Don't Threaten the Status Quo

It's an Important Summer for these Guys!

All you need to know about the current situation at Southampton Football Club is that it’s of course a massive summer and the Board either will or won’t lay out plans and finance to keep improving.  If they do then I suspect, Mauricio will stay, sign a new contract and the loss of players to the vultures will be minimised.  If things are not right and Mauricio leaves then you can expect a bit of a stampede with Adam Lallana and Luke Shaw probably being the first out the door with Dejan Lovren and Morgan Schneiderlin forming an orderly queue just behind.

There is a phrase that you can be ‘victims of your own success’ and you can see it happening here.  We’ve had plaudits from all corners of the football world regarding how well we play and how well we’ve done and how good our players are.  Everyone fawns over the academy and the conveyor belt of players which is something we’ve had to do out of necessity and because we saw it as the way forward.  The big clubs, who can afford to throw money away on big name players who don’t work out, see what we’re doing and think “we’ll have some of that” but of course, they don’t want to sort their academy out and wait ten years to reap the benefits, they want to do it now which of course means throwing big wedges of cash around.  It’s the nature of the beast and it sucks.

The whole nature of the way the game is run in this country is to perpetuate the status quo.  We have these massive clubs and they are the most important and their monopoly and control cannot be challenged.  If a smaller club comes along and gets it right, then they must be pillaged and kicked back down to their rightful place.  We’ve done brilliantly to get where we are but we are at the limit of what we can achieve without significantly more money.

The powers that be, be it the FA, the Premier League or whoever, want to bring in rules all over the place but it never seems to be for the benefit of anyone other than the big boys.  Here’s an idea, how about some rules that protect or reward clubs who do develop good English players and who do put them in the first team?  How about a league table where you get a point for every minute an English qualified player plays for you.  Then, you hand out ridiculous prize money (like the real league) at the end of the season which would massively incentivize teams to try and play English players?  It’s not a rule so you’re not breaking any EU rules but it is an incentive so where’s the harm in that.

Instead though, we have some kind of half arsed idea of creating a B League within the existing football pyramid so that Chelsea’s B team of 11 non-English EU players will smash The Daggers 8-0 in a couple of years as that will really benefit the development of English players.  No matter though because it’ll benefit Chelsea.  Even at European level we have rules that are supposed to stop over spending but what happens?  Teams cheat by breaking the rules and they get fined more money which is bizarre... and they’re allowed to keep on cheating as long as they can afford the fine.  As long as you pay for the privilege of over-spending then that’s ok.

Back to Saints and the potential impending summer and if we take Adam Lallana as an example and we take Liverpool as an example destination (which is the one the agenda driven media are peddling as I wrote) – the main thing they can offer that we can’t is Champions League Football.  Against that we can offer the club captaincy and a guaranteed game every week.  In order to offer what Liverpool can, we need to be able to say that we are going to be competing to get in that top 4 in the next couple of years and unless the Board come up with the goods then we won’t be able to.    I guess the question you have to ask is ‘how far are we behind Arsenal?’ who are going to finish 4^th this year.  At the moment it’s 21 points.  Is it possible to close a 21 point gap in a season?  At the moment I’d say it would take at least five big players to do that, as well as of course, not losing what we have.

I’ve been thinking about worst case scenarios and how I’d feel if certain players left.  I’m usually the first to slam the bedwetters and I realise I’m skirting around that territory here….

Luke Shaw – originally I thought that I’d find this one relatively easy because of the calibre of clubs that are going to be interested in him and the amount of money we’d get for him and then I remembered Theo Walcott and Gareth Bale.  Before they left at age 17 or whatever, I remember thinking that if they played for Saints for 7 years, they’d still only be 24 and then they’d be fine for the big move and I’d wish them well and thanks for the years of service etc.  Of course, they went but it wasn’t so hard to take because we weren’t in the Premier League.  If Luke goes, I won’t be surprised but I’ll be annoyed that he didn’t give us longer than 2 years as a pro.  Gutted Factor 9/10

Adam Lallana – in contrast, Adam is now 26 and has been with us all his career.  He’s developed from a League 1 player to an international with us and is getting better every year.  Even though he is more synonymous with Southampton than Luke Shaw, he’s given us a lot more and showed loyalty before when he could have moved on.  His statements that he made when given a new contract and the captaincy would stick in the throat a bit if he left but if he goes and we get the right money for him then I could deal with it – though he’d be bloody difficult to replace.  By ‘right money’, I mean the English premium, overpriced, we’re not bending over and taking it because you’re bigger than us price.  Also known as the ‘you want something that’s not for sale then you have to pay huge for it’ price.  Also known as the ‘he’s on a 5 year contract so add a  couple of zeroes’ price.  Gutted Factor 8/10

Dejan Lovren – I’d be annoyed because he’s only been with us a year and annoyed because we’d done the research on him, we’d put the money down and we got him relatively cheaply.  Then along comes a big boy and says “he’s far too good for you, we’ll have him”.  It wouldn’t be as annoying as he’s not an academy graduate but he is a fabulous player and it would leave a massive hole that we’d have to fill.  Gutted Factor 7/10

Morgan Schneiderlin – A bit different to Lovren in that he’s given us 6 years.  A bit different to Lallana in that he’s not made the leap to International football which is down to the French manager being an idiot.  It used to be the case that you have to leave Southampton to get an England cap but now that seems to apply to French players.  He’d be the easiest of the 4 to replace as we have players to step in already but he is a class act and it would weaken things if he went.  Gutted Factor 6/10

Mauricio Pochettino – Usually you’d say that a manager is the most replaceable but at this point in time, I consider the retaining of the manager to be the key to the whole thing.  In my opinion, it would be a disaster if he left as it would say that the Board aren’t prepared to fund things to a level that can improve us and everyone with ambitions to move higher will be looking for the exit door.  Gutted factor 11/10

All of these Gutted factors are based on the player or manager moving to one the current top 4 or Manchester United who will be back.  If they move to Tottenham then you can multiply the gutted factor by at least two.

I have to admit, I do expect one or two to leave this summer regardless of whether Mauricio stays or not.   If I had to guess I’d say the two that will go will be Shaw and Schneiderlin but we will get top money for whoever leaves and we’ll invest that in the team.  Then it comes down to how Les Reed and the manager invest the money – more Lovren’s and Wanyama’s and we get stronger.  More Osvaldo’s then the opposite.  It’ll a crying shame if we can’t add to the foundations we have, rather than worrying about the foundations themselves being ripped away.

It would be a good start if Ralph Krueger and Katharina Liebherr get so irritated by the unavoidable smugness and superiority complex that Manchester United will bring with them on Saturday, that they refuse point blank to do any business with them.