The media are suggesting that when Ronald Koeman picks up his transfer kitty at Goodison Park he will be heading straight back to St Mary's to spend it, but will that be his first mistake ?
The rumours suggesting that Ronald Koeman will be looking to spend a large chunk of his £150 million war chest on signing some of Saints squad perhaps indicate that the Dutch manager has not gripped the reality of what expectation will be up on Merseyside.
Yes I am sure that he would love to add the four players so far linked by the press, Sadio Mane, Virgil Van Dijk, Jordy Clasie and strangely James Ward Prowse, but there would be a couple of problems for him.
Firstly there would be the cost, Saints would be looking for £40 million for Mane, £30 million for Van Dijk, £20 million for Clasie and another £20 million for Ward Prowse.
Given only Mane has less than three years left on his contract, Saints are in a strong position and are ready to show that yes they did get caught out a couple of years ago, but that is not the case now as they proved by refusing to sell Schneiderlin and Wanyama when they did not want to.
So seemingly Koeman is ready to blow around 2/3 of his budget on these four and that would perhaps be a big mistake given that only Van Dijk can truly look back on his season with any real satisfaction that he has not only performed well but consistently.
But spending so much on these players will not endear him to Everton's supporters or indeed the man funding the Blues attempt at resurgence, they want Everton to be a force that rivals the top six clubs and put bluntly that means spending money on what they see as truly top class players, Van Dijk aside they would be disappointed with what they would get for the other three, who although all Premier League standard, as far from the real deal when it comes to both true class and more importantly consistency.
Everton supporters are not demanding that Everton emulate Southampton and chase the top six, they are demanding and i mean "demanding" that they finish in the top four immediately or at least show intent.
Perhaps the amount that Koeman would have to spend just to get these four in his squad shows the enormity of his task, the reality is that if he spent every penny of his transfer budget on players of this calibre he would be no where near having the squad he had at St Mary's this past season.
So if he went for the truly class players then he would get even fewer for his money and the fact is the Everton squad does not have the substance and quality in it presently to provide a good foundation for whoever comes in.
The fact of the matter is that Everton need to spend a lot more than £150 million to boost their squad, they probably need to spend twice that to even stand a chance of the top six.
Ahead of them in the pecking order are either clubs like Saints who over the past four years have slowly but surely built up good squads by a good transfer policy of selling high and buying potential low, or the likes of Liverpool, United, City, Arsenal, Chelsea & Spurs who have been spending big consistently for years and therefore have a plethora of class players.
But that will not be good enough for Farhad Moshiri, the man bank rolling Everton's spending spree, he will not be happy with anything below top six and that is going to be very difficult this coming year given that Chelsea will be looking to be back and Liverpool have a Jurgen Klopp revival scheduled. Not to mention West Ham who will be looking to utilise their new stadium and its potential income streams and of course Leicester City.
In fact Leicester City could be the weight on Koeman's back, Moshiri is willing to buy success, but Leicesters title win will convince him that money is not everything, therefore Koeman is effectively being asked to take on the big guns on the cheap. £150 million is not that much compared to what they have spent over the past few season and this.
All of these add up to the fact that Everton have the potential to return to what they see as their rightful place amongst the big boys, but until they build their new stadium then they will struggle to match those clubs and this is probably three to four years away, does Moshiri have that patience.
So Koeman is being asked to do the job he did at Saints but without the time and patience, Everton, Moshiri and their supporters have not seemed to realise that a fair chunk of what Koeman achieved at St Mary's over the last two years was not just down to his own talents, but the fact that Saints had a strategy and foundation in place, built up over a number of years that made his job a lot easier than it will be at Everton.
If Koeman is to succeed at Everton he does not want to try and clone what has happened at Southampton, we finished sixth and not fourth in the season just gone for a good reason and that reason is consistency.
Koeman has to march in to Goodison and start off on the right foot, aim far higher than Saints standards, if Everton match Saints 6th place then it will be seen as a reasonable start to his Everton career, 7th or 8th will be seen as under performance, outside of the top ten as a disaster. Everton want to see big names not those who have yet to reach the heights.
I do wish Koeman well, I am sad he will depart, but it was only ever a question of when, the disappointment is that he is not leaving for a big job and is taking a step backward for money.
I have said this seemingly every summer recently but it has provedtobe the case "It is not what has happened, it is what you do next " that is the case today, if Saints go out and appoint FRank De Boer or Unai Emery then there are many Saints supporters who will feel that Saints have upgraded their manager and are only following their transfer strategy on players with the manager.
Ronald Koeman has been a great manager for Southampton Football Club, I wish he could take it further, but I am not afraid of the future without him, and the old adage that it is better to have loved and lost than not loved at all is very pertinent in this case.