Saints capture of Juanmi and Cedric Soares is just the start of the club's summer transfer strategy to build up the squad both in terms of quantity and quality.

Although it did not seem like it last year the exodus of players at top prices meant that Saints were able to replace them and still make a profit on the sales.

Saints received around £95 million over half of which came from Liverpool, yet the outlay for permanently signed players was only around £80 million, yes some of the £15 million surplus would have been taken up by loan fees, however some of that would have been covered as it appears that Athletico Madrid have opted to pay the £1.5 million buy out clause so they don't have to sell us Toby Alderweireld.

So the £8 million or so spent so far this summer means we have still have around £8 million in the bank to fund this years transfers.

But of course last summer we did not have to touch the multi millions that we earned from the Premier and Sky TV etc and although some of that was used to fund the training ground, it does give us a bit of a transfer kitty even before we rake in this summers money.

Although it should be noted that Cortese's marque signings Osvaldo & Ramirez still represent a big drain on the club's resources, their salaries alone would be over £7 million per annum gross with National Insurance & pension payments and on top of that you have loyalty bonus's to pay. We would have received some of that back from the club's that they were loaned to but you can be sure that Hull City for example would not have been paying anywhere near the £50 - 60k a week that Ramirez is allegedly on, perhaps not even half that.

At the time of writing the path is a little unclear as we do not know whether we will have to fund this summers money from the Premier League money or whether we will have around £30 -40 million from the sale of Clyne and Schneiderlin.

But either way it is clear that Saints are set to move forward and continue to build the squad up both in the terms of quality and quantity.

The next priority will be signing a goalkeeper, a central defender, possibly two and an out and out winger, if Schneiderlin leaves then you can add a central midfielder to that.

So there could be another six players to come into the Saints squad over the next week or two as Saints prepare for a campaign that has the potential to play a lot more games than last season, just getting through to the group stages of the Europa League guarantees we will have played ten games in that competition before Xmas.

That needs we have to have a big squad not just to cover injuries but to give first choice players a rest in some games.

Loan signings as in last season could play a part, some Saints fans will moan that we should have signed Toby Alderweireld permanently last summer, that would have been great but the player himself preferred a loan move not wishing to tie himself up to a club that was being predicted for meltdown.

A year on and we are a much more attractive proposition for any player and it could be that this manifests itself in some big names coming on loan, this market is now a very valid way of plugging gaps in squads for teams and should not be sneered at, Ronald Koeman used this way to great affect last season to bolster the squad at a vital time and i think he will use it again in the coming year.

Saints have their targets for the coming campaign and with the first competitive game of the season only six weeks away we will be striving to make at least some of these signings sooner than later.

With money in the bank we are in a lot better position than some club's Spurs for instance have a reported transfer budget of only around £15 million unless they sell players, Liverpool are trying to get Clyne on the cheap for good reason and that is they haven't got the money without getting rid of a few first or at least they can't commit what money they have on Clyne and possibly not have funds to sign other key targets unless they sell.

So Saints squad building will start to gather momentum in the next few weeks, the foundations were laid last summer although it didn't feel like it at the time and hopefully by the end of August we will have a squad that has more numbers and more depth and more importantly more quality.

Photo: Action Images

darkangelv2 added 10:10 - Jun 19 Ramirez remains one of my biggest disappointments - even putting the crazy money to one side (this club's highest earner!! and it's more than £60K). He just showed so much promise for Bologna and Uruguay but just couldn't seem to bring himself up to our fitness and pace of play standards. Such a shame. I guess he needs to go back to Italy to play a central Pirlo style role with far less running and more time for his creativity. Osvaldo, however, was a joke signing. And we're still suffering the punchline. Can't help but feel that, with the new board, ALL new players are having the full 'Black Box' rule run over them before any approaches are made and it's reaping some amazing results. The level of integration from new players has been fantastic.

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SaintNick added 10:27 - Jun 19 I think Ramirez was a fish out of water from the start, we signed a player who could pass a ball into the channels, then played a system with Rickie Lambert up front who didnt have the pace to run the channels, simply there was no outlet for Ramirez to pass to. If Ramirez had gone to Liverpool with Suarez up front he would have been a revelation, similarly if we had Mane up front for us, Ramirez needs a striker up front with pace, otherwise its no use having him. When we signed him we that was blatantly obvious

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cheltenhamsaint added 10:28 - Jun 19 I think that much of it is still fluid as we don't know (though the club may do) what Clyne and Schneiderlin will do. So I think a goalkeeper will be next, which is a tricky one to get right when your £10m first choice is out long term injured, and a resolution to whether Alderweireld will be here or not ( I don't think Saints will hang around beyond early July for Toby unless we are clearly in the front of the queue)

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Stephen added 12:19 - Jun 19 Good point StNick re Ramirez and the channels. I hadn't thought that one through. I think you have left out the £30M overspend on the training ground even before the current spend. I feel Cortese let everything go to his head when the Saints fans (not me) thought he was like a god. He spent unwisely and he overspent simply because he thought it was a good idea and didn't get the boards permission.

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SaintBrock added 12:53 - Jun 19 Squad building has its downsides as well, whilst it promotes competition for places it also undermines. A settled team as we have seen at first hand for the past few years can punch massively above its own weight, in part through the raising of individual player skill standards through confidence, whereas a disturbed and constantly disrupted one can quickly return to mediocrity in which nobody can work out which is the best team available (Man U) as the best recent example.

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IWOZTHERE added 22:37 - Jun 19 Nick, you've touched on the money coming in last year which on the face of it (transfer profit/tv and place money) was a surplus of nearly 100m. Haven't a clue over outgoings but we'd have had outgoings anyway! Ok I'm a simpleton but in the the circumstances, why did the club have to borrow 20m from Ms. Liebherr as reported a few months ago? Come on, you obviously study it more than me so enlighten me!

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