Things Are Strange in Pre-Season
God I hate the
pre-season. Years ago it used to be a time when everything went quiet and you
could have a break from football which even as a fan, you really need
sometimes.
Nowadays of
course you have to put up with a constant tidal wave of bullshit stories,
bullshit rumours or bullshit photo shopped images of players with a different
clubs shirts on. It’s endless. On top of that, you get fans not thinking and
generally losing their shit. For example, Southampton Football Club say every
single year that they want to get their business done early and have everyone
there for preseason. This. Never. Happens.
Everyone is
skint and we all know the level of market that Saints are operating because we
have been told that we are not looking to spend more than £10 to £12 million on
a player. It therefore follows that we are not going to buy a player a month
early and have to spend another £200,000 on wages or whatever. It also follows
that we are not going to buy a £30 million rated player, nor a player in a
position where we all are already well stocked.
Having said
that about the early business, we have done some business early and that we
tied up Theo Walcott and Romain Perraud. Walcott was tied up because it was
already a done deal and Perraud is probably the only new signing that is
essential to the first 11 and therefore essential that he has as long as
possible to prepare.
Anyone else
we sign is probably going to be a player who is not immediately in the starting
11, be they from the Championship or be they a youngster. You have to remember,
our first 11 was pretty good last year and it will be this year. The reason we
fell away last year was because our squad wasn’t deep enough. Basically what
I’m saying is, keep your patience and judge at the end of the window.
So, the
incomings so far … with Theo Walcott being the first, joining on a free
transfer at the end of his Everton contract. Of course there is no such thing
as a free transfer because you’ve still got a pay the guy but it’s largely
reported that Theo has taken a big wage cut to join Saints and should be
applauded for that. There were signs last season, before his injury, that he
can have a really positive impact on the pitch as well as off, so I was glad to
see this one get done.
With all
due respect to Theo, the most important business of the summer was to get in a
new left back, to replace the departed Ryan Bertrand. Romain Perraud was the
name linked for quite a while before it eventually became a reality and he
joined from Stade Brestois for about £13 million quid. This is the same club
that we signed Ibrahim Diallo from. I found it quite amusing that it was
reported that because of the Diallo deal, we had a good relationship with the
French club. Is that a bit like saying we’ve got a good relationship with
Liverpool because they keep signing our players. I think not. Perraud comes
with a reputation for being better going forward than he is defensively which
is fine. I’d say that KWP is better going forward than he is defensively but as
he is very good defensively then it doesn’t matter. I can’t imagine that
Perraud is going to be someone who can’t defend.
The Perraud
signing happened during the Euros, when I’d got used to watching teams playing
in variations of three at the back formations. On paper, three of the back
looks a very good way to go for us, with Salisu as the left footed centre back,
Vestergaard of the middle and Bednarek on the right, Perraud and KWP as the
wingbacks and midfield three of Romeu, JWP and Armstrong behind a front two of
Ings and Adams.
As I write,
after a bit of a delay, we signed highly rated Chelsea youngster Dynel Simeu.
He was the captain of their Under 23’s side last season even though he’s only
19 and is one of an every growing number of youngsters who do not want to hang
around playing age-group football and being loaned out all over the place by
the big clubs. Probably helpfully, he spent some of his school years in
Southampton so there is an element of ‘coming home’ about this one. I don’t
know anything about him really, other than “big, strong, quick, good on the
ball”. We shall see whether he is in contention for the first team straight
away. I can’t imagine he will be far away because that’s the reason he’s
leaving Chelsea after all.
Hopefully a
long way from the first team there is another centre half who arrived in the
form of Olly Lancashire. Yes, that Ollie Lancashire who last played for Saints
under the mercurial management of Jan Poortvliet. To be fair, Olly was just a
kid in a car crash of a season and a long time has passed since then within
making over 300 appearances in the lower leagues. Interestingly, he has been
brought in to play with the B Team, specifically to pass on some experience. On
the face of it, this seems like a good idea with the age group teams having
been uniformly smashed all over the place last season. At least the club
haven’t tried to push him as the Vestergaard replacement which we may yet still
need.
As for other links, tow names that keep coming up are Brandon Williams and Adam
Armstrong. We are clearly keen on both
but here’s where the patience comes in. If
the figures are to be believed, United want us to cover the £65k a week that
they are paying their third choice left back at age 20 and also want us to
stump up a £2 million quid loan fee, basically for us to help them develop
their player. Jog on at those figures. Personally,
I feel that about half of those figures would be reasonable so maybe there’s
some negotiation to be done. The situation
has been complicated though by the injury to Alex Telles, United’s 2nd
choice left back, so they may not want Williams to go anywhere.
Blackburn’s Armstrong is like us with the Ings situation – he’s their best
striker, with one year left on his deal.
They are quite rightly holding out for as much as possible and we are
playing the ‘but he’s only got one year left’ card. Blackburn will be hoping someone else comes
in so they can instigate some sort of bidding war and will leave that to the
last minute, knowing Saints are interested – running the risk that we’ll go
elsewhere or lower our offer – brinkmanship all round. Unlike us with Danny Ings though, it’s
unlikely Blackburn will be prepared to lose him for nothing next summer, or for
peanuts in January. This one will get done on a Danso if it’s done at all – deal
sheet the day after the window closes.
Outgoing
Player news is not as sexy as incoming but is just as important. One of the biggest problems that Saints have
had over the last few years has been of course, the players we signed for big
fees, who we put on big wages, who were then not fit for purpose and we
couldn’t find anyone else to sell them to. We’ve had a few that we basically
couldn’t give away. Another issue has
been the fact that we have kept some academy graduates for far too long when
they were clearly, never going to be Premier League footballers.
An example of this left the club in the summer with Jake Hesketh finally moving
on. He is 25. If ever there was a true indication that he was never going to be
Premier League quality then it’s that he has gone down to Portsmouth since he
left us and had a trial and even though they are short of players for the new
season, they have decided not to take him on.
Josh Sims
has also moved on. Sims of course provided a couple of great moments in the
first team but never quite looked like he was ever going to make the transition
from impact sub to starting player. His career took a very strange path when he
was loaned out to the MLS though to be honest, the writing was on the wall
before that. He will always be remembered for the run from his own half against
Liverpool which saw Shane Long score to get us through to the League Cup final
but remember, that was four years ago. It’ll be interesting to see where he
turns up as well. I would be surprised if it’s anywhere higher than League 1.
Another
that moved on, on a permanent deal was Callum Slattery who assigned for
Motherwell. I really don’t know where it’s all gone wrong for Callum because he
looked to have the talent and a bit of swagger on the pitch but there have been
a lot of noises about a less than perfect attitude which when you are a young
player, will not be indulged for too long. Hopefully the penny drops with him
and he turns out to be a good player in the future.
Also moving
to Scotland is Jake Vokins, on loan to Ross County. This is another shitshow
from us because Jake has been given a fairly long-term contract and he doesn’t
look remotely like he’s ever gonna be Premier League level. He didn’t look like
he had the first clue about how to play at full-back and unless he makes some
massive strides whilst playing in Scotland, I can see him being another Hesketh
and finally being let go when he is about 25.
Also on
loan is Dan N’Lundulu who signed a three-year contract and was immediately
loaned out to Lincoln City in League 1. This is an interesting one because
Saints obviously rate the guy so will clearly be expecting him to smash up League
One next season. The jury is out for me as I’m seeing a player who is just a
little bit slow to make up his mind what he is about to do and his first touch
needs a lot of work. He is a big unit and he has to learn to play like one and
dominate defenders. I’ll be an interesting challenge for him in League One if
he comes through that then you never know.
In the
category of big-money-flop-finally-leaving, we have three entries. The first of
whom was Angus Gunn who on the face of it was the most bizarre purchase bearing
in mind we already had two goalkeepers on the first team wages. We had already
tied up Fraser for another four years rightly or wrongly and Angus was signed
to be first choice. After initially looking promising, it became apparent that
he didn’t really have the presence thought there was a theory that this would
always come with more experience. After a while it became apparent that this
wasn’t really going to happen and it all came to a crushing end one Friday
night against Leicester. He’s gone back to Norwich, where is dad once played
and where Angus himself was on loan. Good luck to him and there is certainly a
goalkeeper in there somewhere. As signings go for us though, it hasn’t been the
best. He will feel that he hasn’t really been given a chance with us and we
will think that we’ve seen enough and therefore, it’s probably a good move for
both parties.
We also got
rid of Wesley Hoedt. The key to doing this was of course to find a club that
would buy him without having him on loan first because once anyone had him on
loan, they realised just how shit he was. Unlucky Anderlecht. I’ve never
forgiven them for the 1976 European Cup Winners Cup third round, so they
deserve it. I don’t think Wesley was as bad as he has been painted to be but I
sure as hell wasn’t the replacement for Van Dijk the club thought he was going
to be. A bit like Guido Carillo, I think we just got it completely wrong
regarding how good he was. It’s not his fault that we signed him and it’s not
his fault that we threw ridiculous money at him, which meant we were saddled
with him when we realised that he wasn’t good enough. Wesley’s main problem
when he did play was that he seemed to be deluded about his own ability and try
to do things that which were ridiculous and his arrogance was his downfall on a
number of occasions, never more so than in his last game for the club away at
Fulham. A Cruyff turn by your own corner flag is never a good idea for Centre
back. Good luck to him and whilst he has found time to have a couple of digs at
Ralph, at least he has not been a massive bell end on social media whilst he
has been out on loan. Which brings us on to….
Finally we
got rid of Mario Lemina who signed for OGC Nice where he will link up with
Morgan Schneiderlin and be forever known as the Nice Arsehole. I’m sure there
have been players over my 40 years following Southampton who have been as big a
bellend as Mario but they’ve not had social media to bring that to a wider
audience. Brand Mario has not given a shit about Southampton since he signed.
It took about three months for the cracks to start the show. It became apparent
that he only put the effort in when he really wanted to, which was either
against shockingly poor teams or occasionally, when we played the likes of
Manchester United. The trouble was the Mario had the ability to be brilliant
but just didn’t use it and that’s the worst crime of all. Though I had already
formed a negative opinion about the guy, the FA Cup semi-final against Chelsea
when he basically didn’t give a shit and just wandered about, was the end of
the road. That game was one of the five or six biggest games in Southampton’s
history but he jogged forward, lost the ball and then didn’t bother chasing
back on a few occasions. A waster and an absolute arsehole. It amazed me that some would still have him
back, like he was going to be reformed or something. No, not happening and Ralph saying he wanted
him around is purely a dig at the board to get him a replacement. Ralph doesn’t want Mario around – no one
does.
Finally of
course, we lost Ryan Bertrand who moved on to Leicester City at the end of this
Saints contract. I feel that this is going to be a more common occurrence in
the next few years with players refusing to sign new deals. Anyway, as far as
I’m concerned, Ryan has been a Saint for seven years so he deserves the
opportunity to go and do whatever he wants and he is moving to a very good
Leicester City team who should be challenging near the top of the league all
season. If they are not, then questions are going to be asked of Brendan
Rodgers because he has all the tools there.
The final aspect of the transfer market is of course, which of your first team
players who you don’t want to lose, is going to be linked with moves away to
big or even medium sized clubs. The speculation
for us has been around the two with one year left on their deals, Ings and
Vestergaard and there’s been some comical interest in JWP and Fraser Forster. Danny and Jannik have been linked with Spurs because
it’s always Spurs. The Europa Conference
League will I’m sure be a huge draw. To
be fair, I could see Jannik going there and they have just sold Toby
Alderweireld so are short in that area.
Regardless, there has been no concrete offers for either.
There apparently has been an offer for JWP of around £25 million from
Villa. This is where you have to think –
and not too hard. Is he a player we can
afford to lose? Is he agitating for a move? Are Villa going to at least double
their offer? Are Saints going to sell on the cheap? Is Villa a significant step
up? Is anyone going to agree a fee with Villa before Grealish is sold? aNswer to all those is “No”. As for Fraser – Celtic have a shit goalkeeper
at the moment and no money. They (or the
Celtic friendly desperate media) basically want us to loan them Fraser for
nothing and pay a huge proportion of his wages.
He’s probably going to be our first choice keeper this season so stop
embarrassing yourself lads.
The pre-season
matches started with a training ground friendly against Fulham which was little
more than a fitness workout with two completely different teams playing each half.
Saints dominated the game, especially in the first half but it took a Shane
Long goal, set up by Michael Obafemi, to give us the lead before we got pegged
back and the game petered out into a draw.
Next up
came a decent test away to Cardiff who are further along in their preparation
for the new season and we smashed them 4-0 With goals from Walcott, Djenepo and
two from Scotland’s finest, Che Braveheart Adams. Comfortably winning a game in
preseason brings out the same overreactions as losing one does. Looking good in
a pre-season friendly against the Championship side, really does not mean
anything but the players as a whole looked very sharp and very fit, which is
very encouraging. I couldn’t get my head around seeing Elyounoussi in a Saints
shirt again, nor Shane Long. It kind of proves that there is more work to be
done of the pitch, in the upcoming weeks.
Along the coast to Swansea and a comfortable 3-1 win but not without it’s issues,
namely Salisu putting Swansea ahead with a right footed swinger under no
pressure which rocketed past McCarthy before he could move. In the second half, Macca tried that
dribbling round the forward from a standing start thing, which always ends badly
and it would have done again but for Bednarek getting back to clear it. In between times, Tella, Redmond and
Armstrong all scored to give us the win.
I know it’s all about minutes and getting a run out but I hope that the
Spanish opposition coming to St Mary’s in the next week in Levante and Athletic
Bilbao, provide better opposition than the Welsh clubs who were both decidedly
average.
Are we in good shape for Everton in two weeks time? It’s hard to tell. The players look sharp and fit and that’s all
you can ask for at this stage. There’s
going to be some serious competition for places in some areas – goalkeeper,
centre backs, left-wing and in the more settled positions, it’s good to see the
usual incumbents looking sharp, like KWP, Romeu, Armstrong and Adams. Tella and Redmond are both putting their hand
up for the left wing spot and Salisu is doing likewise at centre back. Ralph is trying to fix the full-back back up
issues that we had last year with Yan Valery on the right and Moussa Djenepo on
the left. Valery has looked decent to be
fair and Djenepo has looked good going forward but the thought of him playing
left back in the Premier League gives me the shits. I’d be putting money on a red card as he can’t
tackle and he dives all over the place. Next
week should see the return of JWP from a minor knock and Vestergaard from his
holiday and of course, the rumour mill bullshit will be in full flow.
A lot can change in two weeks…
League 1 Minus 10 
Leave a reply to Anonymous Cancel reply