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Manchester United & Liverpool Set To Battle It Out For Nathaniel Clyne
Tuesday, 20th Jan 2015 09:30

Manchester United and Liverpool are set to go head to head in a bid to sign Saints right back Nathaniel Clyne, however there is a long way to go yet.

Nathaniel Clyne is yet to sign a new contract for Saints and only has 18 months left on his existing one, negotiations have opened between club and player, but as of yet nothing has been agreed or signed against a background of Brendan Rodgers and Louis Van Gaal doing their best to unsettle the player with the usual press speculation that they are interested.

In some respects you cannot blame Clyne for hesitating in signing a new deal, of course the interest from other clubs will help push up his salary, but what will dictate how much the club can pay is going to be where they finish at the end of the season.

Clyne will be well aware that if Saints should reach the Champions League then they will be able to pay him a lot more than they would otherwise so it is understandable that he would prefer to wait till the summer to decide his long term future with the club.

So League position will determine just where Nathaniel Clyne is playing for the 2015/16 season, if Saints can push United out of a Champions league spot then they will hold the nap hand, it will not just be about money, but the opportunity to play at the highest level, if he can get that with Saints then it will make it easier for the club to hold on to him.

But as reported on this site yesterday, Saints are already weighing up options to replace him, Sam Byram of Leeds United is being monitored, whether we like it or not its a fact of life that players stay with clubs for very short periods these days and that being the case Saints are now very proactive in identifying replacements for all of the squad not just those likely to go soon.

Like last summer it is always going to be about rebuilding, Saints know each and every player has his price, when that price is exceeded its time to sell him and replace him, hopefully with that replacement already within the ranks.

Some fans will not like the sound of this, but it is reality, if Saints were to lose Clyne and Schneiderlin in the summer then that would bring in the best part of £50 million add that to the money we will bring in from the Premier and TV etc and we can improve the squad no end and that is what it is all about improving season in season out so we have the squad to compete for the top 4 year in year out.

So of course the best thing for Saints would be to keep Clyne, indeed keep all our players, in the short term that probably is still a pipedream, but if we can repeat last summers wheeling and dealing then perhaps it wont be as far off as many would think.

Photo: Action Images



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Butty101 added 10:06 - Jan 20
We signed Clyne when he allowed his Palace contract to run down - the club that produced him, so i would expect him to do like wise with us and get the best deal possible for himself and not the club.
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ClickInsect added 10:49 - Jan 20
I expect Utd would win the race & not penniless, pointless Liverpool.

Clyne's not going to sign a contract, but that's due to the club's strategy. When he proved himself a premier league player, we could have give him a premier league wage then, when there was enough on his contract for him to have an incentive to sign. The club are clearly holding players to contracts for as long as possible & then selling before they start to devalue. The only player since we've been promoted, that was given a contract extension without it being forced, was Steven Davis.

The club are sweating every pound in the club. It seems counter intuitive when you are creating a situation where you a paying so much less than market rates, but the club is clearing gearing to sell players & if you don't tend to retain then it makes financial sense. While the results are on the pitch, it's hard to be too critical, though as fans we get attached to players.
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Fordy added 11:08 - Jan 20
Agree with ClickInsect on this. The club really should have seen this one coming and got him to sign a new contract last season. Maybe Chambers clouded the issue slightly.
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SaintNick added 12:48 - Jan 20
Click insect is not totally correct, firstly just by googling you can find out that in the latter part of 2012/31 Kelvin Davis, lambert, Scheiderlin Puncheon & Lallana all signed new contract extensions.

This season the the club have contract extensions signed by Fonte & Yoshida as well as targett and offers on the table to Clyne and Rodriguez

That is pretty much all of the squad on deals of two years or more at the moment apart from clyne and rodriguez
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ThereIn76 added 12:57 - Jan 20
Nat's recent injury showed how short we are of right-back cover, although Cork could have played there had he been fit. Of course the country's best RB is going to be coveted, some things don't change. BTW I don't think Nat was out of contract with Palace when we signed him, they needed to raise cash quickly.
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Fordy added 12:59 - Jan 20
As soon as Chambers was sold we were only left with Clyne and he only had two years left on his contract at that stage. He should have been offered another two years then but guess it is easy to say with hindsight.
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BoondockSaint added 13:33 - Jan 20
Why would he want to take a step backward? I could see if it was Real or Barcelona!

But realistically, when everyone was in a panic this summer, Koeman said that every year at every club is a "rebuilding year". Even the filthy rich clubs have trouble juggling players they want and players who want to leave.

If they want to go, fair enough, as long as we get proper money.
Morgan and Clyne are vastly better than Shaw, so that is a minimum of 60 million for the two right there. And other rumours are true, and someone offers 20 million or more for J-Rod, grab it!

Koeman I'm sure has replacements in mind. And if Real wants to keep CR7 happy, and his rival is getting homesick, there might be a deal to be had at a discount..........

More importantly than any of the players, we need to extend Koeman's contract!
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ClickInsect added 13:46 - Jan 20
Fonte was forced because he was pushing for a move to Cardiff who apparently wanted to double his wage.

Yoshida was allowed to run down his contract to the point that he was able to negotiate with other clubs before he was even offered a deal.

Cork hasn't been offered a contract till last week despite his service, performances & the fact that he'd be worth a decent fee if he was signed.

Targett was on a youth development contract previously, so a no brainer for all concerned.

Punch was going out of contract and the club wanted to secure a fee.

Kelvin's deal is obviously not a significant sum of money. I assume the same with Steven Davis, who I expect is decently paid but nothing extravagant.

As far as the others go, I would have said "this administration" instead of since we've been promoted because under Cortese we were obviously happy to spend more, for better or worse. I didn't say it though, as I'm trying not to give the current lot too much of a kicking when the team are delivering so much on & off the pitch. The reality as far as I understood it, was that none of the want away players who were offered huge increases in salary for leaving leading up to the end of last season were offered new deals. The "reward" strategy for getting players under contract is going to be the only way you'll get England internationals to re-sign for the club.

The 2012/2013 season was different in that the players were signing contracts based on them being good quality for a bottom ten side. Completely different scale to when they are being courted by champions league clubs. What the club can or should pay is open to debate. The last published figures have Saints as the 15th biggest wage bill in the league and considering our summer business, I'll be shocked if that's shifted too much. When you look at the higher earners, Osvaldo and Gaston (though we've since shifted the wage) I can see the argument that the club can work against the assumption that the correlation between wages and performance is going to be binding. What is a guarantee though, is that if we pay 50% of what players will get to move to a bigger club, once the players get that interest they will move.

Nate Clyne is quality but he's still a right back. If we get the kind of figures for J-Rod in a position we are well stocked for, when he's done his ACL, I don't think we'll have many complaints either. What will 100% annoy me is if JWP or another youth team prospect gets sold before they reach maturity like with Chambers. I don't want another one to go before the age of 23 at the earliest and especially not because they are getting paid far less than they would be if we would have bought them and not brought them through.
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SanMarco added 14:16 - Jan 20
Sell dear and buy the same quality or better for a cheaper price. It worked quite well last summer and if Clyne wants to go he should go. That money + that from Morgan (and hopefully Osvaldo and Ramierez) will create a handy lump sum for Ron to invest - and as Boondock wisely points out it is Ron's signature that is most needed on a piece of paper saying 'long contract'...
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HoveSaint added 14:33 - Jan 20
Agree with the view that we, like every other club is a selling club its part of the footy business. It would be interesting to run a EPL equivalent to a Glass's Guide over the current Saints team, not much on the forecourt for less than £15M I would think, with the top marques such as Nat, Morgan and Toby in the £20m++

(plus mats, road tax and a tank of fuel!)

COYS!!
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Consigliere added 21:45 - Jan 20
Whilst I wouldn't like to lose Clyne (or anyone else for that matter) we have to remember that no-one is indispensable and no single player (or even group of players) is bigger than the sum total of the team. We should have all learned that lesson after last summer's shenanigans! So, my message to him would be "Go if you want to though we'd much prefer you to stay - but we won't be blackmailed into paying stupid money".
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