Southampton Confirm Departure Of James Ward Prowse Monday, 14th Aug 2023 09:59 Saints have officially confirmed that James Ward Prowse has now left the club and joined West Ham United, a sad day for all supporters of Southampton Football Club as a true club legend leaves. Southampton Football Club have confirmed the end of an era at St Mary's, that James Ward Prowse has left after over 20 years association with the club after joining as an 8 year old. It is sad news for Saints supporters and it leaves a hollow feeling, whilst no one begrudges JWP the chance to perhaps have a shot at glory, there is that little bit of doubt as to whether he has really furthered his career that much.
If he had gone to one of the Big 7 then yes he was going for that stab at glory, but West Ham are a club with internal strife at the moment, this transfer itself was in doubt right up to the last moment as manager David Moyes was at odds with the new Director of Football Tim Steidten with not only buying Ward Prowse who about to turn 29 did not fir Steidten's transfer blueprint, one very similar to Saints in many respects, of not buying players over the age of 26/27 who will not have a resale value. This story has not ended yet and their could be a power struggle within the club still to be played out, Moyes has a hard task, he has Europa League games now added to the schedule and he has to improve the Hammers position in the Premier League, which last season saw then on the fringes of the relegation battle for a long time, eventually staying up by 6 points. If Moyes gets off to a poor start then Moyes could well be an early Premier League managerial casualty and Ward Prowse could find himself out in the cold, as did another James, JWP's former team mate James Bree who was very much a Nathan Jones signing.
I do feel though that James Ward Prowse has a lot more in his locker than some give him credit for, he has the ability to score goals and create chances, but he also have the ability to graft when needed and he can do it in a number of positions. In his last couple of years at St Mary's some accused him of not influencing games as he once did, but the truth was he was being asked to play in a deeper role to fill a gap and he did so without complaint. No one can blame him for wanting to try and grab some glory as he heads towards 30, you have the feeling that if the Hammers had not been able to offer him Europa League football then he would not have gone, he would have stayed and helped Southampton back into the Premier League.
But this is all just speculation now, he has gone and we have to wish him well, as his status as a true Southampton Legend should warrant. This is not a player who came to the club, had a couple of good seasons and left at the first big offer, this is a man who gave 20 years of his life to the club, 11 years of them as a first team regular, who started 264 Premier League games for the club, another 80 as sub, scoring 49 goals, plus just one game in the Championship. He added 59 starts plus 7 sub appearances and 6 goals in three cup competitions, including a League Cup final runners up medal at Wembley in 2017, as well as several semi final appearances. He took part in two Europa League campaigns, he enjoyed some of the best years that Southampton FC had in over 3 decades and it may turn out the best years of his footballing life.
So we should all wish him well, the only thing certain in football is that eventually a player will have to stop playing football for it, most leave for other clubs, very few stay as coaches etc, James's departure is a few years earlier than we would have liked, but it had to happen sometime. I have been saying this for a fair few years now, at least 9, but if Southampton FC is to prosper, it has to do so on it's own terms, it does not have the global support of Manchester United & Liverpool to generate cash, it does not have the mega billions that the owners of Manchester City & Newcastle have, it cannot compete with any of the Big 7, so it has to do so in it's own way and that means developing players and then selling them when the time is right, buy low, sell high and then buy low again and keep repeating this. This does not make us a selling club, it makes us a progressive club, we were perhaps the first club to pioneer this under Ted Bates in the late 1950's early 1960's, selling a player for a good profit is never the mistake, it is buying the replacements that is the tricky thing.
The irony here is that the behind the scenes unrest at West Ham is due to a Director of Football wants to follow the Southampton Way and not the traditional splashing of the cash that most club's supporters demand, indeed James Ward Prowse might be the last signing of his kind at the London Stadium. So good luck to James Ward Prowse, I truly thank you for all you have done for this football club and I wish you all the best in whatever you do, be it in football or life in general. Photo: Action Images Please report offensive, libellous or inappropriate posts by using the links provided.
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