Summer 2022 Transfer Window

[washsaint]

Really important summer ahead.  Easy to say 'get rid of the deadwood' but who on earth would buy, for example, Walcott?

Ideally, outgoings would include:

Long, Walcott, Elyounoussi, Bednarek, Djeneppo, McCarthy

But no idea who we could bring in.  We are not exactly an attractive proposition right now

[Matthew Le God]

53 minutes ago, washsaint said:

Really important summer ahead.  Easy to say 'get rid of the deadwood' but who on earth would buy, for example, Walcott?

Best we probably can hope for is to subsidise alot of his wages and loan him to a Championship team until his contract expires next summer.

Edited 8 May, 2022 by Matthew Le God

[AlexLaw76]

The signing of Walcott, given we are supposed to be skint, was mental

[Chez]

7 hours ago, Teddeer said:

Just as bad.

You're not happy with him as third choice? After a woeful first game, I thought he looked solid enough. A step up from Lewis. Means we sign one new keeper...perhaps helping us spend elsewhere?

[Chez]

1 minute ago, AlexLaw76 said:

The signing of Walcott, given we are supposed to be skint, was mental

No transfer fee. 

[AlexLaw76]

11 minutes ago, Chez said:

No transfer fee. 

Wages. Still giving him millions of £££

[MarkSFC]

The policy of the club is fine. Buy young, develop and sell for good profit 2 or 3 years later. 

But right now we have a squad full of developing players or not good enough/past it players except for JWP, KwP, and Tino. Perraud, Che, Tella and Salisu will hopefully be much better over the next season. 

Everyone else in my eyes can be replaced, or should be replaced. Certainly, Long, McCarthy, Stephens, Moi, Walcott, Redmond and Forster should go. 

Others, like both Armstrongs and Romeu can stay for another season. Diallo, who cares. Bednarek I'm 50:50 on!

 

We need to sign

2 x GKs

2/3 x CBs

1 x DCM

2 x No10/winger types

2 x Strikers

 

Unlikey I guess but IF we do have a new manager soon hopefully the new owners will back him quickly rather than over a few windows as we have had over the last 4 or 5 years. 

[Dark Munster]

10 hours ago, Ex Lion Tamer said:

The trick is that you buy the Tinos but have last year's Tinos coming to fruition as well, then this year's Tinos can flourish next year, at which point you buy more Tinos

The problem with that approach is we'll have more RB's than Southgate's England!

[Dark Munster]

2 hours ago, AlexLaw76 said:

The signing of Walcott, given we are supposed to be skint, was mental

Exactly. And, like the Donkey from Monaco, many of us said so at the time. So it isn't a case of 20-20 hindsight.

[Lee On Solent Saint]

Report in the Sun stating that Bournemouth are looking at Henderson. That would be depressing if he ended up there. Exactly the sort of keeper we need

[Lighthouse]

14 hours ago, Matthew Le God said:

Best we probably can hope for is to subsidise alot of his wages and loan him to a Championship team until his contract expires next summer.

One of the promoted clubs might take a punt on him and pay a bigger chunk of his wages, although probably not all. I can see someone, somewhere convincing themselves he’s a very experienced model professional, as opposed to frequently injured and useless.

[Neef]

All of our really good PL sides in recent times have had a really strong spine. 

Quite mad that for a few years we had a variation of (Fonte & Lovren / Toby / VVD - Wanyama & Morgan - Lambert / Pelle)

We need a GK, CB & a Striker of quality if we are to imrpove.

In his most recent piece Dan Sheldon said:

"Southampton maybe have two players — James Ward-Prowse and Kyle Walker-Peters — who could immediately play at a higher level and push for a starting spot at a top side."

That hit home, becuase at our strongest under Poch/Koeman we've arguably had around 4/5 players of that quality.

[Suhari]

7 minutes ago, Neef said:

All of our really good PL sides in recent times have had a really strong spine. 

Quite mad that for a few years we had a variation of (Fonte & Lovren / Toby / VVD - Wanyama & Morgan - Lambert / Pelle)

We need a GK, CB & a Striker of quality if we are to imrpove.

In his most recent piece Dan Sheldon said:

"Southampton maybe have two players — James Ward-Prowse and Kyle Walker-Peters — who could immediately play at a higher level and push for a starting spot at a top side."

That hit home, becuase at our strongest under Poch/Koeman we've arguably had around 4/5 players of that quality.

Absolutely. The erosion in quality of our squad since Koeman has been horrific.

However I think we did better last summer than for some years, and hopefully with the clever ex-Brentford guy involved we can do even better this time around. Tough to make immediate impact without some serious £££ though.

I am quite looking forward to the summer actually: rebuild, refresh and go again.

[Appy]

14 minutes ago, Neef said:

All of our really good PL sides in recent times have had a really strong spine. 

Quite mad that for a few years we had a variation of (Fonte & Lovren / Toby / VVD - Wanyama & Morgan - Lambert / Pelle)

We need a GK, CB & a Striker of quality if we are to imrpove.

In his most recent piece Dan Sheldon said:

"Southampton maybe have two players — James Ward-Prowse and Kyle Walker-Peters — who could immediately play at a higher level and push for a starting spot at a top side."

That hit home, becuase at our strongest under Poch/Koeman we've arguably had around 4/5 players of that quality.

You could argue under Koeman, especially the first year, we had 8/9 of that quality. 

[S-Clarke]

1 hour ago, Suhari said:

Absolutely. The erosion in quality of our squad since Koeman has been horrific.

However I think we did better last summer than for some years, and hopefully with the clever ex-Brentford guy involved we can do even better this time around. Tough to make immediate impact without some serious £££ though.

I am quite looking forward to the summer actually: rebuild, refresh and go again.

The erosion of quality hasn't been down to a lack of spending though, it's just who we've bought. That's been the biggest reason of our decline, as that's left us in an impossible position to improve because we've spent huge money on players who didn't play for us, so we can't get any money back on them.

Like you said, last summer was better in the sense of Broja, Tino, Small (potential). Still major question marks over us spending £15m on Armstrong and paying a big wage to Theo though.

Edited 9 May, 2022 by S-Clarke

[Ldnsaint]

On 05/05/2022 at 16:02, Saint_clark said:

Nketiah seems more than capable of getting 10 goals a season which is our level. 

In fact, he has two less goals this season than Broja and one less than Adams with much less game time.

 he would have Armstrong, Elyounoussi, Redmond supplying him instead of Saka, Smith Rowe and Odegaard...

[HarvSFC]

2 hours ago, Ldnsaint said:

 he would have Armstrong, Elyounoussi, Redmond supplying him instead of Saka, Smith Rowe and Odegaard...

And there he's averaging 1.8 goals a league season and 11.2 appearances.

[Saint_clark]

3 hours ago, Ldnsaint said:

 he would have Armstrong, Elyounoussi, Redmond supplying him instead of Saka, Smith Rowe and Odegaard...

I'm not suggesting he is the only signing we make. 

[S-Clarke]

Bednarek up against Haaland should be fun to watch next year.

[Badger]

14 minutes ago, S-Clarke said:

Bednarek up against Haaland should be fun to watch next year.

Not if Bednarek is still with us it won’t be.

[saint lard]

33 minutes ago, S-Clarke said:

Bednarek up against Haaland should be fun to watch next year.

You are assuming we will both be in the same league. 
may draw them in a cup,I suppose. 

[ErwinK1961]

4 minutes ago, saint lard said:

You are assuming we will both be in the same league. 
may draw them in a cup,I suppose. 

Assume you’ve lumped on at 100/1?

[Saint86]

9 hours ago, Neef said:

All of our really good PL sides in recent times have had a really strong spine. 

Quite mad that for a few years we had a variation of (Fonte & Lovren / Toby / VVD - Wanyama & Morgan - Lambert / Pelle)

We need a GK, CB & a Striker of quality if we are to imrpove.

In his most recent piece Dan Sheldon said:

"Southampton maybe have two players — James Ward-Prowse and Kyle Walker-Peters — who could immediately play at a higher level and push for a starting spot at a top side."

That hit home, becuase at our strongest under Poch/Koeman we've arguably had around 4/5 players of that quality.

It shouldn't take reading it like that from Sheldon to make you realise it - plenty of posters have been saying it on here! 😅

We haven't been in a relegation scrap since Ralph frankly saved us in his first season from Hughes' mess. Its a very solid achievement give the squad we have and the backing he's had. And yet I've seen comparing him negatively to puel. The mind boggles. With puel and this team we've had been relegated and in administration long ago. 

A lot of talk about what fans expect us to do, what they think we should do, what we will do etc. This summer. 

What we need to do is buy at least 1 top quality CB. Get a good #1 keeper, get at least 1 class #10 (2 please), and get a good starting striker. That is the minimum if we are to show any ambition other than to finish bottom half and to stop looking over are shoulder. 

The only 4-5 players I think we have that should be in a top half team (or higher) right now are JWP, kwp, romeu, salisu, stu. 

Edited 9 May, 2022 by Saint86

[skintsaint]

5 hours ago, S-Clarke said:

Bednarek up against Haaland should be fun to watch next year.

Depends, Haaland spends a decent amount of time in the physio room for a young lad.

Edited 10 May, 2022 by skintsaint

[Sunglasses Ron]

Sorry if already covered, but do we think their our insipid end to the season and the (very slight) lingering risk of relegation is derailing our transfer / new contract plans?  One assumes that you want to be mathematically safe before progressing with deals etc?  

[DT]

Can't believe we missed out on Haaland

[HarvSFC]

16 minutes ago, DT said:

Can't believe we missed out on Haaland

Hopefully City sign Elyounoussi to help Haaland settle. I believe Elyounoussi had a good game against City once for Basel if they need a scouting report.

[Toussaint]

47 minutes ago, DT said:

Can't believe we missed out on Haaland

No ambition!

[Saint Garrett]

56 minutes ago, DT said:

Can't believe we missed out on Haaland

And Adeyemi

[Turkish]

1 hour ago, DT said:

Can't believe we missed out on Haaland

Logged onto the city site earlier to get their view interesting post from someone called light blue giant foam hand citizen fan said

”£75m seems low, German league a lot easier to score in than the premier league plus he always struck me as having a poor first touch and low work rate so not sure he’s a Pep player, proven someone more proven but he’s only 21 so young, hungry and guaranteed to improve”

 

TWBattle seemed concerned that he had consistently underachieved against his XG so not the guy for them as Liam Delap has a higher ceiling, meanwhile Whiteworth Non Specific Gender said that he didn't trust Pep to spend that money and they should have signed Sam Gallagher from Blackburn instead

Edited 10 May, 2022 by Turkish

[The Kraken]

What has happened to TWBattle’s saintsweb equivalent? He seems to have binned it off on here lately.

[S-Clarke]

Dortmund have had a bit of a nightmare with the Haaland deal you'd have to say, player holding the power and not renewing the deal so a clause came into effect. They've lost one of the best strikers in the world for what I'd call a messily £50-60m quid. Barca paid £55m for Ferran Torres in Jan!

Good bit of business for City though without question, although I'd be interested to see what all the agents fees added up to as that's probably doubled the transfer fee.

[Rebel]

At a minimum we need 5 players and that's before we sell or loan out anyone

• striker to replace Long & Broja
• a defensive midfielder to cover and then replace Romeu when he leaves
• a left footed creative No10
• an experienced right footed first choice centre back to lead the defence
• a first choice keeper 

 

[Turkish]

2 hours ago, The Kraken said:

What has happened to TWBattle’s saintsweb equivalent? He seems to have binned it off on here lately.

Internet burnout. the constant googling of athletic articles to form his opinions has taken its tool. 

[Toadhall Saint]

36 minutes ago, Turkish said:

Internet burnout. the constant googling of athletic articles to form his opinions has taken its tool. 

Fraudien slip? Or intentional?

[Saint Mikey]

3 hours ago, S-Clarke said:

Dortmund have had a bit of a nightmare with the Haaland deal you'd have to say, player holding the power and not renewing the deal so a clause came into effect. They've lost one of the best strikers in the world for what I'd call a messily £50-60m quid. Barca paid £55m for Ferran Torres in Jan!

Good bit of business for City though without question, although I'd be interested to see what all the agents fees added up to as that's probably doubled the transfer fee.

The whole deal with wages, signing on and agents fees is reportedly c. £300m. Mental.

[Roo1976]

On 09/05/2022 at 17:18, Saint_clark said:

I'm not suggesting he is the only signing we make. 

What after we get rid of Elyanosi, redmond and Walcott................

[Suhari]

58 minutes ago, Saint Mikey said:

The whole deal with wages, signing on and agents fees is reportedly c. £300m. Mental.

The people's game.

[John B]

13 hours ago, Rebel said:

At a minimum we need 5 players and that's before we sell or loan out anyone

• striker to replace Long & Broja
• a defensive midfielder to cover and then replace Romeu when he leaves
• a left footed creative No10
• an experienced right footed first choice centre back to lead the defence
• a first choice keeper 

 

I do not disagree with you at all but how much will that cost and does the club have a budget for it

 

In the 2021 summer transfer window we got in A Armstrong Peraud Tino Lynaco for about £30 m and they hardly contributed to a successful season although loaning in Broja did to some extent

[Turkish]

14 hours ago, Rebel said:

At a minimum we need 5 players and that's before we sell or loan out anyone

• striker to replace Long & Broja
• a defensive midfielder to cover and then replace Romeu when he leaves
• a left footed creative No10
• an experienced right footed first choice centre back to lead the defence
• a first choice keeper 

 

any particular reason why they have to be right footed?

[The Kraken]

12 minutes ago, Turkish said:

any particular reason why they have to be right footed?

And have two left-footed centre backs?! Are you mad?!

[Turkish]

32 minutes ago, The Kraken said:

And have two left-footed centre backs?! Are you mad?!

I remember the days before we discovered how important it was to one right footed and one left footed centre backs. I remember the problems Ferdinand and Vidic, Terry and Carvalho, Campbell and Toure all being right footed, amazing those teams didn't conceded 8 or 9 every week in hindsight. If one of Van Dijk or Matip was left footed they'd be 50 points clear of Man City by now.

[Fabrice Fernandes no.1 fan]

34 minutes ago, Turkish said:

I remember the days before we discovered how important it was to one right footed and one left footed centre backs. I remember the problems Ferdinand and Vidic, Terry and Carvalho, Campbell and Toure all being right footed, amazing those teams didn't conceded 8 or 9 every week in hindsight. If one of Van Dijk or Matip was left footed they'd be 50 points clear of Man City by now.

This is bang on, but also interesting to consider. At this point I think we need someone who can defend first, and play the right sort of angled passes second. Salisu does play nice angled passes with his left foot up to whoever is playing left back, but he also seems to love giving away penalties and scoring own goals. Playing Vestergaard on the left didn't create issues because of what foot he was, he could still play lovely diagonals to KWP, he just couldn't stop the ball going in our net, the same issue we seem to have now.

The three examples you've given are interesting though because they give great examples of defenders complimenting each other, all seem to have some muscle and some grit, alongside a player who reads the ball well to intercept and can pass but both players could do a bit of both if needed.

They may have all been right footed, but they did all also have their favoured side too. Cambell, Terry, Vidic and Van Dijk all seemed to favour the left side, with their partners on the right. The issue that made was if they needed to swap sides, it was unfamiliar, and changes defending angles and partnerships with full backs and midfielders around them. They didn't move very often for their club side, but Terry and Campbell at Euro 2004 didn't make the most convincing partnership compared to their club form, because they both were used to playing from the left hand side, and Terry was moved to the right in Ferdinand's absence.

If we really want to address our centre back issue, we need to decide if we're sticking with Salisu on the left, and want a new right-sided partner for him. Bednarek and Lyanco both seem to favour the left side too, whereas Stephens looks most comfortable on the right. 

I do think something we lack is a consistent, dependable back line, where players know their role and their position, and others can slot in and out. 

Ideally we want to start next season knowing our best defence, and letting them build an understanding.

[Turkish]

5 minutes ago, Fabrice Fernandes no.1 fan said:

This is bang on, but also interesting to consider. At this point I think we need someone who can defend first, and play the right sort of angled passes second. Salisu does play nice angled passes with his left foot up to whoever is playing left back, but he also seems to love giving away penalties and scoring own goals. Playing Vestergaard on the left didn't create issues because of what foot he was, he could still play lovely diagonals to KWP, he just couldn't stop the ball going in our net, the same issue we seem to have now.

The three examples you've given are interesting though because they give great examples of defenders complimenting each other, all seem to have some muscle and some grit, alongside a player who reads the ball well to intercept and can pass but both players could do a bit of both if needed.

They may have all been right footed, but they did all also have their favoured side too. Cambell, Terry, Vidic and Van Dijk all seemed to favour the left side, with their partners on the right. The issue that made was if they needed to swap sides, it was unfamiliar, and changes defending angles and partnerships with full backs and midfielders around them. They didn't move very often for their club side, but Terry and Campbell at Euro 2004 didn't make the most convincing partnership compared to their club form, because they both were used to playing from the left hand side, and Terry was moved to the right in Ferdinand's absence.

If we really want to address our centre back issue, we need to decide if we're sticking with Salisu on the left, and want a new right-sided partner for him. Bednarek and Lyanco both seem to favour the left side too, whereas Stephens looks most comfortable on the right. 

I do think something we lack is a consistent, dependable back line, where players know their role and their position, and others can slot in and out. 

Ideally we want to start next season knowing our best defence, and letting them build an understanding.

That's it right there. Fonte and Van Dijk are both right footed, didnt hear anyone banging on about how we need to play a left footed one of them instead. Obvious Van DIjk was a world class defender but your point is correct, Fonte complimented Van Dijk, Lovern and Alderwierld. He was the leader and organiser.

One of the best centre back pairings we've had in the last 30 years was Svensson and Lundekvam, we had one of the best defensive records in the country, they complimented each other, Lundekvam was the reader, Svenson the grit, brillaint pairing, both right footed. Lundekvam looked a much better player playing alongside Svenson that he did alongside any other defender in his time at the club.

it's all well and good wanting this playing out from the back, defenders that are great on the ball but if they cant defend then it's pretty pointless being able to play a 30 yard pass out of defence when you cant clear it or mark properly and keep shipping soft goals every week. 

We've been lacking a leader and proper defender since Fonte left, it's been 5 years now and we've spent best part of £60m trying to find someone decent, Salisu looks to have something about him but is still very young and naive, you cant tell me in 5 years there hasn't been a good, experienced centre half available in our budget that could fix a lot of the issues we've got at the back. It's all well and good trying to be clever in the transfer market and buy for future resale value but sometimes you've got to get experience in to fix the issues and provide a bit of leadership, we've failed time and again to do it, it's either incompetence or trying to be too clever. 

[Sir Ralph]

We need a keeper, full back loan cover, CB, CM, 3 - 4 new attacking players. 
 

a lot of the outcome of this summer hinges on how we can offload Redmond, Walcott, Djenepo on the assumption that McCarthy, Stephens, Long and Broja are all leaving. If we can’t get rid of those three then it’s more difficult for our front line to be overhauled

[Give it to Ron]

18 minutes ago, Sir Ralph said:

We need a keeper, full back loan cover, CB, CM, 3 - 4 new attacking players. 
 

a lot of the outcome of this summer hinges on how we can offload Redmond, Walcott, Djenepo on the assumption that McCarthy, Stephens, Long and Broja are all leaving. If we can’t get rid of those three then it’s more difficult for our front line to be overhauled

McCarthy having signed new deal won’t be leaving did you mean Forster?

[SuperSAINT]

https://footballleagueworld.co.uk/wolves-crystal-palace-leeds-united-and-southampton-credited-with-interest-in-12m-huddersfield-town-swoop/ 

[DT]

 Southampton are targeting a £10million deal for 24-year-old Fiorentina goalkeeper Bartlomiej Dragowski, sources in Italy say it may be difficult to stand in the way of a Premier League move for the Pole this summer #saintsfc [telegraph]
 

this one again

[Charlie Wayman]

On 08/05/2022 at 19:45, MarkSFC said:

The policy of the club is fine. Buy young, develop and sell for good profit 2 or 3 years later. 

But right now we have a squad full of developing players or not good enough/past it players except for JWP, KwP, and Tino. Perraud, Che, Tella and Salisu will hopefully be much better over the next season. 

Everyone else in my eyes can be replaced, or should be replaced. Certainly, Long, McCarthy, Stephens, Moi, Walcott, Redmond and Forster should go. 

Others, like both Armstrongs and Romeu can stay for another season. Diallo, who cares. Bednarek I'm 50:50 on!

 

We need to sign

2 x GKs

2/3 x CBs

1 x DCM

2 x No10/winger types

2 x Strikers

 

Unlikey I guess but IF we do have a new manager soon hopefully the new owners will back him quickly rather than over a few windows as we have had over the last 4 or 5 years. 

Which planet did you say you were from?

3 out, 2 in max. is probably the most optimistic outcome of the summer transfer market that can be expected. The rest stay either because nobody wants them or we can't afford to terminate contracts.

We need to keep at least 11 players on our books to meet PL obligations.

[Charlie Wayman]

2 hours ago, SuperSAINT said:

https://footballleagueworld.co.uk/wolves-crystal-palace-leeds-united-and-southampton-credited-with-interest-in-12m-huddersfield-town-swoop/ 

Having fallen for all the hype and bullshit surrounding Adams and Armstrong in their Championship days, one hopes we will not again fall into the trap of grabbing a bargain from the lower leagues.