At one point in the summer it felt that every player we had was coveted by one Premier League Club or another and that we caved in to their demands, but when the transfer window re opens it will be a different scenario to last summer.

Saints supporters were wondering what was going on back in the summer as the so called big clubs came calling and it seemed every time that they did they left with a player tucked under their arm, the article in the Telegraph on Saturday intimated that Saints were in control of the situation to a degree, but the reality was probably that as a Club we were targeted at a very vunerable time.

Not only did we not have a manager or coaching staff for that matter, the people who would usually have smoothed the situation over and persuaded players to stay, but we had a fledgling board who had not quite got their feet under the table in all aspects, we were ripe for the picking and the vultures moved in quickly.

Despite the fact that the transfer window is still over 2 1/2 months away from opening, the media members who are in the pockets of various clubs are already stirring it up with regards to one or two of our players, apparently Jay Rodriguez is being coveted by not only Spurs but Liverpool and Manchester City and Morgan Schneiderlin's name has never been away from that of Spurs.

But when these club's come a calling in January they will find a very different boardroom attitude from that in June/July, now we have the set up to repel any attacks, we have a manager and coaching staff who are hugely influential and the start they have made at the club will help in keeping players who are maybe wondering whether their future lies away from St Mary's

But in the boardroom itsel its a different matter, back at the start of the summer they seemed to be struggling to know who was making the decisions and lacking leadership, now that appears to have changed and as was shown with Morgan Schneiderlin they are now prepared to put their foot down and sell only when they feel it in the best interest of the club.

The near £100 million received back in the summer not only put the club on a firm footing, enabling heavy re investment back into the squad but means we have no financial reason to sell, with money in the bank still from that summer sale, plus of course the £80 million or so from the Premier League, financially we are in better shape than most.

Of course the nature of the premier league is that all but a very privileged few can hang on to players if richer clubs come calling and that will probably never change at Saints, but now we are in a far better position to see off suitors and put in place a regime that will see Saints firstly cement their position in the top half of the Premier League, secondly compete in the cups and thirdly move forward in general to perhaps like Everton pushing the top five to its limits.

So the question in January will be all about whether we want to sell or not, Jay Rodriguez for instance will have been out for nearly a year by the time the window opens, by then will the wide attack of Mane and Tadic be so established that Saints will actually want to sell Rodriguez, they may feel that he might not be the same player and that the £25 million supposedly on the table is a good deal and will enable us to repeat the actions of the summer by replacing a player with ones just as good at a cheaper price, this is going to be the nature of the way forward for most clubs who want to succeed in the Premier league outside of the big five.

Likewise Morgan Schneiderlin if the offer exceeds the value of the player to the squad then its the right time to sell, their are no issues with this as long as the money is invested wisely and it seems now we have plans in place to identify possible targets well in advance, rather than just scramble for a replacement as we have done in the past.

So when Spurs and those big clubs knock on our door they will find a club that is older and wiser, one that now knows what the future looks like and has plans in place, they will find it much more difficult to unsettle players and wreak havoc.

This football club now has a path forward, a well planned structure that has not been in place for some years, of course in football nothing is certain, but if you have the right people in place in the right structure then your chances of succeeding are made a whole lot easier.

I look forward to January because i now feel that if we do sell a player it is because we feel its the right thing and that we already know just who we want to replace the player leaving.

Photo: Action Images

Jesus_02 added 10:24 - Oct 7 Personally, I would be horrified if we started selling players in January, it’s a long season. We still have favorable fixtures until the end of November, but if we are serious about achieving anything (cup run ect) we will need stability. It will be tempting to sell Jay-Rod as popular opinion is that he will never be the same after an injury of that kind but I think that if we are going to play the way we do we need an option to Pelle.

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Chesham_Saint added 10:35 - Oct 7 We do need an option to Pele. As for selling MS - his value to us is massive. Forget anything with a 2 in front of it and that's just for starters.
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SaintNick added 11:54 - Oct 7 Every player has their selling price
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nomorerumours added 12:25 - Oct 7 Another good article Nick and more or less spot on as usual. Things are certainly very different now. I would be surprised if any player wants to leave in January and why would we want to off-load any players mid-season. Surely we can complete a full review next May. If anything, we may be looking for one or two more acquisitions to add greater depth to the squad where RonKo feels we may need more cover. For example, a reserve keeper in case Fraser gets injured. Kelvin should really now only be considered as emergency cover and the younger and/or academy players are not quite ready for full EPL service. I take a lot of confidence in the renewed loyalty shown by many of our players. Our captain, Jose, has been about the most loyal of all and he must be a really positive and settling influence in the dressing room and would stamp out any wantaway talk – not that there is likely to be any. Morgan’s views have taken a big U-turn and reflect what our club went through. He was alarmed by the manager and player exodus and felt we had lost our ambition and his tweet was a sign of that desperation. Then when we re-built under RonKo he re-committed to our club. He has improved and seen a great team emerge with the club’s ambitions stronger than ever. He appears to be really happy again and this is backed-up but his more recent tweets and that huge smile has returned to his face. Ryan has recently said how happy he is here and that his most important requirement is to get regular 1st team game time. He was very critical of the way Chelsea treated him. Toby, Sadio and Florin chose us over bigger clubs like Arsenal due to the RonKo effect and the squad that we were putting together. Yes, we could turn out to be a stepping stone for one or two of them but if we carry on challenging for European places (this season and, even more so, next season) and they get regular 1st team game time, they are far more likely to want to stay. Yes money talks and if a big EPL or foreign club wants to pay way over the top we will have to consider these offers as Nick says. I would put £35m minimum on Morgan’s value right now! Graziano and Dusan both followed RonKo here and were already fully signed-up to his style of management. Our players from last season who did not “wantaway” have already shown their loyalty. Nothing is ever guaranteed, especially in football but the picture is looking far rosier than it did just 3-4 months ago. Now to JayRod. We all pray that he completes his full recovery, then returns to match fitness and finally that he recaptures last season’s form. Only time will tell. I would image that he feels indebted to our club – the support he has had from the medical team during his rehabilitation seems to have been excellent (judging by his own comments and the few reports on this). He has witnessed the exodus, the re-build and our successful start to the season. He must surely be itching to be part of all this again. If he does get back into the team and turns in good performances again (and dare I say, even improve on last season – a lot to expect) I see RonKo opting for slight squad rotation. He would be part of the Dusan, Sadio and Shane combination (perm any 2 from 4) or you could even, at times, include Graziano in the plan and perm any 3 from 5. RonKo would want to ensure that his substitutions will often allow all 5 to get at least some game time. It might even be that one of them will come on from the bench to replace a midfielder if we need to chase the game (like Shane for Victor last Sunday – although that will only work sometimes). Fingers crossed that RonKo will be faced with this spoilt for choice dilemma.

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SonicBoom added 12:34 - Oct 7 Just cos a player has a price doesn't mean it's a good move and buying cheaper replacements don't always work out. That's why they're cheaper! I also suspect the Morgan already knows his leaving date which was probably agreed to placate him. Rodriguez is expected to make a full recovery, those injuries are no longer the career enders they once were. I hope he stays, he would be a great addition to the team.

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bstokesaint added 13:19 - Oct 7 A good article Nick. I have to admit, based on the events of the summer, getting £20m+ for any of our players seems a nice sum of cash to find adequate replacement in the RK era with some considerable change left over. I think MS would command a price closer to £30m in this current environment which might shut out Spurs again.
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BoondockSaint added 13:37 - Oct 7 Anyone else notice during Saturday's game, the commentator (I forget who) out of the blue says, "You can imagine what Spurs mid-field would be like with Schneiderlin."? Got me worried that there's already an agreement in place. However I would hope it has clauses such as: "If they meet our price" and/or "If they are ahead of us in the table."
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Jesus_02 added 13:56 - Oct 7 I cant help but think that we have kind of got away with what we did in the summer (so far), call me over cautious but maybe we should quit while we are ahead. We didn't have a finacial reason to sell in the summer, but we did. Watching someone else making money is all well and good but we are all supporting a fooball team not a franchise... arent we?
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WestSussexSaint added 14:13 - Oct 7 Like others have mentioned I get the feeling Schniederlins knuckling down is in part due an agreement with the club that they will let him go if an acceptable offer is received. Whether that is in January or the summer remains to be seen. Jack Corks contract position could also influence this as if he has signed the club maybe happier to let Morgan go. As for JRod much will depend on how much football he has between now a January. If recovery is delayed or his return is less than successful I expect interest will drop. Finally I don't expect much coming into the club in January as the squad has cover in most places unless there are players to replace or a deal for a player that we would be mad not to do.

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SaintNick added 14:18 - Oct 7 Sonic you are right in some respects, but in others wrong, unless a team like Saints works the system of producing players and selling them for top dollar and replacing them well then they are doomed to boom and bust as players run down their contract and leave a club with a fractionof what they could of got and then really having to buy cheaply Ideally we would be like Chelsea and be able to pay silly money to players so that they dont want to go because it means cutting their salary, but we are not in an ideal situation so we have to put in place a system that works and keeps us in the mixer. That system is the same as it has been since the days of Ted Bates, it means producing youngsters and selling them for a profit whilst at the same time identifying good players and bringing them in at a reasonable price and turning them into very good players and keep repeating this process. Two years ago we could have had forster for a few million and wanyama for the same sort of price, we ended up with Mayuka and Forren

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nomorerumours added 16:52 - Oct 7 For those of you concerned about Morgan's future at our club you will be completely reassured by what he has said today. The best or most extended report is on the Sky Sports News website. I copied it to a lunchtime Echo thread at 1249 regarding Nat's first England training session. In brief, he wants to stay with Saints and help us to CL qualification! There is also a superb article in today's D Telegraph with an in depth interview with our Financial Director which answers loads of questions we had all speculated on for several months. Again I have put a link on the same Echo thread. These are both essential reading for all Saints fans.

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BoondockSaint added 17:40 - Oct 7 Nomore-I read the Morgan article in the Telegraph and it's just self-serving 'I'm the victim here' PR-Trying to play the fans vs the team. He says the club: "treat me like cattle" What? Pay him handsomely for playing a game? “They would have preferred to leave me in the gutter" If you mean not paying you for not playing? You're damn right! Then he says after hearing cheering Saints fans "I knew then that I would spend the season at Southampton.” So he's still leaving the door open after this year.

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Kennington added 18:36 - Oct 7 Morgan would be very difficult / impossible to replace, so I don't share the view of cashing in on him. Maybe though a different story with Jay Rod depending on his comeback, but would Spurs really spend £20m on a player that isn't proven to be fit and capable of pre-injury form? No doubt if a deal for JRod was done it would be heavily weighted on appearances etc. Hopefully both of them with sign significantly improved deals at Saints and will stay for a while longer.

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nomorerumours added 19:07 - Oct 7 BoondockSaint. It is really important that you read the full version which is shown on the Sky Sports News website and I copied to the Echo thread that I referred to. The media have various forms of abbreviated versions and put either a negative or positive spin on the story which Morgan gave to a French newspaper where he is training with the national team. The 2nd part of the story focusses on the turnaround at our club and Morgan's U-turn in his feelings. He wants to play CL footy at some time and hopes that might be with Saints. So, this means that he will be with us at least until the end of the season and then it depends on what our club achieves. If we qualify or perhaps get very close to it (with the likelihood of doing it next season), that should be enough for Morg to want to stay with us. Morg is not another Lovren and he has been quite frank and open about his own ambitions. I have a huge amount of respect for him and fully understand why you did that tweet. At that time, I was the first to say that we need to support him not drive him away. We are now benefitting from him playing better than ever. The Telegraph article covering our Financial Directors interview is brilliant and extremely revealing. We have had a lot of answers today and all Saints fans should be very happy with this news.

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ChristchurchSaint added 20:18 - Oct 7 Whilst I am normally a "glass half full" supporter ( and I DID believe things would right themselves in the summer!) I do still feel that players will still get their heads turned by "double your money" and the lure of CL. Hopefully Morgan and JRod will wait until the end of the season before they decide, but sadly unless we do get to CL, realistically I can see either or both going. Our only saviour is that hopefully the club would once again resist very strongly to all offers or if the worst happens, spend wisely and we will continue to progress.

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BoondockSaint added 20:19 - Oct 7 I did read the SkySports article which has the exact same quotes. His U-Turn had more to do with him not getting paid and not wanting future employers to see him as a petulate child. Rather than say "I was worried about the direction the club was going, but I have be reassured and am happy to play here" and leave it at that- He's planning his exit strategy, playing the victim, slagging the management and playing to the fans so when he leaves it will be "I wanted to stay, really I did, but I'll have to go somewhere I'm wanted. They may pay me loads of money, but I don't really want it, I just have to take it to be polite." Sorry it took a while to reply, but this "work" thing keeps getting in the way!

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