Agree we have to move on but
Off the back five from last season we have only one to start the season with
But on a positive not think we will score a lot more this year
Just hope we score more than we let in lol

Totally true in every aspect nick. We're finally becoming a bigger club. And so we have to compete with the bigger clubs. And when we compete we might lose out.

I think he is a massive loss. But there are others. And they get to play with Jose. Personally I was nervous about Jose when we first got promoted, but he proved that (with Lovren and then Toby) he can be a class act.

Ronald Koeman is one of the most respected European managers - and as one of the world's greatest defenders - will inspire another Toby to our back line.

Our recruitment guys proved last season and the season before that they can come up with creative ways to attract top defenders to the club. There will be more Tobys and Dejans. More nathaniels and Ryans. We just need to be patient and trust our club to do what they keep doing.

I'm excited. I know we'll recruit another top defender. And hopefully it'll be a nice surprise when it happens.

UP THE SAINTS

When Lovren left we got 20m and replaced him with Toby (loan) - it improved our defence
When Shaw left we got 30m and replaced him with Bertrand (10m) - it improved our defence.
We replaced Boruc with Forster - it improved our defence

We had the second best defence in the league

When Clyne left we got 10m - we replaced him with Soares (4.7m) - has it improved our defence?

Bertrand is out and Toby is gone - we replaced them with a utility player.. Martina (who?) - has it improved our defence

Forster is out on a long term injury - Martin freeking Stecklinbourg - I ask you?

I have a terrible feeling we are about to unviel Ron Vlaar - Captain of the worst defence in the league

How is this progress??????????

Oh and BTW we are just about to sell the second best defensive midfielder in the League too

I think "moving on" and "not crying over spilt ilk [sic]" is the correct intellectual response but the trouble is that being a fan is about emotion more than intellect. This is why the word naive is so often used on here. I don't believe that (adult anyway) fans are naive - they just feel that once in a while it would be nice to believe what they are told:

AL was ending his career at Saints, Clyne happy at Saints, Toby wanted to stay blah, blah - even as it is said, deep down we know it is probably rubbish but we still want to believe it. When we are let down yet again a lot of us get upset. But - yes - totally correct we need to move on. So let's do so. And the first thing to do is to decide that Toby (gone before I could pronounce his name) is...RUBBISH.

Jesus 02 makes a valid point. Our defense has been gutted once again. We have not progressed at all and also have a horrible feeling we will sign the walking tortoise Vlaar (our black box speaks Dutch after all). Nick, football is an emotive sport, so easy to say what you have, but people are still going to air their views and be annoyed if need be.

As much as we all would of liked toby to stay i wonder was the reason for our defensive record last season down to individuals or the organisation by koeman toby was struggling to get into Atleticos team jose been brilliant for us but start of last season everyone wanted him replaced clyne hasn't looked the same player in a England shirt . It just makes you wonder can koeman work his magic with a different bunch of defenders

Yes, we must move on. But I disagree with your analysis of why we haven't still got Toby amongst our ranks. OK on the face of it Spurs were more renowned than we are etc, but we lost Toby because somehow we contrived by our own incompetence to make room for Spurs to make us look complacent and unable to manage a number of transfer issues simultaneously. We did not act immediately the season was over, or even better in the January transfer window because we were complacent about entitlement to first refusal and this turns out to have been a serious misjudgement by someone senior either regarding a) the validity of the contract's terms, b) our interpretation of the options it gave us or c) our trust in Athletico's ethics or d) Toby's intentions or e) our own singular passivity, esp over the last fortnight or f) human error either at the hands of someone in Les Reed's organisation or perhaps within the now departed Fin. Director's dept. Only when we know what actually happened can we properly move on assured that it will not happen again.

The thing for me is, any new signing will take time to settle. However good Koeman is, he's not a miracle worker. We also can't expect every signing to work out.
Whilst it is very true that Toby is just one player, everything should have been done to help us have a stable base going in to Koemans second season.
Frustratingly, that isn't going to be the case, especially with the fact we are recruiting squad level players to fill gaps (Martina and Stekelenberg). We also have some key roles to replace but in some respects it feels we are papering over the cracks for our defence, compared to the quality signing made last year to replace our departures then.
It is very true I could be proved wrong but I feel we messed up on Toby by trying to be too cute commercially when we could have closed the deal. It was important to limit the number of new signings expected to hit the ground running going into the new season. We failed to do that and I hope that doesn't become our undoing

Stekelenberg And Davieswere not too impressive last night unfortunately, albeit in front of a young defence.

Totally agree with most of what you have written here Nick, but....

...the naivety or & ineptitude the club have shown in this whole sorry saga, particularly 1 individual, our transfer guru, beggars belief-if I had made the mother of all cock ups like this (not to mention what went on from April to July last year) at work I would be asked to clear my desk, and thus is the case with our Les.

I was on this site last summer voicing my contempt towards how he was ruining our club, and I have stayed quiet on this until this transfer came to a conclusion, but I cannot any more because we have lost out on somebody that was all intents and purposes our player due to us being less than pro-active, and you just knew all along that this was going to happen-you have to give Spurs & Levy credit here because they have played a blinder.

He was very poor in his work last summer, selling off our players very easily and getting replacements in late in the day. And before you say those transfers worked imo we may have got a little lucky with how those newbies came in and adjusted so well, but also how much influence do you really think our Les had in the majority of these transfers, particularly the players from the Dutch league and Toby-me thinks RoKo may have had more than a say in these targets. Also how many transfers do we not hear about that we have missed out on because of our ineptitude in playing the market-this was has only come to light because of the unique circumstances of the so called deal we had with Atletico and Spurs wanting the player also??!

We now start out season with only 1 of our 1st choice back 5 and no matter what you say Nick, whoever we now get in, this WILL make a difference to start with at the very least.

Bring back a certain Mr Lowe to run our transfers I say..........only joking!!

1st thoughts are that we failed miserably in our negotiations to sign Toby but we have to bear in mind that Toby chose not to join us for whatever reason, perhaps playing with his fellow countrymen was the attraction, maybe it was financial, but the bottom line is he didn't want to play for SAINTS. I loved him but we only want players who want to play, So Yes,
lets move on. Having said that we cannot guarantee to unearth another cut price Toby so lets get the chequebook out and buy an established quality centre back to take his place and likewise a top quality full back for the departed Clyne

Dreamland Mr. I. How could they let this happen again? You can cite 'player power' and swallow the loss of MS and NC but the way this has been mis-handled beggars belief. For two months or so Saints' supporters have been united in posting how important it was to secure Alderweireld's move early. Levy got off his arse and did the business! It seems we were trying to get him on the cheap and only woke up 'after the horse had bolted'. The 'Happy clappers' are hammering anyone who is critical again and suggesting that Ron will pull more 'rabbits out of the hat' and the way things are going we'll end up with a lot of holes in the pitch! It's crucial now that we get someone like Clasie, always assuming he still wants to join what remains of the squad?

We definitely have to move on from this fiasco! Get rid of Reed and Krueger for starters!

I didn't vote for my own post, my son did!

Looks like Ogbonna genuinely was our second choice and our dithering over transfers has lost him too
http://www.hitc.com/en-gb/2015/07/09/report-napoli-and-southampton-make-late-att
I agree with the above poster that we should get on and get Clasie in and stop sniffing round for cheaper options. Its confusing me why we are seemingly struggling to offer suitable priced transfer offers for players generally this window

I didn't know you were my father IWOZTHERE?

I am beginning to wonder if there is more to this than meets the eye.

At Chrismas last season we had a chance, be it an outside chance of a Champions League place. The transfer window opened and we did nothing by way of improving the team especially in the forwards where goal scoring was becoming a problem.We ended up scrapping a place in Europe by finishing seventh.

During this summer we have been linked with various medium priced players and so far signed none of them,opting instead for bargain basement buys.Will they improve the team or are they on board just to secure a mid table finish enabling the club to pick up the following seasons increased riches with very little current financial outlay?

In other words is the owner looking to recoup some of her outlay by accepting that we can not progress further without her making a massive financial investment far in excess of that made previously? Could it be that she views Saints as a business which just happens to be a football club?

Nick -- you always think small - why do we have to accept that we will always lose out to a team like Spurs?? We can's keep losing our 3-5 best players every summer!!

There's a lot of bed wetters about again ! If last summer taught us anything its; be patient people. Every club loses players and transfer targets. There's a shed load of other players out their that would love to play in the Prem and for a top 10 team and we have a manager that can identify and attract talent to the club.

It's really not a crisis people. We've lost one player and got rebuffed by another and made to look a little silly. We've got €20m to spend now so let's find a replacement. We've done it once and we can do it again. I really fail to understand after such a testing season when the board totally proved themselves whilst there are still so many doubters. It makes me ashamed to read some of the posts here and on the DE. I genuinely think that some 'fans' would be far more comfortable if they supported Man U or Barcelona. What does a club have to do to get fans' approval?

It's really not a crisis people. We've lost one player and got rebuffed by another and made to look a little silly. We've got €20m to spend now so let's find a replacement. We've done it once and we can do it again. I really fail to understand after such a testing season when the board totally proved themselves whilst there are still so many doubters. It makes me ashamed to read some of the posts here and on the DE. I genuinely think that some 'fans' would be far more comfortable if they supported Man U or Barcelona. What does a club have to do to get fans' approval?

Happy Clappers vs the Bed Wetters!

What a family!

Let's see what happens first. I really liked the post about looking at this fairly but acknowledging that, as a fan, emotions ride over. Trouble is, football is a business. There is no loyalty. Money talks.

On a separate, but related, note, I'm amazed at how LFC fans are railing against Sterling at the moment (calling him judas, two faced etc. because he says he wants to leave). Oh such short memories! They didn't really mind it when Louvren's head started appearing up there did it!

Just goes to show that football doesn't discriminate. Despite who you support, there's always a bigger club who can steal your players.

Unfortunately players just see us as a stepping stone-Get into the Prem and impress the rich teams and they will come calling.

While we see Toby making a sideways move, you can be sure Spuds showed him the plans for the new stadium, the deal with the NFL and oh, yeah the bigger paycheck. No wonder he was impressed. And remember, if he excels there, he figures the Big Four will come calling.

It would be nice to have loyal players (Le Tissier) who are proud of their team, or stars that want to build up a team (Keegan) and make it a success through their efforts rather than get slotted into a team of superstars, but that takes a person with character and good luck finding any of those in football!

The frustration amongst fans is palpable but many of the comments on here are far too knee-jerk. Let's not tear ourselves apart just because players want to leave. Life goes on and even if we end up mid-table at least there is plenty of promise of better times ahead.

Always bear in mind the most important ingredient in any transfer situation is the player, not Les not Ralph. If the player is determined to leave Les & Ralph hands are tied, there is nothing at all that they can do about it.

Such decisions are not made on the spur of the moment it's the fallout of stuff going on in a player's (and greedy agent's) heads all through a season. Management's silence on recent matters is perfectly understandable. Because Les dared to speculate on Clyne signing a new contract a few months ago he gets coshed because he didn't get Clyne to change his mind. Damned if you do damned if you don't.

I am not a betting man but my bet is that Alderweireld knowingly used us deliberately as a stepping stone and never had the intention to sign for us permanently. My personal opinion of the Alderweireld saga is that he was never really committed to Saints for the brief time he was here, his mind was still with Atletico maybe how to get back in their team?

You can always read people's body language and it seemed to me throughout the season that he was always one step detached from most of the other players, perhaps fancying himself as rather better than the others. Clyne seemed to be the same towards the end whereas Morgan was more relaxed and just got on with it as he knew he would be leaving with everyone's blessing.

So spare the cat a kicking when things go sour or you'll end up over-run with mice!