Do the ‘Downs’ on Roller Coasters Make You Puke?

Having ended the last blog entry with the line
“a lot can change in two weeks“, something did change the very next day.

SFC Roller-Coaster Up – In the morning it was
widely reported that Saints were close to signing Tino Livramento from Chelsea
but unlike the Dynel Simeu transfer which dragged on for about a week, this was
all wrapped up and done and dusted later that same evening with the highly
rated Chelsea Academy Player of the Year joining Saints for £5 million quid.
The downside of this deal is that there is a buyback clause but if it’s for the
reported £25 million then if the player is ever worth that, then we will have
done very well out of him indeed.  Livramento
can play at full-back or in midfield on both sides of the pitch so that solves
that particular problem in the squad in one fell swoop and it means we can give
Manchester United the big middle finger over the ridiculous loan fee and wages
they wanted us to pay for Brandon Williams. It also lessens the chances of
Moussa Djenepo being deployed at left back.



SFC Roller-Coaster Down – So, one step forward and
then on the face of it, a huge vault backwards. About five minutes before the
Levante friendly kicked off, Aston Villa released a social media post which
basically said they had signed Danny Ings. 
What the fuck! It all looked very rushed and with the amount of bullshit
that there is flying around on the social channels these days, I didn’t quite
believe it at first but then The Athletic posted it and then every fucker
posted it. Danny Ings has moved to Aston Villa for an undisclosed fee. A little
bit of digging revealed that the undisclosed fee was probably £25 million with £5
million worth of add-ons.  It’s quite
important to know if we are ever likely to receive the money for the add-ons
because if they are something stupid like Aston Villa winning the Premier
League and it’s not as good a fee as it first appeared. However, the going rate
for a player in the last year of his contract is between £15 and £20 million so
to get £30 million (let’s be optimistic) is good business for a financial point
of view.



It’s funny – I was researching back through blogs
the other day to compose a reply to Jamie Carragher who was saying that Harry
Kane should leave Tottenham honourably because any trophies he might win in the
future were not worth the damage to his reputation. If that’s the case then
Virgil Van Dijk is completely fucked isn’t he? My research of old blogs
revealed how angry I was about the whole episode. Four years on and I’m numb to
footballers following the money.



Villa it appears, were desperate to sign a player
before they dropped the news that Manchester City had put £100 million on the
table for Jack Grealish and Villa had no way of keeping him because of a
release clause in his contract.  Even
without a release clause, if a club puts the huge amount of money down on the
table, then teams will sell. The same goes for players like Declan Rice, Harry
Kane or anyone else not playing at an elite club. The difference is, usually
the buying club is much bigger than the selling club and this is where it
sticks in the throat a bit. Danny Ings was widely quoted as saying that he’d
only leave for a Champions League club. We are after all the club that
resurrected his career and we are is hometown club, seeing as he grew up in
Netley.  For him to move basically
sideways, to a club who are not even in the Europa Conference next season, is a
bit of a kick in the bollocks and I can see why the club have taken have taken
that a bit personally.


I did see him moving on however and when he got
left out of the England squad in the summer – that was the final nail. Since
then of course, he indicated that he wasn’t going to sign a new contract with
us so I do have sympathy with the board because all they can do is get as much
money for him as possible. The fee they have got has probably persuaded them
that it’s not worth keeping him here for another year. It was widely reported
that there was a contract sitting on the table which would’ve made in the
highest paid player in Southampton history. I do wonder now if there were a few
reservations at board level about offering that to a 29-year-old injury prone
player who didn’t have a particularly great end to the season and it’s maybe
telling that he’s the only player who was not looked remotely sharp in the
preseason friendlies that we’ve had so far.  I did see one comment on twitter, from a Villa
fan who wasn’t impressed with the deal, saying that Ings has only really had
one good season at Premier League level – I guess that’s true to an extent in
terms of goal output.  Three seasons with
us have seen two injury disrupted ones that produced moderate goal returns (7
and 12 respectively) and only one that was excellent, where he managed 21.  Interestingly, the 12 he got last season was
his second highest Premier League goal return for a season.


That said, when on form and fully fit, he is a
brilliant striker and he will be a hard act to follow but as I shrug my
shoulders about another player saying one thing and doing another, the club carries on and is bigger than any
individual player. The good news, with this being done so quickly is that we
don’t have to spend the next month waiting for Daniel Levy and Spurs to put in
a £8 million offer and having the media crush our spirits from now until the
window closes.

With the Ings news landing just before the kick-off,
the Levante friendly was a bit of a non-event as far as I was concerned with
Saints playing well enough to win 1-0 with a decent goal by KWP. Nathan Tella
stood out and so surprisingly, did Mohammed Elyounoussi.  Romain Perraud looks a very good addition at
left back. He clearly loves to get forward but I was most impressed with his
defending as he is very much on the front foot and doesn’t give attackers are
second on the ball before the snapping at their heels. In his interview at the
end of the game, Ralph talked about how certain players need to step up with
regards to scoring goals. My abiding memory from this match was Redmond not
wanting to shoot with his left foot when he just had the goalkeeper to beat.



The friendly against Athletic Bilbao rolled around
with no one in a very good mood because of Ings having left and Martin Semmens
not having managed to magic a centre forward out of his arse in the three days
since. However, it was a sobering line-up to look at with the strike
partnership being Shane Long and Michael Obafemi. The first half wasn’t too bad
but we found ourselves 2-0 down with a McCarthy flap and a free header from a
corner and then Stuart Armstrong giving away the ball far too cheaply in
midfield which sold us down the river, with Yan Valery in particular getting
caught ahead of the ball, which allowed Bilbao to walk in on the left hand side
and finish well. Livramento came on a half-time and what a difference –
straight away into the action, intercepting a ball and lobbing at superb pass
over the defence to fellow substitute Theo Walcott, who finished really well. Bilbao
were the better side though and deservedly re-established their two-goal lead
with Bednarek becoming the latest Saints defender to smash it into his own net.

SFC Roller-Coaster Up – The day after though,
things got more positive again with the news that Blackburn had accepted our
final offer for Adam Armstrong and so it looked like that one was going to
happen pending a medical and we then again raided Chelsea‘s Academy side with
the signing of Armando Broja on loan for season.  Let’s ignore the fact that we are turning into Chelsea-On-Sea and get enthused about Broja, who is a very exciting sounding 19-year-old
centre forward who, let’s face it, is not going to play for Chelsea this season
given they’ve just spent the best part of £100 million on signing a striker who
they’ve already had once. I don’t know much about Broja of course, other than
he is 6 foot plus, quick and powerful. I assume that he will start the season
on the bench as the first option to come on as a substitute.  He was born in Slough to Albanian parents and is already a full international and doesn’t look the sort to be short of confidence.  With a five year Chelsea contract in his pocket, I think we can assume that he’s going to be decent.

The Adam Armstrong confirmation came soon after
and he joined for £14 million. I feel that these two strikers make our overall
picture look a lot better. Both Broja and Armstrong are very highly rated and have done well at
levels below Premier League level but both are extremely hungry to step up for
different reasons. Broja is going to need a miracle to break through the young
player at Chelsea so he will certainly be looking to show something in what is
a massive opportunity for him and Armstrong started off in the Premier League
with Newcastle, dropped down to Blackburn and will see this as exactly the
right time to make an impression in this league. The messages you read from
Blackburn fans show just how highly they rate him and from our point of view,
it’s important he hits the ground running so a couple of goals in the first few
games would certainly do him and us a power of good.



SFC Roller-Coaster down again…. So, with that
positive news of course, there had to be a negative and the club accepted a £15
million offer for Jannik Vestergaard. Again, like with Ings, I don’t really see
that the club had a choice and we have had three years out of a player and sold
him for not much less than what we paid for him.  Jannik can be extremely eye-catching with his
passing out of defence and if teams decide to attack via the aerial route, Jannik
is of course well-equipped to deal with that.  Like with Ings though, he has not had a
brilliant second-half of the season where he has always looked like he has a
mistake in him. He was also like that in the Euros as well but he did well
enough in enough games for Denmark. We will certainly miss the passing out of
defence because Bednarek and Salisu just don’t have that but I feel that the
two of them will make for a better partnership with a natural right foot-left
foot combination and because of Salisu’s involvement, the defence will have
more pace. We will need a replacement though and hopefully there is one lined
up because it’s not exactly going to come as a shock to anybody that
Vestergaard is leaving.  Jannik’s
contract situation has been there in plain sight for as long as the Ings
situation had been there but it hadn’t been talked about nearly as much.  Jannik to be fair, had never said anything about
it and had just got on with his job, had a decent tournament in the Euro’s and
here we are.

For those who say that we should keep these players and let them go for nothing
– I’m not saying that you’re wrong… but I would point out that the three
players that we had who had contracts running out or one year to go – Bertrand,
Ings and Vestergaard, all performed relatively poorly compared to their
previous standards in the second half of last season.

So where are we?

We have two decent goalkeepers – I’d play Forster out of the two but you can
make a case for either of them.

We have two options at right back in KWP and Livramento.  Valery is half an option.

We only have one real option at left back in Perraud – I don’t count Djenepo

We have 3 central defenders – Salisu and Bednarek will start and Stephens will
be the back up – we need one more to replace Vestergaard.

In central midfield we have JWP, Romeu and Diallo with Stuart Armstrong as an
option

On the right wing we have Stuart Armstrong, Walcott and Livramento

On the left there’s Tella, Walcott or Stuart Armstrong

Up front it’s two from Adams, Adam Armstrong, Broja and Tella

We also of course have the cabal of wingers who just don’t cut it for me – Redmond,
Djenepo and Elyounoussi – and two strikers in Obafemi and Long who should be
nowhere near the first XI.  Redmond will
undoubtedly start due to eye-catching performances against Championship sides
in friendlies.

A left back who can play centre back would be the dream signing now but before
that can happen, the SFC Roller-Coaster heads off to Goodison Park for the
first game of the season.  Our record
there is nothing short of appalling and our last win was secured with goals by Matt
Le Tissier (now 52) and Kevin Davies (now 44).  It’s time…