Always happy to see Telegraph articles as it means it's fed directly from the club.

 

Happy with that.

[Globetrotter]

Always had respect for Sam Wallace as he was the only journo who actually looked beyond the #meltdown madness of 2 years ago, and put forward the contrary argument. He was with the Indy then too.

 

Sent from my SM-G920F using Tapatalk

[charliemiller]

This

 

I cannot remember seeing a player with feet as quick as his.

 

 

wouldnt it be great to have Mane and Sisto in the team ........pace to burn and both very direct

[Fan The Flames]

Bit of a misleading headline isn't it?

 

Its never been a case of not being able to "afford" to keep our best players whilst still under contract, its more that we've reluctantly let them go because they made it clear they didn't want to play for Saints anymore. We didn't have to sell any of them for financial reasons, did we?

 

(I haven't read the full article yet, just commenting on the headline)

 

It appears that we did, the owners wanted the debt brought down. We have now done that and incidentally notched up two if our best finishes. Keep this team together with a few changes and we could call it a good summer.

 

I'm looking forward to next season, marry the defence of 2014-15 with the attack of 2015-16 and we could see us topping our points again.

 

Happy days indeed.

[Saint_clark]

Respectfully disagree.

 

Especially when you see people suggesting the likes of Redmond, Sisto and Townsend as replacements.

 

Mane has scored probably about as many goals this season as those have in their whole top league careers.

 

The reason Mane would go for £40m is because players of his attributes, potential, versatility and goal ratio sre quite hard to find. We would be replacing with most likely an unproven player and usually you wouldn't want to do that with your key attacking player.

 

I would be happy to keep another season even if we then got a lower fee because he is such a key player and from a fan perspective someone who entertains.

 

I mean...i agree with most of what you say. But Mane was unproven himself about a year and a half ago.

[CB Fry]

Interesting it is just a comment piece, was expecting it to be built round a Les or Ralph interview.

 

Seems fine, kind of chimed with my view on Mane - I am not convinced any CL level club (or Liverpool) will think he is worth what we'd want at this stage. I can't see anyone paying £40m for him.

 

That said if he goes "on strike"/ kicks off etc etc then we could still sell this summer, but would still have to be about £35m.

[Dark Munster]

"One of the Premier League’s most upwardly-mobile clubs."

[Professor]

I´d happily sell Mané for 40m to be honest. He would be much easier to replace than Wanyama will be.

Mané's goal drought was a reminder that, good player that he can be, he doesn't work miracles. Any player can have an 'off' period so at £40m, or even less, he should be replaceable with cash left over. But I'm not sure that replacing Wanyama would be particularly difficult, in fact he had to be replaced quite a few times during last season when he wasn't available because of suspensions. It would be a surprise if the Black Box doesn't have several names ready to target in the £12m-£15m price range.

[CityRanger]

" Victor will be allowed to leave but only if we recoup our initial outlay of £12m"

What do we think Levy has bid this year? 3/4 million?

Nice idea about Mane but if he's worth that much in today's market I hope we've offered him a salary to reflect that or he'll be another one going cheap next summer.

[Mr Biscuits]

If everything pans out like that article says this summer I will be a very happy bunny.

[thefuriousb]

Always had respect for Sam Wallace as he was the only journo who actually looked beyond the #meltdown madness of 2 years ago, and put forward the contrary argument. He was with the Indy then too.

 

Sent from my SM-G920F using Tapatalk

 

Sam Wallace is arguably the best football journalist in the UK press (with Alison Rudd). He has very good sources within the game.

 

He's not the normal journo that we 'place' stories with (Jeremy Wilson?), so seems to be very much his own opinion.

 

A good read

[aintforever]

Nice article but we can keep these players mainly because we are owned by a billionaire and the sky money has gone up.

[ErwinK1961]

Some freelance journo on Twitter reckons Pochettino was at the ROI game to scout Shane Long (not sure why he'd need to scout him) and that a move to Spurs is on.

[View From The Top]

Some freelance journo on Twitter reckons Pochettino was at the ROI game to scout Shane Long (not sure why he'd need to scout him) and that a move to Spurs is on.

 

He was there to watch a Dutch striker. Common knowledge.

[ErwinK1961]

He was there to watch a Dutch striker. Common knowledge.

 

That the Janssen lad? Apparently this came from Jason McAteer... Which probably makes it even less reliable!

[SuperSAINT]

That the Janssen lad?

 

Yes. Scored again tonight too.

[Patrick Bateman]

Sam Wallace is arguably the best football journalist in the UK press (with Alison Rudd). He has very good sources within the game.

 

He's not the normal journo that we 'place' stories with (Jeremy Wilson?), so seems to be very much his own opinion.

 

A good read

 

100% this.

[buctootim]

Nice idea about Mane but if he's worth that much in today's market I hope we've offered him a salary to reflect that or he'll be another one going cheap next summer.

 

What is a good wage for a key player now? It seems that not only has the money gone up but the top to bottom range in the PL has got a lot wider the past few years - since a past his best Rooney got £300,000pw.

[SuperSAINT]

What is a good wage for a key player now? It seems that not only has the money gone up but the top to bottom range in the PL has got a lot wider the past few years - since a past his best Rooney got £300,000pw.

 

I'm going 80/90k.

 

Deserves more than Osvaldo & Ramirez.

[buctootim]

I'm going 80/90k.

 

Deserves more than Osvaldo & Ramirez.

 

Sounds about right. I read yesterday that the tv income next season will have generated more for the PL clubs by half time in the first match than the old first division earned in a whole season.

[Batman]

Nicely timed article, given other papers are running with Koeman to Everton stories again

 

bit of a coincidence?

[eddie]

3. Saints don't want to sell and aren't entertaining bidders for first team players

 

Be interesting to see how who they define as first team. Variety in playing system means we have a first 14 or so...e.g. the kerfuffle at right back shows us that we have two 'first teamers' for that position depending on whether the opposition plays a beefy, or slight and fast, left midfielder.

 

Tadic wasn't first team for quite a bit of the season, whereas Yoshida got a good run of games in the Autumn but has now been relegated to a place we're all more relieved with, i.e. 3rd or 4th choice centre-back.

[Mr Biscuits]

Nicely timed article, given other papers are running with Koeman to Everton stories again

 

bit of a coincidence?

 

Hope so. Nice to have someone in the media on our side for once

[CB Fry]

Hope so. Nice to have someone in the media on our side for once

There are loads and loads and loads of people in the media 'on our side'. Guessing you've missed the countless fawning articles in the press, on TV and radio over the last four or five years about how wonderful we are and how we do things is the way forward.

[Saints1976]

With the TV money available I'd imagine most teams can afford to hang onto their best players if they don't want away for whatever reasons.

[St Chalet]

With the TV money available I'd imagine most teams can afford to hang onto their best players if they don't want away for whatever reasons.

 

I must explain the concept of oligopoly when I have more time.

[sadoldgit]

Some freelance journo on Twitter reckons Pochettino was at the ROI game to scout Shane Long (not sure why he'd need to scout him) and that a move to Spurs is on.

 

Probably came about because he was pictured sitting next to Shane Long's agent (who is probably an agent of a number of others in the game too).

[Mallagroth]

Probably came about because he was pictured sitting next to Shane Long's agent (who is probably an agent of a number of others in the game too).

 

I think this was already denied as genuine interest by Tottenham and Poch as well.

[nta786]

I must explain the concept of oligopoly when I have more time.

 

If only football was like the perfect market...

But then who would win the league if all 'labour/footballers' have the same ability