Having read, and generally enjoyed, your articles for a number of years without comment Nick, thought I would share a few of my own thoughts now the dust has settled on the season.

The game is always about opinions, but I feel you, and indeed the majority of posters here are completely missing the point about the ambitions and objectives of the club. Whilst his methods can sometimes be questioned, and in particular the removal of NA could have been handled much better, NC has undoubtedly been massively successful since he took over. This is largely due to a coherent and focussed strategy which sets him apart from other Chairmen, but although he has always made this clear in his (admittedly occasional!) interviews, this is largely ignored.

To clarify, the plan is to establish the club in the upper echelons of the Premier League by producing players of the required quality through the academy, which will ultimately form the bulk of the team. On top of this, all signings must be significantly superior to any home grown options. The team will also play in a specific style, which will be unique to Southampton. All these stated aims are consistent with recent happenings, the recruitment of Pochettino being central to this. This is what sets us apart from the clubs around us, as we have both the academy and financial resources to persue this route.

So, I am afraid it is highly unlikely that you will get your wish of 5 or 6 new signings, and centre-halfs you have 'heard of' Nick, as this does not fit the strategy. I also suspect, with all due respect, that the club's scouting network is slightly wider than yours! I do agree though that we will strengthen central defence, and add pace up front, but too many signings will block the progress of the academy players, so I suspect we will make no more than 2 or 3, but they will be high quality!

I may be the eternal optimist, but I think we will shock a few people this summer, and next season, and it should be fun!

didnt we sign rodriguez last season....in june?

"NC has undoubtedly been massively successful since he took over. This is largely due to a coherent and focussed strategy which sets him apart from other Chairmen"

SORRY ABINGDON

But I you will find loargely due to a big raft of Liebherr money rather than a well thought out strategy..And thats the difference between him and other chairman

abingdonsaint - what I think will happen is that 13-14 of the fringe players will be let go or sold. (Chaplow, Guly, Mayuka, Butterfield, Sharp, Hammond, Seaborne, De Ridder, Reeves, Dickson, Martin, Barnard, Forte, Lee)
These players will be replaced by the good youngsters we have, as well as 4-5 quality new signings.

LennyJam - We can arrange a deal now that will complete on 1st July like we did with J-Rod.

patred - Cortese deserves a lot of credit. He's done wonders with SFC. A lot of the success over the last three years can be put down to how he's run the club. Its not just down to the money, its about how you use it. Look at what's happened at QPR because they've got an idiot chairman/owner.

I agree with Abingdon Saint that part of Cortese's plan emphasises the importance of promoting Academy players and this includes the plan to get all Saints sides playing the same style/tactics as the first team, so that progression to the Premier squad is facilitated.

But, while many clubs aspire to sourcing their leading players from within, even the most successful clubs at doing this (and our record has been pretty good over the years) rarely produce more than two or three per generation. The youth team that featured the notable talents of Bale, Walcott, Lallana and, arguably, Dyer was unusual. But where are the others now? Even Man Utd's current squad only have Wellbeck and Cleverley who have recently been elevated from within the club (and, in my opinion, are both over-rated). They continue to spend big on imports from all quarters, though they defer some of this expense by selling on quite large numbers of 'not quite up to scratch' young talent.

While young talent like Shaw and Ward-Prowse are commendable talents, membership of the Premier League means that few sides can afford to 'blood' too many young players without seriously threatening their continued status; look at Aston Villa this season, they wouldn't have survived without adding Benteke to their youngsters.

The teams that prosper are those that successfully blend youth and experience. Personally I would prefer us only to sign British players but with an Italian Chairman and an Argentinian head coach, I have to admit this seems, sadly, rather unlikely.

ExiledSupporter - Yep, the Villa situation shows that you can't blood too many unproven youngsters at once in your first team. This is why I think the list of back-up players (above) at Southampton will be let go because they are not Premiership quality. With them gone, the youngsters like Chambers, Sinclair, Isgrove, Stephens, Gape, Robinson, Targett etc will get more of a look in and be able to show if they have what it takes or not.
Saints will spend big once again in the summer, you can bet on that. It probably won't be on British players, they're often horrendously overvalued. The value in the market is in Spain, which Poche knows well. Cortese likes dealing with Italian clubs, so you can expect more foreigners to be signed.

Its a well reasoned piece by abingdonsaint and hopefully the first of many, he makes good points about the youth system, but the problem at the moment is timescale.

Timescale can be measured in several ways, firstly there is identifying and signing the potential youth team starlets, Luke Shaw for instance isn't the product of the Current regime, he would have signed for the club around 2005/06 so at the moment the fruits of Cortese's youth policy wont be seen till at the very least 6-8 years from 2010 (This being the first year that he would have been able to influence the influx of 10 year olds), so our immediate problems wont be solved by youth for a long while.

I would also hazard a guess that the next couple of years academy scholars might not be as good as the last few due to our status in the game 4-5 years ago when we would have lost promising youngsters to other clubs.

Secondly in timing we don't appear to have any truly quality centre backs coming through, so NC isn't blocking anyone coming through and possibly wont in this area for a good few years yet.

The third problem is just how good your youngsters are, look at any Premiership team and if you get one player who becomes a first team regular every 2-3 years and you are doing well, I would hazard a guess that if you were to pick every 18-20 year old currently playing regularly in the Premier league then you would struggle to put together a team, OK this is very narrow, but it highlights the problem, there just aren't that many talented youngsters around, so why will we be able to get most of them in our academy.#

Its an admirable idea, but the reality is it will take many years to achieve and as someone said you still need a balance

Interesting feedback, with some fair points made.

I agree that there is no guarantee the strategy will necessarily be successful, and it is obviously dependent on sufficient quality coming through the academy, but personally I would rather we try to do things a little differently as opposed to cobbling together enough Premier League journeymen to finish 17th each season!

The comparatively low number of academy players currently playing first team football generally does reflect how difficult this is, but at the bigger clubs at least, is this in part due to opportunity and the need for quick fixes? Perhaps the proportion would increase if more confidence was shown in the most talented. For instance, Luke Shaw is clearly a star of the future, but if he was at somewhere like Chelsea would we have even heard of him? Pochettino also has a reputation for developing young players which may help in fast-tracking the best, and as a club we have traditionally done better than most in this regard. The Villa example is a good one though, which is why I am sure we will add proven quality to the mix.
Also agree that there will be a major clear out of fringe players, which is partly a result of us coming through the divisions so quickly, but still not convinced large numbers will come in.

Lastly, whilst the Liebherr money is obviously a factor, I think NC has been reasonably frugal so far, and the biggest fees we paid for Ramirez and Rodriguez were at least on young players with a resale value if things went pear-shaped, as opposed to dead money like QPR!

I suppose that a big part of my reservations about NC's record in the transfer market is down to the somewhat erratic purchase of players who a) in some expensive cases have not proved suitable or b) have not been consistent with the screamingly obvious priorities that the squad needed last summer or last winter or c) an utterly puzzling acquisition like Forren and, in many ways, a luxury like Ramirez.

While some of the players were clearly recruited to do a particular job for us in the lower divisions, some have just been rank poor signings (DeRidder is a case in point...plenty of pace but not much else) Mayuka and maybe Forren too.

I don't think that either Cortese or Reed can make that convincing a case for the astuteness of their signings as a whole, though clearly players like Clyne, Rodrigues and Davis have been good acquisitions. The extent to which Pardew or Adkins had a role in bringing in such good investments as Lambert, Cork, Fonte, Puncheon and Sharpe (the latter for his invaluable goals in the second half of the season in the Championship)can only be conjecture. Even Lowe earns credit for the far sighted signing of Schneiderlein!

Reedy etc lists a large number of players who are redundant and by and large I agree with him (with the exception of Sharpe, Lee and Reeves who I think might potentially do a worthwhile job for us from the bench). I'm afraid I don't know enough about the younger lads coming through - Nick have you thought about giving more attention/feedback to what is happening with the reserves through the coming season. Perhaps during the summer a review of the reserves season just gone would be instructive for us all?

If we assume Forren is not up to it and what other conclusion can we reach in the odd circumstances surrounding him (no blame resting on Adkins shoulders there) I think we still need two central defenders with pace, two wingbacks, one striker and a an attacking midfielder capable of scoring 7/8 goals per season and putting in consistently good performances(assuming Ramires isn't that person?) plus several understudies at full back.

Sorry to repeat this and maybe we don't want to contemplate the article but...

Weekend Times newspaper report seems to think it is a done deal that Luke Shaw will be going to Chelsea when he is old enough to sign a contract.

Anyone in the know on this matter? To lose him would be a major step backwards

Don't think anyone outside the club is really 'in the know', but every indication is that he will sign a long-term deal with Saints on his birthday in July.....

so here is my big prediction - chelsea will sign Shaw, then loan him back to us for a year. In exchange, we will get Lukaku (how ever u spell it) from West Brom in a perm deal. We clearly need a finisher, as evident in our last 6 or so games to partner Lambery/Rod. I reckon NC would broker this kind of deal in a heartbeat.

We've been crying out for defence since last season and our "astute" chairman buys offence. Then he finally buys one and the manager doesn't put him in! But does the manager make the game day decisions? We were worried about this when NA was manager. I don't read anything into the "if he goes so do I" statement- MP had to say that to keep Little Nicci happy and if a new man came in he knew he was going to be replaced anyway. We need one man making the footbal decisions. No successful teams are run by commitee. A camel is a horse built by commitee.

The loan back of Shaw by Chelsea was stated in the article in the Times. This is not good enough as this young fella will be a very much needed asset for many years, unless another new youngster is knocking at the door.

Personally I think getting Lukaku (assuming a reasonable price) and keeping Shaw for another year is not such a bad deal! Not least because I suspect next season may be the last season that Lambert plays sufficiently well to justify a regular first team place. Lukaku and Rodrigues together might better fit MP's preferred formation.

I'm really liking Abingdon's comments. I was spewing with Cortese when he sacked Adkins, but not for the first time I find it hard trying to critcise him when I can't disprove he did the right thing. There's no doubt he could have gone about things in a (far) better way, but he's ruthless in achieving his goal. We should be thankful for that as fans, especially as if he is the achiever that ML obviously believed he is then he is not going to stop until he brings us success that we are previously unused to.

The Rodriguez and Ramirez signings were costly but they weren't on journeymen players. There's every chance we could double the resale on both of these players, and get a certain amount of success in the meantime. I think Ramirez will have a much better season next season now he's had a chance to get more used to the English game. I just hope he sticks around for the foreseeable.