A few weeks ago Victor Wanyama was a hero to Saints supporters, now his behaviour is turning him into public enemy number one.
Ronald Koeman has confirmed that Victor Wanyama is missing from the Saints team because he is not "mentally and physically good enough to play" that was Koeman's words but I will use another phrase "Sulking"
A grown man is throwing a strop because he is being asked to honour a very lucrative contract after someone has tapped him up.
You could tell that Koeman is choosing his words very carefully when asked to comment on the situation when he added to his first comment "If he keeps playing like this, he is playing with his future."
Where this goes is hard to predict, I find it hard to comprehend that a s called professional can behave in this matter and indeed put the fate of his employers ie Saints in jeopardy, certainly there will be those who will point the finger at him for our exit from the Europa League, the reality is that perhaps in terms of on the pitch his presence was not missed after all he is not the most creative player in the final third, but his behaviour will have upset preparations for the game and will not have helped the squad in general.
Those players will also feel let down by Wanyama and the damage to team spirit will be something that we as fans will not see, but almost certainly other members of the squad will feel let down by him as he has cost them potential glory and income.
This perhaps shows Saints supporters how much the sale of players are out of their hands these days, there is no honour amongst most of the players and clubs these days and clearly this situation is something that has been done in a very underhand way.
These days contracts mean little apart from making sure a club can get something back when the player leaves, but in terms of keeping a player at the club when someone else comes calling, it means little.
Fans perhaps find this hard to grasp, for most a contract should mean a contract, but as we at Sants have seen both last summer and now this, players these days can behave like spoilt brats, the rest of us have to get on with life once something happens to disrupt it, we cant phone in work and tell them we are not physically and mentally right, yet players seem to think that is acceptable behaviour.
You can tell Ronald Koeman feels that it is unacceptable in the words he uses, and he seems to indicate that Saints wil now not sell him on a matter of princible, not in this window and perhaps not the next and that if he ots in the reserves to coin an old phrase, then so be it.
Saints fans would certainly like to see the club make a stand, they are sick of players calling the shots and to be truthful a lot of them seem to blame the club, but that is simplistic. football has changed and players hold all the cards and sulking is now one of the weapons in their armoury to force a move.