Southampton and the price of 'success'

[chicken 0]

[quote user="......and Smith must score."] He seemed to think that local lads like Shaw and Lallana wouldn''t dream of leaving. I said that in the real world the days of Matt le Tissier have long gone unfortunately.[/quote]I think there is a bit of a myth to that these days. How many academy products are actually, truly local?Wiki is helpful to some extent: "Lallana was a member of the Bournemouth Centre of Excellence, where his rich potential was eventually spotted by a talent scout from Southampton, with Lallana snapped up by the Premier League club, joining the Saints Academy

as a 12-year old in 2000. Southampton paid £3,000 compensation to

Bournemouth with further payments of £5,000 and £10,000 when he signed

scholarship and professional contracts respectively.^[3] Bournemouth are reported to have a 25% sell-on clause if Lallana is sold."I know he was 12, but if they hadn''t have bought him, he would probably have made the ranks at Bournemouth and then moved up the pyramid. If you are buying players that young, how do you expect them to be loyal? You go through some of their younger players - Ward-Prowse comes from a Portsmouth supporting family for example.It''s another sign of the times - the FA Youth Cup run was an eye opener in that sense, some of the big club youth teams, like Chelsea, had multimillion pound players playing for them from the four corners of the world. An academy product simply does not come automatically with local or loyalty stamped on them anymore.

[......and Smith must score. 1,331]

[quote user="chicken"][quote user="......and Smith must score."] He seemed to think that local lads like Shaw and Lallana wouldn''t dream of leaving. I said that in the real world the days of Matt le Tissier have long gone unfortunately.[/quote]

I think there is a bit of a myth to that these days. How many academy products are actually, truly local?

Wiki is helpful to some extent: "Lallana was a member of the Bournemouth Centre of Excellence, where his rich potential was eventually spotted by a talent scout from Southampton, with Lallana snapped up by the Premier League club, joining the Saints Academy as a 12-year old in 2000. Southampton paid £3,000 compensation to Bournemouth with further payments of £5,000 and £10,000 when he signed scholarship and professional contracts respectively.^[3] Bournemouth are reported to have a 25% sell-on clause if Lallana is sold."

I know he was 12, but if they hadn''t have bought him, he would probably have made the ranks at Bournemouth and then moved up the pyramid. If you are buying players that young, how do you expect them to be loyal? You go through some of their younger players - Ward-Prowse comes from a Portsmouth supporting family for example.

It''s another sign of the times - the FA Youth Cup run was an eye opener in that sense, some of the big club youth teams, like Chelsea, had multimillion pound players playing for them from the four corners of the world. An academy product simply does not come automatically with local or loyalty stamped on them anymore.


[/quote]

 

When you''re as far south as the Saints are I suppose Bournemouth is just about local [;)]

[Move Klose 303]

Jay Rodriguez & Morgan Schneiderlin to join Spurs this wk. What on earth is going on there.

[canarycop 204]

Could this be the first foreign owned club to go to the wall as the owner has no interest in football. Don''t know if that did the case but something is going seriously wrong down there. Les Reed who is at Soton has said they are still investing in the youth like Harrison Reed......Who?

Could be odds on for the drop soon

[BroadstairsR 2,135]

It''s been the way of the football world from time immemorial. It so happens that the Saints had hit a golden streak destined to be scooped up by bigger clubs with high wage bills and European prospects. I see no particular modern day trend here.

 

We lost possibly our best striker ever, Ron Davies, to  ... yes!    Southampton. A close runner up, Chris Sutton was tempted by Blackburn''s money. If Gary Hooper had have banged them in last season he too, like Dean Ashton and a few others before him, would have been on his bike by now.

 

The only exception here is the number of players making the exit door at the same time. Some have pointed a finger at the owner, but if each  was to be viewed on an individual basis then it becomes a case of same old, same old.

 

Little fleas have bigger fleas upon their backs to bite them etc. and now Southampton seem favourites to land Leroy Fer.  

[PurpleCanary 5,553]

[quote user="canarycop"]Could this be the first foreign owned club to go to the wall as the owner has no interest in football. Don''t know if that did the case but something is going seriously wrong down there. Les Reed who is at Soton has said they are still investing in the youth like Harrison Reed......Who?

Could be odds on for the drop soon[/quote]The main danger is overpaying wages to attract and hold on to top players. Since Southampton are losing players to bigger clubs it is a fair assumption that is exactly what is not happening at St Mary''s. As to the owner, I am not sure she has no interest in the club. According to some reports it was her desire to exert more control than had been the case with Markus Liebherr that prompted the executive chairman to quit (myself I think he was so ambitious he would have gone sooner or later).There might be some lessening of funding from her (although FFP is designed to make that less relevant anyway) but that would hardly of itself send the club to the wall.

[PurpleCanary 5,553]

[quote user="PurpleCanary"][quote user="canarycop"]Could this be the first foreign owned club to go to the wall as the owner has no interest in football. Don''t know if that did the case but something is going seriously wrong down there. Les Reed who is at Soton has said they are still investing in the youth like Harrison Reed......Who?

Could be odds on for the drop soon[/quote]The main danger is overpaying wages to attract and hold on to top players. Since Southampton are losing players to bigger clubs it is a fair assumption that is exactly what is not happening at St Mary''s. As to the owner, I am not sure she has no interest in the club. According to some reports it was her desire to exert more control than had been the case with Markus Liebherr that prompted the executive chairman to quit (myself I think he was so ambitious he would have gone sooner or later).There might be some lessening of funding from her (although FFP is designed to make that less relevant anyway) but that would hardly of itself send the club to the wall.[/quote]I meant to add that while they have sold five players they have already bought two, and supposedly Fer might be a third. The time to assess Southampton is on September 1.

[Guest]

So what do they do between the start of the season and September the 1st then Purple? There is potentially 3 matches to undertake then.

Besides which, it is not as simple as simply replacing the players - as we all now there is no guarantee they will gel. We are not now talking about 1 or 2 key players - it seems the nucleus of the squad has been ripped out.

Without a pre-season and/or experience of playing together previously, I think that unless Southampton sign replacement players imminently they could really struggle this season. The Premier League is a relatively unforgiving league.

[Move Klose 303]

They can have Ruddy, Olsson, Fer, Redmond & Hooper. Well for about £50m. Well rumour has it they in for Forster & Rojo the Argentina left back. Koeman needs to spend wisely or risk this grand master plan going tits up & do it quick. 3 weeks to sign about 6-7 players isn''t going to be easy.