Judging by the stories coming out of the Daily Echo this morning, Saints are setting the ground for their fans to prepare for a difficult summer. But there is a worrying undercurrent.
The media produces many headlines during transfer windows and indeed outside of them, each of them designed to try and make punters click on news stories or even buy newspapers s that is how the media earn their money.
The trick is spotting which media outlets are likely to put up anything with any real substance, which are just following the rest and which are following an agenda.
That agenda can be for or against a club.
Some Saints fans may vilify the Daily Echo for its coverage of the club at times, but the rality is that a local paper is perhaps the closest to any football club, as this is the outlet that attracts the most interested readers.
Therefore it is usually the local paper that a football club will turn to when it wants to get a message out to the supporters that it can't really put out via its own website etc, or if it has to emphasise a point.
That is why when the Daily Echo dropped two stories out on its website early this morning , the headlines made me sit up and notice.
The first was "Saints have contract dilemma" the second " Saints making positive statement"
Both pieces were delivering the same message and I would be very surprised if this wasn't
co ordinated wit the full co-operation of the club itself.
The Contract Dilemma headline concerned the fact that Saints have three players going into the last year of their contract this summer, Wanyama, Pelle & Martina, the message it was delivering was principally aimed at the Wanyama situation.
It was insinuating that the club was doing everything in it's power to persuade the Kenyan to sign a new deal and stay, but the player himself is not interested.
The phrase to look for is this
"The club, through Les Reed, have tried to negotiate with Wanyama and his agent over a new deal.
But there’s is little indication yet that he is prepared to put pen-to-paper, as several other Saints stars have done of lately."
The message is clear, the club has tried, the players isn't interested, but that isn't the club lacking ambition t's that the player is already had his head turned elsewhere.
It elaborates on this theme further by bringing up the issues at the start of the season to set the scene that Wanyama wants away and the club is not to blame.
Pelle is slightly different, the message is that here is a player that about to turn 31 is in the twilight of his career, selling him is not a backwards step but a forward one.
Martina is almost an after thought in the article stating that he was only ever coming in as cover and as such his performances were a bonus, but he is unlikely to be offered a new deal.
The second "Positive Statement" article is pretty much along the same lines of the first in that it re emphasises the point that the club are ambitious, they have shown this by signing other key players to long term deals and that if the likes of Wanyama leave it is not through the club not showing ambition, it is because their head has been turned by more money elsewhere.
This Echo piece is almost virtually propaganda for the club so gushing in the praise for the way Les Reed has been at work in the last month, emphasising that after Ronald Koeman stated that he wanted to see the club show ambition that the club got in the first shot by signing the likes of Van Dijk and Forster to long term deals, indeed the words used by the Echo could not be more clear if written by Reed himself.
"Actions, as they say, speak louder than words.
So when Koeman stepped into meetings regarding his future, seeking assurances over the club's ambitions and ability to move forward, Reed could point to Forster, Van Dijk and Ward-Prowse and say "there's your ambition, there's the indication that the club is moving forward, towards bigger and better things".
Wanyama should be able to look at his former Celtic team-mate Forster, Van Dijk and Ward-Prowse and realise that Saints are able to sell their ambitions to the best players at the club."
Fulsome praise for Les Reed and Southampton Football Club, but here is where it starts to get slightly worrying.
Although both articles seem clearly aimed at Victor Wanyama, both hint at the fact that Ronald Koeman has not yet signed a new deal, it stops a long way short of brazenly saying that there is a problem, but the language used seems to insinuate that it should have been done by now, that the club has shown it's ambition, so why isn't the contract signed.
As an overview I think that the Club are resigned that Wanyama will leave and are just getting their PR spin in, and that they see it in their best interests to sell Pelle due to age and whilst they can still get a decent fee for him.
This is all fair enough, but I think the club are also edgy that Koeman has not yet signed and although through their own website they have to put out the positive vibes that all is well, they are a little worried and wanted a "neutral" party to put out some positive spin on the work they are doing to tell the fans that whatever happens this summer that although in the past SFC might have been found wanting, this is not the past, it's the present and things are different.
For my own ten pence worth, I think that the club has done all it can, but ultimately money talks and we are always going to be hampered by the fact that certain clubs will have more clout than us.
However that does not mean we cannot compete and as Leicester have shown actually win things, whatever happens under Katarina Liebherr and Ralph Krueger Saints have shown that they can put things on a sound business footing with the right corporate governance, that they have a strategy and are ready and prepared to implement it and that they are ambitious.
What more can they do !