Saints Executive Director Of Football Les Reed has spoken of how the club's squad building is almost complete.

Les Reed has confirmed that Saints are still targeting a central defender in the next week or so, but after that they feel that the squad will be virtually complete, but he did add the coda that should the right players come up at the right price they would not be afraid to bring them in.

Speaking to the Daily Ech Reed said.

“Ronald and I have discussed it, and we’re both on the same page where that’s concerned," said Reed.

"I think a lot will depend on the progress of the young players that we’ve got, and the reports back at the moment are that they’re progressing really well.

"Now, they’re not all going to get in the squad, so there might be a few that we say, like we did with Jack Stephens and [Jordan] Turnbull last year, a good loan — probably Championship level.

"We’re getting enquiries from top Championship clubs about loaning our players — clubs who feel that they’ve got a chance of promotion, so that will be good experience for them, so it’s a case of Ronald at the end of it saying ‘Well, I’m going to keep him, him and him and him,’ so when you add up the squad it’s probably going to be a decent size, but also we haven’t bought problems.

"It was interesting when we qualified, the two things that everybody threw at us, or even internally, was ‘We need a bigger squad’.

"That was one thing, and the other thing was ‘How are we going to manage playing Thursdays and Sundays?’ "Essentially, I don’t buy into the bigger squad thing, particularly going out and buying lots of players.

"Whilst some clubs will say ‘The travelling killed us, it meant our season wasn’t very good because we were in the Europa cup,’ I think that other clubs who went and bought more players than they needed in order to cover for that get knocked out where we are, get knocked out in the early rounds, and you’ve still got all those players left for the rest of the season and then you’ve got a problem keeping them all happy and so on.

"So I think there’s a balance to be struck between a sizeable squad and actually having the right players in the right positions and the right cover for when you need it.

"I don’t hear Jose Mourinho complaining that he didn’t use a lot of players last year and [he] still won the Premier League, because I think Chelsea are one of those clubs who manage it very well, so I think it’s about managing it.

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"The difference between playing Wednesday in the Champions League and Saturday, and Thursday in the Europa League and Sunday is the same length of recovery time, so manage your travel properly, get your recovery strategies in place right and you should be able to manage it.”

Reed added: "The other thing is, one of the advantages of using the young players — they have to be good enough. This is not a case of ‘Under other circumstances you wouldn’t be in the team’. They have to prove themselves, like Harrison Reed and Matt Targett and Prowsey, and Chambo and Luke before — is that they’re more resilient.

“So I have seen teams who want to supplement their squad going for experienced players, players who’ve played Champions League or Europa League before, but are now in their 30s, thinking ‘Well, that’s alright, because now he’s in his 30s he’s cheaper anyway. We’ve got a top Italian player who’s now within our budget.’ "Actually, they get injured more often and it doesn’t actually do what you intended it to do, so we’ve planned all that quite carefully.

"Ronald and I are right on the same page with it, but it doesn’t mean that when we’ve hit our targets and we’ve got players in that if there was an opportunity that presented itself to do something a bit special — and by a bit special I mean a real good quality player.

"Not a big name player, but someone you go ‘Yeah, we need to snap that one up,’ then we would try and do it.

"But we know what positions we want, we know where we want to fill it, and the other thing is the last two seasons we’ve built a squad that’s really tight and what we don’t really want is to try and have to adapt with a lot of new players coming in again, so we can build on what we’ve done, and that’s the way we’ll move through the window.”

Wise words from Reed and ones that Saints supporters should be glad to read, yes perhaps those who hanker for Charlie Austin to arrive will be disappointed, but the reality is that replacing Alderweireld aside, the squad is bigger and stronger than last season, especially when you consider the younger players who will have improved that little bit more with experience.

Of course you can always improve a squad, but essentially Saints have lost three players from last season and so far have replaced them with Cedric Soares, Juanmi, Jordy Clasie, Cuco Martina and Maarten Stekelenburg, add to that Jay Rodriguez who played no part last season and that means the squad has seen an overall addition of three experienced players with it set to be a fourth when they land a central defender.

Now of course there is no guarantee than any of them will be better than the three who departed but most have the potential to be and if perhaps a point or two is dropped because of this factor it will be offset by the extra point or two gained by having a bigger more experienced squad.

Photo: Action Images

Fordy added 11:11 - Jul 16 If you use Jay Rod as part of the equation, you also have to use Fraser Forster who will be out for most of the season. So it currently stands at a net gain of two players.
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saint_ben added 11:14 - Jul 16 I know what your saying but I do slightly disagree, Maarten Stekelenburg replaces Forster, Cedric Soares replace Clyne, Jordy Clasie replaces spider, you could then argue that Jay Rod replaces Eljero Elia, and Juanmi replaces Filip Đuričić ( I know he did not play much) we are dont a central defender with Toby going to the spuds and that means with Cuco Martina we have the same amount of bodies, the only addition would maybe be Gaston as he is being given another chance, also remember we sold Cork and I thought they wanted to replace him so all in all we have not really added but more replaced what we have lost

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corkcitysaint added 11:18 - Jul 16 Bit disappointed on reading (or should that be Reed' ing) this. Last season, we suffered around Christmas time especially when injuries / suspensions took hold. I fear it will be the same this season as our "fall back" options / players will be the same. Basically, we're only replacing the players we've lost and not adding with the exception of a new striker.
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saint_ben added 11:28 - Jul 16 Corkcitysaint: what striker? you don't mean Juanmi surely? he wont be used as a striker
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Zambucco added 11:32 - Jul 16 I think our reserve of defensive youngsters is much superior than last year, the return from loan of Stephens & Turnbull plus the emergence of McCarthy is significant.so in a way the squad is stronger.
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saint_ben added 11:38 - Jul 16 I get what your saying Zambucco its a fair point but I just think we need at least a couple of more experienced players to add to squad depth if we want to progress again this season.
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BathSaint added 11:57 - Jul 16 All this talk of a bigger and stronger squad since last season is simply not true. Last season the addition of 1 or 2 players in January would have given our squad enough depth to maintain our push on the top 4. We spent the vast majority of the season in the top 4 and completely fell away in the last 10 games as our squad size was simply too small for a 38 game season at premier league quality. The lack of any real alternative for Pelle as an out and out striker hurt us when he was out of form and needed a rest, and having to either play multiple games using only 1 or 2 like for like substitutions (which happened a lot) or relying on players who are simply not up to standard (mayuka for one) when our squad was hit by injury and suspension cost us. And for the record, the lists below show the squad is absolutely not "bigger" and its very debatable that it looks "stronger" too as our like for like replacements are pretty much all unknown quantities at this level. Granted, some will be good, but its unlikely they all will be and they are also trying to fill some very big shoes. Players In: Players Out: Stekelenburg Forster (injury) Jrod (injury) Elia Juanmi Djuricic Soares Clyne Clasie Schneiderlin Martina Alderwiereld ?New CB? Cork So after we sign our new CB we will be no better off in terms of depth, and we are relying on each like for like replacement being at least as good as the players they are replacing, which is an unrealistic expectation.

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saint_ben added 12:20 - Jul 16 That's what I said Bathsaint! you missed that Gaston is being given another chance, but indeed as I stated in my post we have not added but simply replaced what has left the club
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BathSaint added 14:31 - Jul 16 Fair point about Gaston - I guess his return fills the place of Djuricic like for like too. We also better hope soares turns out to be a gem because it looks like for the second year running we will have no real backup at right back. Mainly I wish the club would stop trying to endlessly spin things to make it sound like we are building and strengthening, and reinvesting all our transfer money. We havent strengthened by any definition of the word, and we seem to have trousered the £30m transfer profit from last year. We have currently sold £37,5m this summer and spent £19.2m so unless van dijk costs over £18m (though surely he would be more like £8m?) it looks like we are making a tidy profit once more, plus the enourmous tv payment that kicked in this year as well as last years untouched tv revenue. It makes the sounds coming from the club about finances being stretched baffling. I'm all for selling our top players for good prices and reinvesting to build a squad, but replacing like for like with cheaper replacements and pretending that the squad has been grown and strengthened is just dishonest.

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mattswim80 added 15:05 - Jul 16 I'm not sure I agree with the comment about the club being dishonest. How do you measure that our squad/ team is stronger? Surely the best way to measure is by league performance? Total points etc? Last season despite a large number of expensive sales and cheaper (dare I say better or more realistically valued) replacements we finished in out highest premier league finish with a record points total. OK we may not be reinvesting all the money into the first team but we have also invested in a world class training facility that will help to attract the best youth players and enable the production line to continue. I'm really excited about the coming season and seeing more youth players being integrated into the first team. I would rather this than the big money flops Ramirez and Osvaldo we were all excited about a few years ago. Saints have always been about the team so signing young hungry players who will integrate with the current team is an excellent strategy. Fingers crossed we get the new CB in asap to allow time in preseason to get used to playing with Font and we can look forward to another great season. COYR!

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saint_ben added 15:37 - Jul 16 Mattswim80: totally agree on the youth side 100 percent. I don't agree with the rest though, comparing this season to last season you cannot do unless we get knocked out at the first hurdle, European football could well be a massive drain on the first team and a couple of extra experienced bodies certainly would help with the progression again everyone wants for the new season. And I don't think it would hurt the team but as it stands we wont have actually grow the team to meet the needs of European football as Les Reed himself at the end of the season said we would need to do for the manager to be able to cope with the extra games. It does now seem we are simply replacing what we have lost, a couple of good signings in jan last year MAY (notice I said may) of kept us in the top 4. Now is the time to fit the first team out properly, im not saying go wild but a couple of extra bodies and for me the would be another central defender after we have signed Van Dyke but for me I really think we need a striker

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BathSaint added 15:56 - Jul 16 I agree that overall we strengthened and grew the squad last summer, as well as making a huge profit. That was good business but the big difference was in the summer we sold 5 players and brought in 7, so we increased our depth. Another summer of the same and I wouldn't be as unhappy. I agree it's not just about spending large transfer fees but there are clear areas that we could do with strengthening (for me it would be cover for right back, competition for Pelle, replacement for Cork). With Ramirez and Osvaldo we spent a lot of money on players who had no experience of the premier league. Spending that amount of money on a proven premier league player such as ings or austin (just examples, im sure there are others) would be a different prospect as there is much less risk in signings like that. And while i love watching our youth players break into the first team, there is a big different between giving them the chance at displacing first team regulars once they are good enough (chamberlain, shaw, jwp etc...) and throwing them in because our squad is too small and when they arent ready. That's what we did back in 2008 and not only were we relegated but also plenty of promising youngsters in that squad (remember simon gillet or ollie lancashire when he was meant to be the next big thing?) never recovered and faded into the lower leagues.

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mattswim80 added 16:35 - Jul 16 Saying Austin and Ings are proven premier league quality after 1 season is stretching it. Don't get me wrong I would love to get Austin but he's not proven and this level....yet. Reed has still said we are in the market for the right quality players if the market is right. We have completed, bar CB, all the key signings Koeman wanted. Koeman is seeing these players in training maybe he feels the likes of Turnbull, Mccarthy and Stephens are ready for the first team, Sam Gallagher is back from injury and was being raved about. Koeman has a history of bringing through young players into the first team when there ready. And the Europa league can do just that. Look at Harry Kane wasn't playing in the premier league at the beginning of the season but forced his way in with some good performances in the Europa league. Our situation now is completely different to when we were relegated as we have the chance to bring the youth players in gradually rather than having to play them as we had nobody else!!

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St_Beano added 22:57 - Jul 16 Think we need another striker capable of 10-15+ league goals. Now whether that's Austin or not i don't know, at least Austin has PL experience. I'm just not confident that we bought that level of player, especially as they are not used to the PL. If JRod and Pelle strike up a good partnership we'll do well, but it worries me if one gets injured or goes off the boil for a few weeks.

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bstokesaint added 06:48 - Jul 17 I think it's a bit unfair to call the club "dishonest". It's virtually impossible from a fan's outside perspective to know what money gets spent on what within the club. Let's be honest half the time we don't even know the true transfer fees and add-on's involved so we're speculating at best. Plus they'll be wages to factor in for more expensive signings. Given that Kat could have walked, but chose to stay I think we should give her the benefit of the doubt that she's running the club as Markus would have wanted it and not to rip off the fans. Also, given our recent dark days in the lower leagues it pays to be prudent in this industry. I'd be more concerned if Saints were throwing £10m at a player here, £15m there and £12m somewhere else. It pays to be sensible from a board's perspective, as opposed to a passionate fan.

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IWOZTHERE added 11:14 - Jul 17 Bit more thought and commonsense on here as opposed to the Echo. Less sniping too! I'm also confused about the 'messages' coming out of the club about money and have asked questions on here and the other site. It's pointed out that the fees received are subject to all sorts of taxes and commissions etc. and the cost of the training facilities are quoted regularly but no-one seems able to answer specific questions, the most obvious being 'why did we have to 'borrow' £20m' from Ms Liebherr a couple of months ago? I've been told what it was for but not why the club wasn't able to do it itself? All clubs are subject to these overheads, ridiculous player wages etc,most having the sort of debts we don't have anymore. Very few can boast about the sort of transfer profits we've been making, so if we're still struggling most of the other clubs should have gone into administration! I don't suspect dishonesty (except in the club statements) and in principal I applaud the philosophy of selling 'high and buying 'low' but I do worry that this is becoming the over-riding factor in their dealings. Are they slowly turning the club into a 'cash cow', Is Les on profit related bonuses? etc etc. Assuming this year's transfer business concludes ok, there should be another big'wedge' going into the coffers.....What's it for?

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gpsgm added 17:26 - Jul 18 I think this site is becoming a target for Pompey Trolls. The more good sense you speak Nick the more nonsense you get in return. I can't believe some of these replies. Dishonest? Cash cow? Trousering cash running a Premier League Team? What a bloody Laugh. I can't believe how some people can get so angry, upset etc etc from being a Saints fan over the last few years. I have loved it, continue to love it and I have to confess that my love for Ron borders on the inappropriate. Off to Rotterdam next week, bring on the new season !!!

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