Mostly when a player leaves a football club it is a blow but supporters move on quickly, but sometimes it is something that cannot be brushed away lightly, it is like the breaking up of a marriage, it can break your heart.

The only thing certain in football is that one day a player for a club will stop playing for that team, for all it will finally be because they have finally reached the end of their playing career and when that happens for most it is usually for a club they have not spent their best years at so is not a blow.

But these days few stay at club's their entire career, so there cannot be that many players who at some time have left a club with the fan base not aggrieved that they have done so.

Over the years at Southampton we have had many players that have left us, it is the nature of the game, most football supporters seem to be able to accept this, but any club fan base will have a proportion of there fans who feel that players should have undying loyalty and should never want to leave.

So for them when a player leaves it is personal, it has to be someone's fault , to be blunt it is usually the player themselves , but that taints the memory so it is easier to blame the club for wanting to cash in and forcing the player out.

Back in 1977 Mike Channon leaving was a heartbreaker, but most Saints fans accepted that he had given us over a decade of first team service, he deserved a shot at the big time and as a then second division club we could not give him that, we were heartbroken but could accept it.

There have been some bitter transfers from Saints though , perhaps the first I can remember is Kevin Keegan, those of a certain age remember it as the club waiting till they had sold the season tickets before it was announced that Keegan wanted to leave, in those days of pre social media it was easy to keep secrets in football.

So the anger was not at Keegan but directed at the club itself, sound familiar !

Steve Williams leaving in 1984 was not without it's ranting in the fanbase, but he was moving to Arsenal and again had given us good service, it was a natural progression, it might have been through gritted teeth but most wished him well.

Likewise the departure of Alan Shearer in 1992, yes he was home grown, albeit he was from Newcastle and an adopted son, but we knew he was destined for better things and it was only a matter of time.

The late 1990's saw players come and go but in the main although the departure of the likes of Kevin Davies was a blow, the club was very good at signing replacements.

Even when Davies's replacement James Beattie left it was not with the rage that would be the norm in the future it would seem.

Perhaps it was the dawn of social media like Twitter, it gave everyone a chance for a 168 word or the like rant, no need for explanations just a rant.

The first great transfer meltdown came in the summer of 2014, some would say that this would never have happened if Nicola Cortese had still been at the club, he would never have let a player go, only he had, even he could not hold on to Alex Oxlade Chamberlain in 2012, ironically the player had wanted to stay another year at least, but by all accounts allegedly our Chairman had fallen out with the players father.

In 2014 suddenly everyone was leaving, but each of the 5 players who left seemed to have a different reaction in the supporter base, Rickie Lambert who was an absolute God went quietly, most accepted that at 32 his best days were behind him and he was living a dream to go to his boyhood heroes Liverpool.

Luke Shaw and Callum Chambers were seen as good pieces of business, big money for players who were destined for bigger things.

But two players attracted hatred and for two reasons.

The first Dejan Lovren was the subject of the ire of the Saints fans for the way he demanded a move and made it clear he would not even try to play if made to stay, given he had only been here a year, the fans were aggrieved and quite rightly so, it doesn't matter what club you support, if you buy a player you have a right that he will honour his contract, yes if he does well you expect him to attract attention, but he hadn't paid his dues.

The second departure attracted wholesale abuse, but it was a player who had been in our first team for 6 years, he had paid his dues. surely he deserved a big move to a top club, the answer was yes he did, perhaps he did not go completely the right way about it, but Adam Lallana should have gone with the best wishes of the supporter base ringing in his ears and a welcome back home anytime just as Mike Channon had received 35 years earlier.

But Adam Lallana was different, if Rickie Lambert was loved, so was Adam Lallana he was adored because he was the (almost) local lad made good, he had stayed loyal through the dark years of administration etc and alongside Lambert had led us to the Premier League and to the England side, we not only loved him we were proud of him and that is a rarity in football.

Most players are just loved by the fans, but it is the home grown ones that instil a sense of pride, so when they leave it is like losing a child and the breakdown of a marriage rolled into one.

There is no heartbreak that compares to either one of those traumatic events in life and if you roll them into one it is hard to take.

So now we have that feeling with Danny Ings, his situation is different to that of Lallana, he was born here, but made his name elsewhere, when he came home in 2018 it was very much a question of the prodigal son coming home.

His first season on loan was good but not great, in truth if we had not exercised the option to buy his story might not have been the same, but we did and like Lambert suddenly his career kicked back into life after several injury hit years.

But we did go through with the option to buy and as much as Danny was good for us, we were good for him.

We knew that he would be in demand and most Saints supporters had come to a sense of reality that there is a pecking order in football and that these days some clubs can pay a lot more than others and I mean a lot lot more.

Ings of course spoke about how he was happy at St Mary's but if a big club came in then he would want to consider the offer, we understood and even accepted that.

But the events of Wednesday were totally out of the blue, it was like coming home after work and finding a note on the mantlepiece from your wife saying she has run off with the window cleaner.

You could understand if she had run off to live with Robbie Williams or Ant & Dec to live in luxury in a big mansion somewhere, but the Window cleaner !!!!!! (With respect to window cleaners who may be reading, It used to be the milkman wives run off with but there don't seem to be any these days)

This was not Adam Lallana or Mike Channon moving to a bigger club, it was a move to Aston Villa.

Now I accept that Villa are a bigger club than us, but these days where the premier League is polarised there are four clubs bigger than all the rest, then you have Spurs, Arsenal & Leicester, then you have 10 other clubs most of whom could finish anywhere between 8th and 17th this season.

Turning 29 this is the last big move for Danny Ings, perhaps he has accepted himself he is not going to get a shot at the highest level so he might as well take the highest offer, that seems to be the way it is to the Saints supporters.

Ralph Hasenhuttl made a comment that players don't want to be club legends anymore a few days ago, we didn't take it too seriously at the time, now we know what he was alluding to.

Football is a business, no one denies that, but there are still ways to do things, if Danny Ings had gone to Manchester City then no one could have begrudged him the chance to win a trophy, a week or so ago he seemed to think that way himself, if he wasn't going to go to a club with a shot at a trophy he might as well stay at St Mary's, that seemed to have been what he had told the club.

Then suddenly bang he was gone and not even a note on the mantlepiece, for that matter not even a note in the dressing room to his team mates.

Money can turn everyone's head and football agents are very good at encouraging their players to chase the biggest offer and it seems to me that there was a lack of big clubs coming in for Danny Ings, something his agent would have been promising a few months ago and was now not materialising, so the agent would have changed tack, if he wasn't going to get glory then go for the biggest pay day.

I can understand that, but does Danny Ings truly need the money, he will be rich already, at Villa he will by all accounts only get around £1.5 million a year in wages more than our offer, that is a lot for supporters, but for a Premier League footballer it is a drop in the ocean.

I wonder if now the dust is settling a little that Danny Ings realised that he has made a big mistake, he is uprooting his family from their home and moving them to the Midlands where if he doesn't come up with the goods he is not the local boy made good, but the scapegoat.

He has thrown away as Ralph Hasenhuttl said the chance to become a club legend, he will no longer be able to walk the streets of his home town without at best people turning away in derision and at worst some idiot hurling abuse at him or more.

For Saints fans like the transfer of Adam Lallana this will hurt for a while, it has broken the hearts of Southampton, not just the fans but the City as well, one of our own has kicked us in the teeth and it is hard to forgive and forget.

There were no wild horses dragging Adam Lallana from St Mary's to Anfield as some would like to think and that team of horses wasn't in Southampton again on Wednesday night to drag Danny Ings kicking and screaming to Villa Park.

He wanted to go with indecent haste, if he truly cared about a big club and chasing glory then he would have bided his time and waited to see if that big club came in as the transfer window neared its closing.

But he wasn't willing to do that, he wanted out to the highest bidder and it seems that he had to do it now before that highest bidder gave the money elsewhere, perhaps I am wrong, but my heart and my head tells me I am not.

Some will say it's just football, but when has football been just football, it is a passion in this country and although all have different levels of support, something like this matters to us all.

So for Saints we have to move on, just as we did back in 1982, when Keegan left and a youngster called Danny Wallace came through and we went on to better things, or in 1998 when Kevin Davies left and a saviour from Blackburn arrived in James Beattie and again we went on to better things.

Or even 2014 when Rickie Lambert & Adam Lallana left and in came Pelle and Tadic and we went on to better things.

I don't hate Danny Ings I just feel saddened because I thought he was different.

Hopefully that will be the case this time around, certainly Ralph Hasenhuttl has slowly built up a squad with depth, last season it was stretched to the limits, we know that, but now we have some money to strengthen it, yes we need to find the 12 Premier League goals Danny Ings scored last season, but we can do that.

People are quick to point out that we will be relegated due to the form in the second half of the season, but slow to recall that in the first half we topped the Premier League for the first time ever.

This coming season we are one of 10 clubs who could finish anywhere between 8th & 17th, we have to make sure that it is the higher end of the mid table and not the lower.

Spending money is no guarantee of success, Everton have spent 10 times what we have in the last 5 years yet have fared little better, Villa have spent more and had the same results.

As is the Southampton Way, we have to spend what we have and spend it well.

Photo: Action Images

halftimeorange added 10:16 - Aug 6 The fact is that, when fit, Danny Ings is a better footballer than anybody else currently at Saints and since Rickie Lambert got himself fit and Alan Pardew got him to believe. It might well be that Adams and Tella form a useful partnership but, neither has the skills to replace Ings' ability to seize on a half-chance and turn it into a goal, nor bring other players' games up a notch. My guess is that Danny felt that Villa is a safer bet to be top ten and unlikely to be fighting relegation. What would you do if you thought your employer was in danger of sinking? You'd try and get out, wouldn't you.

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ElijahK added 10:17 - Aug 6 He “broke our hearts” by being a complete jerk over the last few months as well as clearly just leaving for money and showing that loyalty means F all to him! Simple as
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highfield49 added 10:52 - Aug 6 Despite most of us supporters trying to be rational and putting a brave face on this farce it doesn't do much to inspire confidence that the club has retained any ambition beyond survival. For whatever reason Ings was determined to go and thankfully Villa paid over the odds for a player in decline. Sadly though, although they are astute signings, the lads from Chelsea will only be using the club as a stepping stone in their careers. I'm struggling to think of any player on the books who we can watch kissing the shirt badge with genuine passion at present, with the improbable exception of Theo Walcott. We all know in our hearts that club loyalty and respecting contracts is pretty much dead in the water but hadn't we all thought that Ings was one of our own? If it's true that he didn't even tell his family that he was moving to Villa that makes his behaviour even more cynical than most. Role models and idols they are not and it would be satisfying to see supporters wearing club shirts with Judas printed on the back in recognition of the commercial mire the game has become.

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saintmark1976 added 11:53 - Aug 6 An excellent summary of the situation from Ing’s point of view halftimeorange. Villa at least give an impression of wanting to make progress by signing a proven goal scorer using the monies from the transfer of Grealish. Contrast their action with our apparent current inability to close the deal on Armstrong from Blackburn, a player who appeared fifteen times for Newcastle in the Premiership and didn’t score once.

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StuSaint added 11:56 - Aug 6 Well written article that sums up my own feelings, Danny Ings Hometown club, proud to play for Saints, has proved to be just another mercenary footballer who has gone to improve his income. If he had moved on to a genuine top 4-6 club (except Spurs) then Thank you and good luck. But Villa in a flash just seems to be for an increased salary when really when you have 10 - 20 million in the bank how much money do you really need. Good bye Ings no good luck from me just leaves a nasty taste maybe I can wave a few fivers at you when we meet again.

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SanMarco added 12:01 - Aug 6 'Heart-break' and the wife running off with the window cleaner are a little bit over the top perhaps. I am annoyed at the lies and also a bit concerned that there might be other things below the surface that we don't know about. This might suggest that Ings knows full well that a relegation battle is a certainty. The lesson is for us as fans. It is, sadly, pointless in the modern era to invest/project any feelings of loyalty or solidarity into these players. These people are solely focussed on themselves and particularly on their bank-balances. Ings' PR people told him we were suckers for 'club legends' and the weasel words were easy to utter. Lallana saw himself ending his career at Saints, again, easy words. The best thing is to not believe anything they say - that way you are not 'heart-broken' when the note is left on the mantlepiece. You just shrug and get on with it. My concern is that if JWP goes too (which feels likely) then that might reflect something about the perceived future of the club amongst the players. Vesty I would be less worried about because him leaving for a 'bigger' club would be a pretty expected type of thing given recent history. I am not 'heart-broken' about Ings, just annoyed at the lies and also puzzled at why he was quite so DESPERATE to get away.

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felly1 added 12:21 - Aug 6 Sad to see him leave, great player and the best finisher I've seen in a Saints shirt. Why should he feel loyalty to us?.. Because he's a local lad? Don't you think Southampton FC broke his heart when we released him as a teenager?.. Because we deemed him "not good enough" Let's just all get a grip and move on. Or you can choose to give up on top level football because its been ruined by money. The choice is yours to make.

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DellBoyWally added 12:51 - Aug 6 Donny who???
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Keesie66 added 13:38 - Aug 6 There comes a time when the truth can no longer be hidden, we are here in my opinion. We have earned around 25-30 million from selling Ings and are desperate for players that will strenghten the team/squad but as a MINIMUM replace Ings with the money we have. For me if this does not happen i.e. we do not buy Armstrong, Abraham or equivalent and even sell JWP and Vestegaard then the writing is on the wall and I for one will find it impossible to support a club/team that's already given up because they prefer to spend money elsewhere and not on the pitch... sad but true..

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halftimeorange added 13:40 - Aug 6 Maybe the comment (especially the last sentence) from Gabby Agbonlahor in the Birmingham Mail sheds some light on Ings decision even though it refers to Grealish - "Nobody and I mean nobody can question this guy's loyalty to Aston Villa for me he’s a Villa legend and gave the club his all. You only get one career and he has a chance now to go and win the big trophies with Man City. But please less talk of loyalty as football clubs are not loyal. You can give a club your all and when you finish playing you're nothing to them."

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lemmsy added 14:00 - Aug 6 A few points As James Beattie famously pointed out about 20 years ago loyalty is for fans not for players. When Danny ings came here on loan many ( including myself) said why have we agreed £20 mill for a crock. Remember jay rodriquez being our darling & we’re all saying leave him alone until he got that terrible injury & then it was oh well unlucky, goodbye. Even last year when we were flying & Chelsea & Man U we’re sniffing around Ralph it was ‘ leave him he’s ours until we had a poor run and those same people are saying get rid he’s shit . My point is it’s the nature of football & u it ta what saints have to do. Why not enjoy kwp & his progression, enjoy salisu coz I think we’ve found another one there . Short memories , we were top of the league nine months ago & cup semifinals. I love this football club with an inherited passion but I don’t live the fan base that suggest we’re gonna get relegated the minute there’s a problem & then go very quiet when it doesn’t happen. Felly1 I think you’ve got it about right,

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Colburn added 14:15 - Aug 6 Spot on summary Nick. It feels like he has jerked us around over the last few months and not the best timing after the lockdown misery too, an extra hard kick in the teeth because of that. At Fratton, he looked like a man passionate about his shirt, something changed, perhaps his relationship with the manager and Ralph's decision making last season through the slide. He's certainly not king of the scummers anymore.. Sorry to hear your missus ran off with the window cleaner!

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LesVivian added 14:28 - Aug 6 Agree with most of this - BUT! no mention of the biggest let-down over recent years, Virgil VD. Lovren was stupid with his comments about leaving for Liverpool, Lallana made misguided comments about his departure, but was a genuine Saint who wanted to better himself. VVD, after being nursed through a long injury all but refused to play for Saints - anyone watching his performances during this period would have seen that he he couldn't be bothered, forcing us to cash in. That's dishonesty, whereas other players give their all whatever. A good example of this was Morgan S, who when refused a move, had one of his best seasons for us, and was then allowed to go to Man United. (I wonder if he regretted leaving, because he was mismanaged at United, and lost his place in the French natioanal team!)

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Colburn added 14:28 - Aug 6 Also agree with felly1, lemmsy to an extent but there's better ways of leaving than how Danny has. I appreciate we let him go years ago but it was because he wasn't good enough then. We took a risk on him to bring him back, because of his injuries and we built the team around him for him to succeed and become a club legend, so the distant past had already been 'repaired and rebuilt' and so I don't think that's an argument here with Ings actions. The way he has left has left a sour taste and you can't blame the fans for feeling that way.

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JoeEgg added 14:51 - Aug 6 Good article Nick, I think, but I was rushing to catch up with the bit about Danny boy. I was a little confused by then and not sure if it was your missus or Danny that went off with the milkman? It was my view last season that Ralph lost his way and I believe, vitally lost the confidence of several key players. With all that Grealish money, I am anticipating my Sunday evening Mass being interrupted by the news that Villa have also hijacked JWP. The replacements being talked about for our Danny are only going to prove poor imitations - but, wait, I know a footballing milkman who might just be the answer to Ralph's problems..........

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CautiousOptimist added 14:56 - Aug 6 I was totally caught off guard by this, but the speed it happened makes me think that Villa have made Saints a sensible offer which they’ve accepted without needing to think about it too much. As fans we can be disappointed or angry or upset about it.....but it is still better, from any perspective, than turning it down and then another club (Spurs springs to mind) putting in a last minute offer for half what we’ve got from Villa. The chances are that we were always going to have to replace Danny, either this season or next, and the thing that concerns me more than anything is how we are going to do that. We play differently with him - sharper, more focussed - than we do without him. Replacing your main striker is always risky, but the pursuit of Armstrong (whether it comes off or not) at least shows there’s some sort of plan in place. On a positive note Villa have already spent north of £90 million this window......I really hope they can’t now make a realistic offer for JWP.

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ThereIn76 added 15:27 - Aug 6 Spurs without Kane will be no better than mid-table. At any club challenging for the title, Ings would spend a long time on the bench. Given his injury record he'd be used sparingly. He wants to play as much as possible and at Villa he will. I'm not bothered which club he signs for - Villa's £25m is as good as anyone else's, especially for an injury-prone 30-year-old with one year left on his contract. Hopefully this time we'll get the recruitment right and bring in someone even better. WMO.

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BlackAngel added 15:30 - Aug 6 Many good points made here. However, I'm not surprised Ings has left. Nobody should be surprised he's left. He made this clear months ago when he refused to sign a new contract. He's gone, so let's all get over it and move on. SFC has waxed and waned over the years - but we're still here, and we should enjoy the football while we can. I suspect that many moaning about loyalty did not support the club through those dark days of SFC dropping through the divisions and nearly out of existence completely. Those who did - know the meaning of loyalty. 99.9% of players are not loyal to anything other than fame and money. Though mainly money it appears... We're not a big club. We mainly buy players with promise, they get better, we sell them (hopefully) for a big profit - then we start all over again. Simples. What do people not get about this? We've been here many, many, many times, yet we have survived. Surely it's the club that's important, isn't it? Let's stop all the crying and move on! COYRs!

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YosemiteSaint added 16:36 - Aug 6 These are all very good points here. But, to me at least, £30 million for an aging striker who's injured as often as he's fit and cost us half what we got for him is a no-brainer. Danny's last (and perhaps best) gift to SFC may well be the exorbitant transfer fee he somehow commanded. Hopefully, in reaping double what we paid for him, we can use the funds to find two top-notch players to fill his SFC boots.

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davidargyll added 17:18 - Aug 6 I think it’s a load of nonsense about thinking that Danny was different. It’s not a question of whether he wanted to go anywhere else it is entirely a question of what his value is. I reckon £25m would have been good business but £30m is ridiculous. And for those who are calling him traitor or disgusting or a mercenary etc, consider what you would have sold him for… £35m? £40m? Of more? Everyone has a price in the footballing world and the shrewd operators are those who can see a good deal when it’s being offered. Danny probably on his own was responsible for us being half a dozen higher places in the league a couple of years ago. And no more than a couple in the last season. No more than that. So get real people. If he scores shed loads for Villa good luck to him. And if he doesn’t and/or breaks down (as surely he will) who’s the clever boy then?! As I’ve said before successful teams first and foremost have good defences, which is where we need to concentrate our efforts. Good strikers are to some extent a luxury and I really think we have had the best out of Danny and he’s past his best.

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Number_58 added 17:34 - Aug 6 I'm not sure if the marriage break up analagy is necessarily appropriate. It often depends on what sort of sell-on clauses you have in place when you get married.
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underweststand added 17:52 - Aug 6 seems like most of us are on the same page, although I have to admit Danny's choice of club surprised me and probably Daniel Levy who would have popped up on August 30th with a measly offer for a player who was already into his last year. After getting ditched by Saints as a 10 year old (?)..Danny got to play for his home town side and DAJFU in key matches, without any real support from another big goalscorer. Danny knows that 30 is a dangerous age for a Prem. footballer, and now with a salary which is even more than Saints' best offer, he will see out his career in a club owned by two guys with bottomless pockets who will go about spending the £100 million they got for Grealish - via another club with money to burn - and go away plan their next big buy. Although sad to see him go, I hold no grudge over Danny's decision to move and wish him luck - except when we play VIlla. Those Saints' fans who gripe and groan over such "big time " moves aren't really in touch with the reality of the modern-day game, where careers are short and (injuries permitting) you are only as a good as your last game.

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GeordieSaint added 20:58 - Aug 6 Premier league footballer leaves for more money? It feels like it’s getting harder to care every year.
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wibbersda added 11:25 - Aug 7 1.5 mill is not a drop in the ocean, even for footballers. When you dont know what you can earn beyond football retirement it s a way to build up money to support you long term.
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