True Nick. I suspect real incompetence now after so long and with the season upon us. When we lost Michael Svensson to injury we never replaced him with real quality and it cost us dearly (in my opinion the most important reason why we were relegated-we could not keep the ball out of the net!!) Central defence is crucial and what is worse is that we have so much more cash than we did then! 12 million for Shane Long is mystifying given that we seem to be penny pinching on centre back. Also, if we let Cork go to a rival so cheaply you have to ask questions about the competence of this board.

To be honest the whole situation is a complete farce. We have known for months about the players leaving. Why oh why do we take so long to get players in and then end up making what amounts to second thirrd or forth choice panic buys. The rumour if true that jack cork may be leaving make me feel like the heart and sole is being ripped out of the club we all love so much. No matter how many replacements we 'eventually' sign its going to take a long time for them to re-build the team spirit we had for the last few years. I for one find it very sad, and i dont care about all the happy clappers who look at this as glass half full and all that crap.

Good article, spot on! I don't have any confidence in Reed whatsoever, looks like we are about to sell Cork which is ludicrous and I've already voiced my opinion on the lunacy of signing Shane Long. There is no structure, no common sense, no stability and no strategy in our business. Rightly or wrongly since Cortese's exit the club seem to have reigned in its ambition and does not have a clear vision for the future direction of the club. Shambles.

saintdavo, i think the squad has been strengthened well but we just havent got in a central defender.

With regard to Jack Cork did you feel the heart and sould was being ripped out last season when pochettino refused to even use Cork as a substitute and the dropped him the moment Wanyama was fit, if Cork is leaving it is because he probably wants to because he can see that he faces more of the same and wants to go to a team where he will get a game, I like Cork and im sad, but fact is we cant claim that Cork was part of that great team spirit

It is always quoted but reality was it was never there any more than it is now, Cork was ignored last season for the first half till suddenly he had to be played because of injury, the squad knew that the manager and chairman were ruthless, therefore they didnt have a team spirit, they played for themselves as they know what had happened to the likes of Cork, Fox, Sharp and others discarded along the way

I believe we did have good team spirit and togetherness last season. Yes to a degree they did play for themselves but what footballers don’t? What really galvanised the squad was the club at this point had a clear vision and strategy to which they all brought into. The problem with this season is we have no clear purpose or belief in what we are doing anymore.

Well said Nick. With Jack going I feel so many players have no faith in many of the board and Les Reed in particular. The way we have negotiated players both in and out has been farcical. Letting players go before a replacement has been in place and then paying over the odds in a state of panic. How many of our sales have a sell on clause I wonder? Only Fonte has shown a willingness to extend his contract, so no surprise he's the captain. All of this could have been handled much better and with more professionalism.

Agree with most of the comments above about the incompetence of the board in not signing a centre back by now. Especially when you see QPR sign Caulker and Swansea sign Fernandez.
Jack Cork is a quality player and Saints are better with him in the team. The protection he offers the defence is invaluable and while Wanyama is a massive physical presence I don't think he has the tactical nous of Cork in terms of his positioning and tracking runners.
Half the reason why Fonte and Lovren were so successful was because of our brilliant midfield. Without that protection, and without Lovren, our defence will be back to the shambles of two years ago getting thumped by Arsenal 6-1 etc etc.
This summer has gone incredibly badly. And by signing Long for £12m and selling Cork for £3m it just gets worse and worse. What on earth are they playing at? Cork should've been tied down to a long term deal ages ago. And for all of the boasting about our scouting network they can't come up with a better signing than the very average Shane Long. Pathetic.

Some of you miss the point here, there is plenty of strategy and ambition, it is just falling down due to the person doing the negotiating not being able to seemingly do his job, clearly Reed has a mandate from the board to spend a lot of money, but he is failing to land his targets, something we also did over the past two years when ortese was in charge.

I think we have a clear vision of the future now at the club, far clearer than a year ago, the problem is that we liked the sound of the champions league, but that vision actually wasnt very clear, how were we going to achieve it when the board could not match the spending of at least six of the 7 clubs that finished above us last year.

That wasnt ambition but egotism on the part of the Chairman, why was he happy to get out ? because he knew he could never deliver what he had promised.

Now we have a vision and that is to continue the progress we have made, no boasts about qualifying for the Champions league but plenty of realistic ambition to keep progressing and to qualify for europe possibly through a cup

I worry about our defence. In our first season back in the prem, Jose was not good at all - linking up with Maya and Jos very badly. He was a regular in one of the leakiest defences. The difference last season was Lovren. Love him or hate him, Lovren brought immediate order to our defence and got Jose playing intelligent football. Losing Lovren is therefore like losing 2 players, because Fonte will be under-supported with Maya.

Its a worrying situation. This Romanian looks good, but how quickly will he adapt to the league? I think we need to accept that Sunday will be very hard and we'll get opened up by their midfield and forwards. Our saving grace is that we have an easy run after Liverpool where the team might gel.

The point is Nick Ralph stated no more first team players were leaving now here we are a 3 mill bid for Cork accepted according to the media, that is ridiculous as a previous comment says should of tied him down with a good contract ages ago, i have no problem with all the others leaving but when you have players of Corks versatility you don't flog for 3 mill get rid of wanyama instead or better still keep them both and build a team.

I agree with the essential point of the article. Whoever is responsible for bringing in (the right) players seems to be doing it badly. All the Cortese nonsense has always been an irrelevant sideshow. With FFP and our revenue/income you can shout 'ambition' as often as you like but it makes little difference when players are off to earn triple the wages.
Team spirit is a different thing that is nurtured over time and in the right conditions. Sadly that has also gone now that the vultures have picked their spoils. MoPo and all of the players could have got together in March/April and decided to all stay because they liked the team spirit so much but no - they were all packing their bags and doing extension work on their wallets to prepare for the extra cash.
Certain fans need to get real. I don't know what happy-clapping means but if it means realism then I am for it - yes it is extraordinarily sad that last year's team is gone but it has gone and that is that. It is not linked with current failures to sign players - that's down I believe to Mr Reed. Team spirit can be rebuilt but a defence without a decent centre back is a different matter. Whether you 'happy clap', worship at the altar of Cortese or simply support the club you will be concerned at this particular failure.

I warned you months and months ago that Krueger and Reed were not up to the jobs theyd been given, They dont come from the world of business law or banking how could anyone possibly expect these men to be up to the task? What worries me most , however, is why they were were put in the jobs they hold. Liebherr has paced a buffer between herself and the fans, its an old time honored tactic in business and I remain convinced that we are not being told the whole story. There appears to be no strategy other than to sell and replace as cheaply as possible. In doing so they are gambling with our premiership future but something tells me that they just dont care.
I have seen various comments that the situation is somehow linked to Cortese and his policies but I dispute that. He had a very positive vision of the future whereas this lot dont appear to have one at all. It irks me that whenever Reed and Krueger have been interviewed the interviewers just have not asked the right questions, the first of which should have been what are your plans for the club? We are not contemplating a very difficult season, I fear an almost impossible one too much responsibility is being placed on the shoulders of players who have never played in England never mind the Premiership. It may work out but it could just as easily be a disaster.
It troubles me that Krueger and Reed cannot be trusted to tell the truth, they have persistently lied to the fans and in so doing have created an atmosphere of extreme distrust. They seem to forget they need the fans support, unless of course they are prepared to play to half empty stadiums.
There is an air of increasing instability about the club both from within and how it is perceived from the outside by fans other clubs and the Press.Irksome too is the excuse which is now being given by fans I notice , without a shred of evidence to support it that Cortese mismanaged the club allowed contractors to inflate the price of the training ground build and made promises to players which were subsequently not kept. There is absolutely no evidence for any of this it is sheer speculation put out I suspect by those in the club s pay to quell the beginnings of serious dissent amongst the fan base. No evidence that the training ground went over budget whatsoever. You can draw your own conclusions from that.What I can tell you is that the training facilities would have been the subject of a building contract, with stage payments involved the contractors being duty bound to deliver the facilities for an agreed price, without any provision for hiking up the costs. I cant expect fans to know that this is how such matters work but it happens to be the case as I know only too well from experience.
And then there is other argument you now see increasingly, that the fact that players are being brought in proves that no asset stripping is taking place. I beg to disagree. Such deals will have been done on an installment basis for the most part but you can bet that outgoing transactions will have been concluded for cash. I suspect that current spending remains within that which could be finance from the clubs income including tv money, in other words not from the club s player sales.
In other words Liebherr has more than likely pocketed 90 million. I remain convinced that KL plans to sell the club and that its now only a matter of time before the club is disposed of. There are too many rumors flying around on the continent in that regard for the issue to be avoided the only surprise being that the English Press dont seem able to monitor what is being said on the continent about Southampton football club. English reporters tend to not to speak foreign languages so its hardly surprising, is it.

Montecristo - what a berk!

Montecristo - How do explain signing Long for £12m. He's only worth £7m at best. If Katherina was only interested in money and taking out all she can, why would she allow us to overpay on such an average player? That £12m could easily be spent on a 20-24 year old from abroad with great potential who is likely to only go up in value. If money and asset stripping is her only motive then this signing makes absolutely no sense and she would never allow it.

I went to Anfield about 10 years ago and saw us get drubbed 7 -1 (Hassan Kachloul scoring our consolation goal). Despite the complete humiliation on the pitch the substantial Saints support remained positively vocal to the end, singing "we're going to win 8 - 7" after Kachloul scored. It remains one of my most memorable and proudest days of following Saints on the road.
Is this the same fan base that is now squabbling over how we spend a £50m transfer kitty, slagging off anyone that wants to remain positive and wag the finger at the club and its employees long before their acumen (or not) can be judged.
And they say players heads are turned by money
PS This is not a swipe at everyone nor anyone in particular as my observations are not a result of this thread/forum alone.

Guys - To quote the cover of the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy. DONT PANIC

These are the good times.

Planning is I trust being done for the long term, not just the Liverpool game.

Always sad to see our favourites leave but that is the way it has always been. Players come and go or stay and eventually hang up their boots. The Club goes on - but only because the Liebherr family stepped in.

We have never been so Financially strong and have a good crop of players, which needs some improving but it is nearly there. There are more academy players looking to break through and how we love to see this happen. Parents of the most talented 8 year olds must be queuing up to have their son get a chance in the Saints academy. They will not be looking at the last couple of months but the last twenty years of a production line as evidence of what their boy can achieve at the right club.

Whatever happens this year Saints have a solid base to move forward and punch above our weight in the Premier league.

3 or 4 months ago we had a young and improving, immensely talented team on the verge of pushing for top 6. What have we got now? Time will tell. But I can guarantee we'll be a million miles off top 6 and we won't even be top half. Top 14 is a realistic target, unless the board miraculously sign some quality players. That is some comedown. Its been an absolute disaster since Katherina stopped ploughing the money in and Cortese and Pochettino left. Kruger and Reed could do little to stop the exodus but the least they could do is sign a centre back and a forward better than Long.

Accountant quote "These are good times". Compared to five years ago: Yes. Compared to five months ago: You must be joking!!!!

Nick: I like the article but your continual comments about negative comments about Cortese and MoPo undermine your credibility.

“Some of you miss the point here, there is plenty of strategy and ambition”...condescending maybe? Or just blind trust?
“I think we have a clear vision of the future now at the club, far clearer than a year ago”

The board DONT have a clear Strategy or Ambition. These are both things that need to be demonstrated rather than just dreamed up in a board room and communicated in carefully edited press releases. Actions speak louder than words.

If the Osvaldo signing did one thing it demonstrated ambition. Signing Shane Long for a similar amount would demonstrate nothing but desperation.

Cortese clearly stated our strategy: We would develop young British players that would eventually be part of the national set up. These would be supported by quality foreign additions. We did that, some we bought in British players and brought some through the academy, but we ended up with 3 or 4 in the national set up with others in the wings.

Cortese said what he was going to do then he did it. It was often stated that we would only buy better than we had, regardless of area’s of perceived weakness.

This summer we have we have sold just about anyone if we decided it was “good business” . Even your much beloved "moneyball" strategy has been cast aside with the sale of future England CB Calum Chambers well before his prime.

Our purchases have been equally erratic, I am not even confident that Forster will be better than Boruc (and before anyone even mentions his distribution it was clearly a tactic! Anyone at the Bayer game say him hit the ball long to Pelle at will!)

In short I cannot believe that you recognise the incompetence of the boards football dealings but defend them in terms strategy, vision and ambition. I am stunned.

Well said Jesus02. Agree with it all. (apart from Forster will be better than Boruc)

Monecristo - you have convinced yourself that Cortese is god and that the club is being asset stripped. Two simple questions/observations
1. Why did NC appoint/not sack Reed? Pretty silly mistake for a god to make.

2. Asset-stripping as I understand it is done by private equity firms/hedge funds etc when they buy a going concern, sell off and exploit all the profitable bits and then spit out the empty husk at the end. Marcus however acquired an entity that was facing liquidation and had very few assets. His family under the guidance of god himself built that wreck of a club up to what it is today. How can you asset-strip what is already yours and essentially always has been? The Liebherrs bought Lovren, they owned Lovren and they sold Lovren. Even if they were to pocket the money made it wouldnt be asset-stripping it would be making a profit. Or am I missing something?

Jesus O2 - you reckon Osvaldo is a better player than Long? Your comment only makes sense if you do. 'Marquee' signings need to be good players - a fact that your man NC failed to grasp. Yes Long is over-priced and might be a bad buy but to criticise the signing by quoting NC's signings of Osvaldo (or Gaston for that matter) seems very odd.

Disagree about Jack Cork Nick. He is a super player and just because that idiot Pochettino didn't play him and/ or was too proud to admit his mistakes doesn't change that. It was his return to the team that sparked our revival last year and for me he embodies our team spirit as he gives 110% every game. Tragic that the best defensive midfield partnership in Cork and Spider may not be with us for too long. £3m for Corkie is a sick joke.

REEDYREEDOREEDZ

I think that we are on the same lines. I fully understand that we couldn’t keep asking for money to be ploughed in by our owner. However I think that there was financial need to sell anyone, the only losses that where incurred where from the training ground. The massive cash injection of the TV money would have covered this and the outstanding transfer fees with a little more to spend.
However it is this point that I disagree with "Kruger and Reed could do little to stop the exodus". Personally I think that they were happy to part with Shaw, Lambert and Lallana and so did nothing to stop them leaving. The important thing for them was to get the most money and leave their customers (us) with the impression it couldn’t be helped. Lets not forget that while some teams remained in constant contact with their players, our club wouldn’t answer the phone to ours.
Basically I think they were “playing smart but not being clever”. They completely underestimated the slide that was caused by releasing both Lambert and Lallana together. Imagine a world where we made a few quality additions before we sold Lambert and Shaw. Say Caulker and Ings and Bertrand on Loan (very modest signings). If Morgan wanted to go he could, we would then be in a position where we could say we were sticking to our position of promoting English Talent.
My hope is that Krueger realises that the additional responsibility that Reed has been given is too much. If we could get a director of football from a respected progressive league (German?) we may be able to get back on track

San Marco.

I will probably be slated but yes. I think Osvaldo is a better player than Long. I also think that that he is a complete idiot and obviously had no future at saints after his run in with Fonte.

My point is that most people were exited when we bought Osvaldo. The general response to the potential signing of Long is… ooo..that’s a bit dear. Maybe it’s because we seemed not to budge on a 9m offer for Hernandez.

Those in charge of the club could not have predicted bad Osvaldo would turn out, lets hope Long ends up being worth every penny (and more).

ho hum.....how do you all feel that we have now signed a CB?

It was obvious that Rojo was our first choice but too difficult to get over the line. On the whole, happy with what we have brought in this summer.

And RK obviously does not rate Cork - with the likes of Reed knocking on the first team door perhaps he feels Reed is better/will become better?