There is always a price for success and that price for a club like Saints is that your best players will be coveted by the so called big clubs.

Ronald Koeman has spoken of the fact that Saints supporters should enjoy Sadio Mane at the moment whilst he is still at the club, now some would say that is a bit of a negative attitude, but they are probably the same people who believe that when a player kisses the badge, then he truly loves the club and never wants to leave.

Sadly that is not the case today and a player staying with a club for any more than 3-4 years these days is a rarity, long gone are the days when a player will reach that magical 10 year mark and get a testimonial.

A couple of decades ago things were different and clubs could hold players to contracts and even when that contract ended a club was still under no obligation to sell. The Bosman ruling in the 1990's changed all that and now the only players who stay at a club for over 5 years are usually squad players rather than the first team regulars.

The price of doing well as a football club is it usually means that you have better players in the squad than those below you, one of the reasons that those players are better is that they have that something extra, its more than just talent or fitness, its that something that drives them on, or to give it another term "ambition"

Ambition is what turns an average player into a good one and a good player into a very good one, we all have ambition, it is just that its in context and the context that a Premier League player will have his ambition is to play for the highest club possible and to get paid the most money possible doing so.

This is nothing new, read about football in the 1890's and the mercenary's back then.

So when you have a great player at your club the upside is your performances as a team improve as his as an individual do, the downside is that bigger clubs want him and as an ambitious player he will want to go to those clubs as they will offer him a greater chance of success and more money.

This sadly is a fact of life, on the continent they have accepted this as being unavoidable, take two clubs Feyenoord & Liverpool, in the summer of 2014 when our trio went to Liverpool they were denounced as traitors, at the same time as Ronald Koeman went bck to Feyenoord to try and sign their best players the Dutch teams supporters didn't burn effigy's of Koeman and Pelle they wished them well and made Saints their second team.

Supporters in England are slower to grasp this but managers like Ronald Koeman certainly have, they know how things work and the key for Saints in the near future at least will be having a system in place where the conveyor belt never stops turning and it is factored in to lose a player or two at the end of each season.

Of course we do not want a repeat of the summer of 2014, but that was a freak turn of events, we were not prepared for the fact that suddenly players who no one had made a bid for before like Adam Lallana were suddenly hot property, we do not want that to happen again, but we can handle a couple per summer if we get it right.

It won't be great but if we have the strategy in place then selling a player for big money will only strengthen a squad over the years, compare our squad now with the one two years ago, now we have a squad packed with Internationals and talent, we have over 20 players capable of playing to the first team Premier League standard before we get into the promising youngster section, two years ago we barely had 14.

So when Ronald Koeman says

“Ok, maybe one day we will lose Mane but then we have to be prepared.

“You know in our situation that kind of players if they play like today there will come a lot of interest in the end of the season, but now we enjoy watching Mane in our team.”

That is not the manager being pessimistic that was him being realistic, but he also knows that if we are prepared then it will not be too much of a problem.

Those who say look at the team we could have had if we kept all our players are being a little naive, fooball in 2015 is a lot different than in 2010, 2005 and certainly those pre Bosman days, you can count the number of clubs who can hang on to a player when a bigger club comes courting on one hand, in England there are perhaps none, even Manchester United have been unable to hang on to big stars when Real Madrid have knocked on their door.

So enjoy Sadio Mane when you can, but look forward to the future, because when he goes there will be someone as good to replace him.

This is the Southampton way, it is the way that Ted Bates built this club in the 1950's to the 1970's, it was the way we survived in the top flight for so long, but now we will not use this system to survive, we will use it to improve and prosper.

Photo: Action Images

ThereIn76 added 09:08 - Oct 5 What matters is having a scouting network capable of bringing in replacements. Our recent record in this department is pretty stellar.
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BarnetSaint added 09:35 - Oct 5 I'm pretty sure our new centre back will draw attention from the big boys too. VVD looks absolute class. With vast amounts of money coming in, the club shoukd grow the infrustructure and thereby the image of the club. Yes that means a bigger ground but we have the catchment area to warrant it. West ham, not much bigger than us will soon be out of sight with their stadium move, as will spurs.

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forest_saint added 09:37 - Oct 5 It's a shame that Cortese left because I believe that he was trying to push us on to be a club that could compete with the top clubs in this country that would have meant we would have had a greater chance of hanging on to our best players.
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saintmark1976 added 10:10 - Oct 5 The problem here is not Mane or for that matter any other player moving on to "bigger clubs". The problem is for how long will Koeman be prepared to manage the club with this type of strategy built in to the clubs business plan? Me thinks to the end of his current contract at best, BarnetSaint is on the money in my opinion. Extend the stadium,get more revenue and start to compete with the "big clubs" by finding a backer to fund expansion which I suggest was Mr Lieber's original plan before his untimely departure.

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redwight added 10:54 - Oct 5 Nick, you frequently state that it is an accepted fact of life that we will always lose players to the 'bigger clubs'. If this is the case, could someone please explain how we will ever smash the glass ceiling and get to the next level, which we are told is the plan?
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Jesus_02 added 11:18 - Oct 5 I am terribly disappointed to hear Koeman say this to be honest. Its one thing to comment on speculation but Mane hasn’t even expressed a desire to move on, nor have there been any serious bids. Its seems like he is either actively hawking the player out or perhaps he is getting a bit annoyed with us selling so much rather than being “realistic”. I’m not sure which is worse.

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bstokesaint added 13:05 - Oct 5 I don't think we'll ever smash the proverbial "glass ceiling." I think it's more a case of trying to take bigger and bigger chips out of it until we can eventually pull ourselves through. IF (still sepeculation at best) we sell Mane to a huge club (and let's be honest that could happen if he continues to improve at the rate he does) then we could get silly money for him. £30-£40m might not be unrealistic if he can destory a team like Chelsea like he did. That kind of money gets you two world class players or maybe a ground expansion (or a good chunk of it). If replacements are sourced early and the money is well reinvested we will continually improve until say European football becomes the norm. Even the big clubs can lose 1-2 players a season. That's par for the course. It's not about stopping it, it's what you do when it happens.

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bstokesaint added 13:05 - Oct 5 I don't think we'll ever smash the proverbial "glass ceiling." I think it's more a case of trying to take bigger and bigger chips out of it until we can eventually pull ourselves through. IF (still sepeculation at best) we sell Mane to a huge club (and let's be honest that could happen if he continues to improve at the rate he does) then we could get silly money for him. £30-£40m might not be unrealistic if he can destory a team like Chelsea like he did. That kind of money gets you two world class players or maybe a ground expansion (or a good chunk of it). If replacements are sourced early and the money is well reinvested we will continually improve until say European football becomes the norm. Even the big clubs can lose 1-2 players a season. That's par for the course. It's not about stopping it, it's what you do when it happens.

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IWOZTHERE added 13:23 - Oct 5 I'm firmly with redwight, Jesus and others on this : Of course it's likely he'll move on, but don't come out in public and say it ! We've got to improve wages and our 'standing' so top players want to stay, or the 'plan' will evaporate.Will they 'sort it' this season and make a stand, or will we get within 'touching distance' again, only to see the team break-up! I disagree with Nick over summer 2014 being freakish. This summer wasn't that different if you include the loss of 'one foot in the door' Alderweireld, in fact you could argue it was worse.

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BoondockSaint added 13:44 - Oct 5 Bit negative, eh? If he does move, it better be up and not sideways! Agree with the expansion ideas-with no competition in the area, we should be able to fill a larger stadium no problem.
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SaintBrock added 14:33 - Oct 5 Ronald Koeman tells it as it is but his remark about Mane was maybe too honest and really annoyed me. It can only create speculation that is bound to lead to another tug o' war and uncertainty over his services in the January window and again next summer and unsettlement of the team yet again. as the guy has said himself "I have a four year contract and I am happy here at Southampton'. So why not let sleeping dogs lie for a couple of years Ron and just stonewall on the subject, Sadio Mane is a player of Southampton for at least 3 years and is not for sell at any price.

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saintsnutcase added 14:38 - Oct 5 Why did Koeman feel he had to say this? It just stirs up needless trouble. Until now, I assumed we had Mane for another couple of years, by which time he could well be one of the top players in the world. Now it will be assumed that he is leaving in January or the summer. I am very disappointed in Koeman.
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SaintBrock added 14:40 - Oct 5 I thought the worst days of us being a selling club might be behind us but what is the point of spotting great under-rated talents and honing them into top class PL players if the club mindset is that we are bound to lose them at the end of that process? Surely we have ambitions beyond being just a shop window and feeder club for the establishment. Titles are worth far more to us in monetary terms in the long run than even £50m for the odd star that happens to come our way.

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SaintBrock added 14:57 - Oct 5 The negative mindset about transfer dealings at SFC is always on display. Whenever did we bid for a player from the top 6 clubs? Never, which only proves that we don't see ourselves at that level. We are far too humble and that acceptance of the pecking order is ultimately what undoes uds and why the predators come calling for tasty morsels. So why don't we start taking an interest in Oscar and Wilshire and Mata and people like that and creating unsettlement in the establishment instead of scratching around in lesser foreign leagues for overlooked wannabes because "we know or place"?

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Bettwsresident added 16:53 - Oct 5 SaintBrock...Romeu? Bertrand? Sadly money talks. We are the fastest growing club in Europe but still only 13th in the EPL. Turn over £106m last year, probably around £130-140m this year. For comparison in 13/14 Newcastle were £130m, Spurs £180m, Liverpool £255m, Arsenal £300m, Chelsea £320m, Man C £347m and Man U £433m. It is only if saints ever manage to grow to 4 or 5th that we will be able to keep players when the likes of Liverpool come calling (the 60% of £250m spent of salaries is much bigger than the 60% of £106m!) and even clubs like Arsenal struggle to keep players when Man U, Barcelona, Bayern or Madrid tap them up. The key at this stage is to maximise value and I think the club are doing that really well. Football is a grubby world now that revolves around filthy luca.

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bstokesaint added 18:07 - Oct 5 I can understand all the arguments for trying to retain all of our players, but even clubs like Man U struggle when Real M come knocking. I do happen to agree Ronald should have said nothing too. Although maybe true, it doesn't help us as a club. On the same subject, I'd just like to pose the hypothetical question. And it is just that. But if we lost 2 players in the summer, say Vic and Mane and we got silly money, say £50m+, would it not be conceived to be a forward step if we replaced both with £5-£10m players and made St Mary's a 40,000 capacity stadium? I'm not sure how much ground expansions cost these days and only know how much it cost to build St Mary's originally. I'm not sure if the Liebherr family get discounts on this sort of thing either!

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redwight added 10:39 - Oct 6 I guess this thread has probably run its course now, but SaintBrock makes a good point about going in for players from the top 6. Romeu and Bertrand doesn't change that Bettwsresident - there will always be good players languishing in the stiffs at all the top clubs. What he meant (I think) was first teamers, and he's right.
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IWOZTHERE added 18:12 - Oct 6 bstokesaint has a fair point about building up a kitty for ground expansion,so it wouldn't hurt the club to share that sort of info with its 'customers'. It would have stopped the likes of me asking why in the recent past we only spent a fraction of the revenue on players and where the money was going.
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