There are some who will herald the departure of Luke Shaw as the start of a fire sale at Saints and claim it indicates the club has no ambition, I would say that it is part of a process that is in the blueprint of progressive football clubs.
Some supporters cannot get out of their head the notion that a succesful football club is one that hangs on to all its good players and spends big on new ones, of course that is a blueprint that works for teams like Manchester United, Chelsea and latterly Manchester City, but for most other teams its a way of running a football club that is unsustainable financially and in the case of some notable Leeds United and Portsmouth has lead to a financial meltdown that may take them decades to recover from.
The modern football club is now run far differently that it was a decade ago, dinosaurs like Harry Redknapp etc who believe that sports science is bunkum and that tactics can be plotted using the slat and pepper pots in a West ham cafe are now rare and more progressive thinking is to the fore.
That thinking states that every football club should know the true value of every player to the team and that when that player greatly exceeds that value in terms of what other teams are prepared to pay for him, then he should be sold, hopefully when the selling club has a replacement already in situ or at least lined up.
As has been suggested in various interviews on the official club website, Saints employ many people who pore over the performance data not only of our own players but of our transfer targets to ensure that we keep our performances at the optimum level.
Therefore Saints will know for each and every player what their worth is to the team, for a striker that means in simple terms goals scored and assists etc, but it will also cover passes and tackles made, that data will tell you season by season whether a player is improving or getting worse, whether his effort levels are increasing or decreasing. It will tell you whether that players goals effect matches and how many points will be won or dropped etc
It will give indications as to whether its time to move that player on and bring in his replacement.
That time has come for Luke Shaw, in simple terms we have a player who we can get £30 million plus for who is doing the a £10 million job, that being the case then perhaps its time to cash in, get a £10 million replacement and invest in other areas.
Some will say that if we hold on to him for a season or two his value will increase, it probably will slightly, but the stark reality is that it will only increase drastically by his improvement and he will only get that improvement by playing in a better team with better players and competing for trophies that will harden him and give him that edge.
Our staticians will have looked at Shaw's data, they will have looked at the variables, of course its not an exact science but they will have calculated how the team would have benefited if he had made 10% more tackles/passes/assists etc in terms of points, as well as calculating what the results would have been if he had been 10% worse.
It would probably have told us that if he had been 10% better then the point or two extra it might have won us would have had no difference on our league position, we were 8 points off of United we needed a big swing in order to catch them, it also would have told us that if we had had a full back performing to 90% of Shaw's level say, then it might have cost us two points and again that would have had no impact on our league position.
Again I reiterate football is not an exact science and as I have no access to the exact figures I can only give an overview of how it works and not what the results for Saints would have been.
I would hazard a guess though that our staticians would calculate that we we had a player who we could get £30 million for, doing the job that a player worth £10 million could do almost as well.
So in the simplest of terms it would make sense to cash in and get that £30 million and buy the £10 million pound fullback, Ok we would be two points a season down, but if we then invested that money elsewhere and improved other positions then the real result might be a points gain overall.
This is not of course my own theory, its a theory that is being used increasingly across Europe with some success and that is why we have seen some so called lesser clubs greatly exceed expectations and even win titles.Olympic Lyonnais are perhaps the best example of this, before the turn of the millenium they had never won a title, since then they have won 7 and are now well established in the French League and able to compete with the top clubs, the difference is they have been run as a business rather than had money thrown at them.
Full details of how the modern fooball club thinks can be found in the book "Soccernomics" anyone who has read this has their thinking on how a football club should be run completely changed and suddenly realises why the old way of thinking is out dated.
The Soccernomics way of thinking might rely heavily on statistics, but those statistics when aligned with good management will achieve results, data can help if used in the right way.
Of course most clubs dont apply Soccernomics to its full, but most are now starting to start along its path, one such club is Liverpool and the fact they are is no shock, John Henry the owner of Liverpool also owns the Boston Red Sox a team that hadn't won the World Series in years, Soccernomics has its roots in the theories of Billy Beane the general manager of the Oakland A's he implemented it with success and the Red Sox followed, it was only natural that Liverpool would as well, it has taken time but for the first time in a decade or more Liverpool have been genuine title challengers, one of Henry's first acts was to sell Torres for £45 million and buy Suarez at £17 million and Carroll at £35 million, given that Liverpool have recieved £15 million back on Carroll it has been a good bit of business.
Soccernomics has certain rules when it comes to transfers, here are some of them.
1. A new money wastes money on transfers dont let him
Use the wisdom of crowds.
In fairness Saints implemented this under Nicola Cortese, what the above means is that several heads are better than one, have a transfer committee and a clear way for the club rather than letting each new manager bring in who he wants, every 15 months you just repeat the process.
2. Several areas are overvalued
A. Stars of recent World Cups and European Championships
B. Certain nationalities
C. Older players
D. Centre forwards
3. Sell any player when another club offers a lot more than he is worth
4. Replace your best players before you sell them
These are just a few and Im sure many will think they are no brainers, they are ! but if you think about it, how many clubs actually follow these rules.
So selling Luke Shaw to Manchester United is actually not backward thinking by Saints, its actually the right thing to do as a club, it is the way stronger squads are built and from stronger squads come better results, yes in an ideal World we would have kept Shaw and still spent the money on improving the squad, but few clubs have that financial clout without seriously putting their financial stability in jeapordy, as i say Soccernomics puts into perspective what the buying and selling of a player can actually mean, if we think about it we were actually 23 points short of Champions League qualification last season, hanging on to Shaw would not bridge that gap next season, however selling him and investing wisely might bring us closer to Everton who finished 16 points ahead of us, what cost us last season was the overall strength in depth of the squad.
Of course our success next season depends on having the right manager in place and buying the right players, that is something that for all the data and statistics in the World you cant change, ultimately football is a hit and miss sport and it has to be realised and this is bourne out by looking at virtually any Premier league table over the past 6-7 years, that the team that finishes 8th one season can just as easily struggle against relegation the next, that is perhaps because that team relied on one or two players rather than being strong overall.
But I do feel that we do have a good manager in place and given that before we invest any of our income from the Premier league that Koeman has transfer income in the bank already this summer assuming Shaw does go of £40 - £50 million, I would say that far from being dark days for Saints, all of the teams who finished below us last season would be very envious not only of the transfer funds we have available but of the owners and management we are now putting in place.
Bringing Luke Shaw through the ranks was the first steps of Soccernomics, the second step is selling him for more than he is worth to us as a club, now we just have to implement the third step and that is using the money wisely.