Ralph Krueger has been on the PR trail as Saints look to raise their profile in the United States, however although he was positive he was coy on who would be in charge next season.
Ralph Krueger has been talking to the American media and it is positive from a Saints fans perspective as he confirmed that for the first time the club is now in a position where it does not need to sell its best players, however he would not be drawn on who would be in charge of the squad next season.
Krueger told the media that he was welcomed by a small squad on "extremely weak contracts'' upon his appointment during the 2013-14 season, and that meant that they needed to sell astutely and buy even smarter to build.
That money has allowed them to give the club strength with contracts, meaning they do not plan to sell any of the crown jewels.
"Here we sit in the summer of '17 and we now have 18 top, or above average, Premier League players under three or more year contracts,'' Krueger said. "We actually have 12 players that have more than four years, so 49 months, left on their contract and even a couple with 61 months.
"So 18 players have more than three years, gives us control over the summer for the first time.
"We will decide if anybody goes and we will decide who comes in, in the best interests of the club.
"We do not need to sell any player for the first time since I've been here.
"I can make that statement and -- unless football decides it's in the best interests -- we don't need to do that.
"I think that we're moving into a new era at Southampton Football Club after three-and-a-half years of building this foundation of depth, where we have more than 25 players that can play a Premier League game.
"We now need to consolidate. We're going to do everything possible to keep the core in place because the one thing that has been lacking here is developing synergies within the squad because of the changes.
"It has been difficult to maintain the synergies we would see at times during the season.
"I think that's one of the reasons we would like to keep the core in place to give the synergies an opportunity, and we are extremely hungry to push back into Europe next year. It is our obsession.''
Having spoken in general of the club's strategy Krueger was asked about Virgil Van Dijk and whether the club could turn down a massive bid for him.
Krueger said:
"Can we? Yes.
"The big thing is here again I want to underline the strategy, less the detail.
"You know I really respect our lead in football, Les Reed is doing an excellent job, and Ross Wilson has taken on a big role assisting Les and leading our football-specific decisions.
"They will continue next week once they've analysed the season and really de-brief completely, they will make then the football decision we need to make.
"I'll tell you again, we do not need to sell anybody.''
"The club's hunger for European qualification outweighs "hunger to set some record [sale] any moves made will be because it is better for Southampton."
However when the subject of the manager came up Krueger was less committal.
"In my role as a chairman, I like to have people expecting more and wanting growth and wanting development because that's what we are expecting from ourselves and that's what we are expecting within our staff,''
"Again, the football analysis, let it take place when these games are over.
"We have two really important matches -- what a beautiful thing to finish the season with two home games in five days, so right now we want to celebrate the moment.
"The bigger picture football-wise will become transparent as we move into next week and the week beyond.
"It hasn't been easy either to come in here as a manager, finishing eighth, seventh, sixth.
"It was definitely tough circumstances with Europe and we'll be looking at everything, and then we'll again be clearer after the season's over.''
Hopefully this statement from the Chairman will make some fans think again about what Saints are trying to achieve and what they have to do to achieve it, all good things take time and now we are seeing the fruits of three years of having to slowly built the club up to a position of strength and just why although it has been frustrating to watch some big names walk away from the club that now Saints themselves are in total charge of who goes and when.
That does not mean that players won't be sold in the future, the sad reality is that we can never compete financially with the big six, they have a global presence that enables them to make far more money than Saints will ever do, that means that we do have to nurture players and then sell them at a big profit and then hopefully repeat the process.
Some say we cannot keep doing that, however the answer is that we have to, because there is no other way, we cannot generate the income of Manchester United etc, so we have to do so in other ways the only other option is to follow the path that others follow and stagnate.
Over the last three years Ralph Krueger and his team have repeatably proved that they have a solid structure, what they don't deserve is the fury on social media everytime the press link a player with a move or a player is sold.
The moment something is wrong the same people are out predicting the downfall of the club without any real substance other than we have sold a player or lost a game or two or even that the manager is dull.
What they do deserve is a little more faith from a section of the supporter base, that faith to be shown by season ticket sales and some patience, everything cannot go right all the time, things cannot be changed at the first blip, time has to be given whether it is a player or a manager, there is no need for panic at every turn.
Southampton Football Club is at it's strongest point in time ever, both financially and on the field where after this seasons first major cup final in 4 years it is only one point away from a fourth consecutive top ten finish, something we have never achieved before in our history.
That shows the standards that we now set, that this season is considered almost a failure, the supporters now need to have a little more appreciation of what Krueger and his board have done over the past three years and a little more faith that they can continue to get it right.