Life at Southampton has carried on over the summer whilst everyone has been looking at the World Cup. There’s a new season that is less than a month away.

In fact, just before the World Cup started, we got the released list from the club. None of the names were particularly surprising apart from one. The unsurprising ones were the ending of the contracts of Alex McCarthy, Oriol Romeu, Will Smallbone, Joe Aribo and Charlie Taylor. Also there was mention of the fact that we would not be signing Elias Jelert at the end of his loan spell. No real surprises.

McCarthy has been a loyal servant of the club over the past eight years, spending time as understudy for various other goalkeepers and in the main being reliable when called upon and on the occasions where he was first choice. Most will forget that he actually won an England cap as a Saints player. He never seemed to particularly bothered about not playing and I put a lot of that down to the contract he was on. He was brought to the club as an understudy to Fraser Forster but stepped up when Fraser lost form and became Number 1. There were other times when he was the best goalkeeper at the club, such as when Gavin Bazunu was preferred, both in the relegation season under Ralph/Nathan/Ruben and in the season in the Championship under Russell Martin. Alex’s contribution to the promotion season cannot be understated as he performed brilliantly in the play-off games to help seal our promotion, which definitely would not have been as easy to achieve without Bazunu‘s timely absence. He has secured himself a new deal at Leicester under Russell Martin, so fair play. Russell clearly didn’t fancy Baz then.

Oriol Romeu’s returned to the club in the middle of last season when we were struggling for steel and professionalism, but after he initially got himself fit and started playing, it was pretty obvious that he was miles off the player he was, and he certainly wasn’t going to play under Tonda Eckert. Apparently his influence off the pitch was still a good one but it’s no surprise that he’s moving on now to what is hopefully a nice gig in Japan. We will remember the first spell and smile.

Will Smallbone and Joe Aribo both contributed well in our season in the Championship under Russell Martin, both playing in the play-off win against Leeds at Wembley. Joe provided a strong presence in midfield and Will fitted in well in Russell‘s style of football, but they both had the same problem. Neither of them are naturally fit and neither can run at any great speed and so as the game gets ever faster, they are quite literally getting left behind. Smallbone can be regarded as it’s a success of our academy as he come through and played a lot of League games for the club and hopefully he finds a home where they understand how a player like him has to be fitted into a team, with players close by to ensure he doesn’t get stranded with space around him that he cannot cover. Joe Aribo was signed with quite a big reputation from Scotland and then his first season in the Premier League, he was largely fucking useless and he didn’t start the first Championship season very well either before breaking into the team around January and contributing well. Relative to nearly anyone else in the Premier League disaster season, he wasn’t horrific but when all is said and done, we’ve got about half a decent season out of him in his four years at the club. He won’t be missed and not having to shell out on his wages will be most welcome.

There’s not a lot of to say about Charlie Taylor. Brought in to provide Premier League experience in Russell Martin’s disaster window at the start of the 24/25 season he was totally unsuited to Russell’s style of play and whenever he played, he looked incredibly limited.

Ans so on to the bad news – Ross Stewart not signing was a bit of an outlier. Some agents and advisors had clearly been causing mischief there because apparently Saints had five days from the end of the season to trigger the extra year on his contract but because of the Spygate shenanigans, the end of the season suddenly wasn’t the play-off final and was the semi-final win against Middlesbrough, which was of course more than five days past before we got chucked out of the playoffs. Ross went to the World Cup with Scotland for a nice little holiday for the group stage with about five minutes of football thrown in. As I write it is unknown where his destination will be – rumours persist that he may yet return – but it is slightly annoying that he has been injured for about two years of his three years here and having got himself fit and into the Scotland squad for the World Cup, he clearly didn’t think this was worthy of making the extension happen, which is a shame because we will need to spend a lot of money to replace him, even with the signing of Cyle Larin.

I can see both sides of the argument because Ross, at 30, has probably got one decent contract left in him and wants to maximise his income for what’s left of his career. But the facts are that we paid him for all that time he was injured and this season would’ve been the time that he paid it back.

There was some good news in the shape of James Bree signing a new three-year contract which he absolutely earned with his performances in the second half of last season once he returned from Nathan Jones jail. He will certainly be a massive player this season and one that we can absolutely rely on the only game he actually lost in a Saints shirt last season was at Wembley against Manchester City. In terms of shifting perceptions in the fanbase, including mine, it’s the greatest comeback since his hairline.

The things that happen every year, namely the fixtures being published and the new kits being released, both happened. The fixture list up until the first international break really gives us a chance to establish ourselves near the top of the League, despite the -4 points. The highest ranked team we are playing in those opening eight games is Millwall and whilst Birmingham, Bristol City and Wrexham will have their challenges, we are not playing any of the teams who you would expect to be challenging for the automatic promotion places at the end of the season. Usually in the Championship, Saints are kind of dodgy for the first couple of months but the advantage this year is that it looks like we will have a settled squad and we won’t be trying to integrate fifteen new players or whatever. Curiously, the first game after the international break see us at home to the Skates, which is exactly the same timing as last season. For those who are interested in carrying over grudges, we are not playing Middleborough until the end of November, so it would be interested to see if Kim Hellberg is still in the job by then, or will he be crying in press conferences somewhere else?

As for the kits, well the home one is red and white stripes and has our badge on the front. The back has a solid red block for the name and number. It is what it is. The third kit is a mainly ivory effort which has the original Southampton City badge on it, which looks decent. The second kit has not been released yet but there is a leak of course and if that’s the actual shirt then it’s some sort of blue and pink swirly bullshit monstrosity that looks like it’s been designed by a small child. Absolutely honking effort.

After a few weeks of silence, we did get busy again in the transfer market with Lewis Dobbin joining from Aston Villa, having spent last year on loan at Preston North End, for whom he scored in both games against us. He is predominantly an attacking player who can either play on the wing or just behind the main striker. He has some pace and creativity so on the face of it looks like a very positive addition, maybe giving us an alternative to Finn Azaz in the number 10 role, as promised by Dragan Solak in his most recent interview.

So it’s all been nicely positive regarding the men’s side of the club but it was disappointing news regarding the women with funding being cut by 500 grand and the Academy being downgraded to category two. I understand the economics of this, with the women’s side of the club losing £2 million a year but it is of course not a particularly good look and it’s a real shame. The club was saying that it was a decision taken before the spy gate shambles but it feels a bit disingenuous to say that because if we gone up I very much doubt the funding would’ve been cut. It’s not just affecting the academy but also affecting the first team with players from last season first team, not re-signing like Atlanta Primus, Tara Bourne and Aimee Palmer and the goalkeeper Fran Stenson who did sign a new contract has now also left the club but at least we did get a fee there. From where we are right now, it is hard to see anything other than a battle against relegation from WSL2.

Here comes the spanner in the works… Tonda Eckert met with the FA as part of their ongoing investigation into everything. The one hangover from Spygate was of course the assumption that the FA were going to issue some sort of personal ban on Eckert. I assumed that they would be hoping that Saints would have sacked him but once we turned around and said “fuck you, we are going to do what’s best for us“, the ball has been in the FA’s court, for the past two fucking months.

Bearing in mind that we got found guilty and chucked out of the playoffs in a little more than a week, the delay has been ridiculous. Journalists like Henry Winter, a staunch defender of Marcelo Bielsa when he did similar, is defending the FA‘s delay by saying that they were delaying it so Tonda Eckert’s partner could have their baby. The thought of the FA or EFL or any such administrative body doing anything out of compassion, is pure fantasy. Much more likely is that they were all off on a jolly to the World Cup and once England got knocked out, they thought they’d better justify what they actually fucking do. So, rather than just saying here’s the ban and here’s the fine, they announced they would be charging him. Two months to come up with that, you useless arseholes. If they decide to ban Eckert now, one could be forgiven for thinking that have clearly delayed it to cause the maximum damage to Saints season. He’s been charged with three breaches of FA rule E3 .1 in relation to misconduct around the three games that we all know about, Oxford, Ipswich and Middlesbrough. He’s hardly going to deny it as it’s all been admitted already so just fucking get on with it.

For me personally, this is a ridiculous amount of overkill. Tonda himself has been punished enough, mainly through the stain on his name and not being a Premier League manager, which he in all likelihood, would’ve been. I don’t see what any further ban accomplishes because the message has already been sent to anyone else thinking of doing the same thing. As is very trendy at the moment, I feel a huge suspended ban would be fitting but after what happened a couple of months ago, I have absolutely no fucking idea how this is going to play out. If I was a betting man, there will be a fine and there will be a touchline ban of some description and the baying mob of people that we don’t give a fuck about, will all be up in arms. It’s going to be a theme of this season.

On the pitch, pre-season friendlies have started with a 3-1 win at Eastleigh and a 1-0 win at Eintract Braunschweig. Neither friendly has seen a sparkling performances as you would expect, but there’s been a few nice takeaways. Lewis Dobbin has been at the forefront of most of the good things that have happened in the attacking third and being back on German soil clearly suits Damion Downs, who scored the winner against Eintracht. Before we all get too excited, let’s remember that he scored a very good goal in a pre-season game last summer as well. This came hot on the heels of his performance at Eastleigh where he provided one of those airshot assists as only he can, for Romeo Akachukwu to score at the far post. Romeo is certainly a youngster who we may be seeing a bit more of this season.

So, as it stands, so far so good this pre-season. Peretz, Larin, Bree and Dobbin have all signed and only Stewart has left (and he may come back). Sponsors have remained and season tickets have flown out the door. On top of that – Damion Downs has scored. There is FA and their timing to cause maximum disruption of course, but even if the worst happens… “Fuck ’em All” has to be our attitude towards all those outside the club this season.

Up the Fuckin’ Saints