After a few departures Saints need to show now that they are selling the players they want to and keeping those that they want to keep.
Many of my articles of late have been about how Saints fans need to be patient and how in the grand scheme of things the sale of a player or two can help the club move forward, that does not mean however that I feel that we should sell each and every player who expresses a desire to "Play at a higher level" etc.
There is a point where contracts need to be honoured and that the Club needs to hold firm on that contract, I do truly believe that the sale of the two players gone so far as well as the impending departure of Adam Lallana can be beneficial for the club and building up the squad as a whole, but that doesn't mean I think that this way forward works on a completely wholesale basis.
Like any growing business you have to build strong foundations and then evolve over a period of time, the transfer money so far will mean we have a massive kitty to fund incoming signings, however there is a limit to how much we realistically need.
So now the Club needs to be sending out the right messages to both the players and the fans, of course the media like to make mischief and some members of it in relation to Saints like to make more mischief than others, but a newspaper headline about a player wanting away does not always mean that it is going to happen.
Saints have to show that they mean business, that there will be no further signings unless it is truly in the interests of the club, so far the Club has sold players on their own terms, it might not feel like that but the truth is we hve got a recod fee for a teenager in British football, £4.5 million for a player who has a year maybe two left as a top flight player and possibly £25 million for a player who as much as loved him was worth no more than a quarter of that a year ago, such is the madness of the Premier League in how a price can be pushed up by one good season.
So we have done it on our own terms so far and we need to keep doing so and that means showing we are in control, again the fans have to give the club the opportunity to do this and not overreact every time a newpsaper headline screams something we don't want to hear.
But again it does come back to the Club, we have trusted them so far, they now have to show that this trust is well founded and that they can take us forward.