James Ward-Prowse Has Left the Building

 

The Inevitable Departure of James Ward-Prowse

To be honest, I knew this day would come from about January 2023, when in my mind, I accepted that Saints were going to get relegated at the end of the season. The day has now come and James Ward-Prowse has left Southampton.  It all aligned.

At 28 years old and absolutely at his peak, it was always going to happen for so many reasons.  The main one of course, is that he’s far too good for the Championship and there were always going to be Premier League suitors. 

Next up, he had recently found himself marginalised from the England squad and the inevitable feeling was that if he played for more high-profile club then he would certainly have been given more chances, despite never letting England down when he has played. It has always been this way. If you play for Southampton - you’ll get in the squad for qualifiers and friendlies but when it comes down to an actual tournament, you are not getting near the squad because an average player who plays for a bigger club and hardly gets any minutes on the pitch, will be preferred to someone who plays for Southampton who plays 90 minutes every week.  Playing for Saints makes you easy to drop to accommodate an Arsenal Reserve defender who was never ever going to play a minute at Euro 2020 for example.  JWP still harbours ambitions of playing international football and if you feel deep down that playing for Southampton in the Premier League is counting against you, it doesn't take a genius to work out what playing for Southampton in the Championship is going to do for your chances.

Get Yourself a Move to a Bigger Club

Financial reasons would also have played a part, from the clubs point of view, as he is the highest earning player at the club and as we all know, once you get relegated, the financial belt has to be pulled in a little bit more.  Also, after being at the club for twenty years, it would have been very difficult to stand in his way if a respectable offer (and this is a respectable offer) had come in

I’ve seen quite a few fans saying that he should stay for a year in the Championship and that he’s giving up his legend status but he isn’t really. Comparisons to long serving legends of the past don’t really stack up either.  Matt Le Tissier, as he has often admitted, would’ve left if we had got relegated and the last time I remember a comparable Saints player not leaving when we got relegated was Mick Channon in 1973.  That’s fifty years ago and football has moved on a bit since then.  Back then you could play for England from the second tier and the disparity in money and prestige wasn't there.  JWP could have stayed in his comfort zone here, that would have been the easy thing to do but he's chosen to shake things up and prove himself again. Taking the emotion of being a Saints fan out of it for a second, I would have been a bit disappointed in him if he had stayed.

JWP was always going to leave this summer and the only questions were where would he go and for how much?

The price that we were willing to sell him was always quoted at around the £40 million mark. The fact that we eventually sold him for £30 million tells you all you need to know about how accurate the press reported ‘expected fees’ are. In short, I find it very unlikely that any selling club is going to put the fee out there, so the figures are probably arbitrary. There was always a feeling that he would not be on the radar of the really big clubs, so it was always going to be one at Europa League level and the team in the end was West Ham, fresh off of winning the Europa Conference League and therefore qualifying for the Europa league next season and fresh from selling Declan Rice, so needing midfield reinforcements.

Going to West Ham is a bit of a risk. Yes they have European football this season but it always seems to be a club that lurches from one crisis to another. Even now it seems that some inside West Ham didn’t really want this transfer to go ahead and it’s David Moyes who is the transfers biggest cheerleader. It’s a risk because David Moyes always seems about two games from the sack at West Ham and there are plenty calling for him to go even now, having just won a European trophy. 

He also has to satisfy a new fan base, a fan base which historically has been very quick to turn if expectations are not met. JWP could have five dodgy games for Saints and the credit in the bank would mean that no one would really question him and everyone knew that his form would return. If he starts off with five dodgy games at West Ham then the knives will be out. If he does well though, many West Ham fans will realise that just labelling him as a free kick merchant was as ridiculous as Saints fans know it is.  Yes, he is outstanding at free kicks and they of course catch the eye but it’s certainly not a case of just because he’s outstanding at one thing, he is average at everything else.  The tracking back, the passing, the energy, the fitness.  He isn’t your Declan Rice replacement but will do a great job if partnered with the correct players in the centre of midfield.  Seeing him wearing a West Ham kit and doing little videos which end with ‘Come on you Irons’, will never not seem odd and maybe it’s just in my head, but he looked very awkward when doing it.

 

JWP and One of His Allies - Who We Got Rid Of

I attach no blame whatsoever to JWP. At 28 he has probably got four peak years left as a player and why would you want to spend 25% of that time at least, in the Championship?  The blame for his departure, completely lies with Southampton Football Club over the last three years, with the gradual decline over the first two of those and the complete shambles of last season which you can pin on any number of contributors – owners, managers, poor players, half-arsed players. If we play West Ham in the FA Cup this season, their fans will chant "James Ward-Prowse, He Left Cos You're Shit" and who could argue?  JWP has actually been captain for those last three years but no one could really point a finger in his direction.  You can only swim against the tide, carrying everyone on your back, for so long.

As a captain and as a player his performances were beyond reproach, despite the ridiculous workload that he was under. Basically, this was his brief - You have to be the captain, you have to score most of the goals, you have to provide most of the assists and do all that whilst playing as a deep No 6 because no one else is disciplined enough to do it.  By the way, you have to do all that whilst it’s a complete and utter shambles everywhere else with incompetent managers, poor standard players and players who don’t care oh and just to make it more of a challenge, over the last couple of years, we got rid of Nathan Redmond, Oriol Romeu and Fraser Forster, three of your biggest allies and three of your best mates.  

All we had to do to keep him was stay in the Premier League and we butchered it completely.  There is no way that he would’ve left if we had managed to stay up. It's a sad day but we, the club, made our own bed and now we have to lie in it.  Actions have consequences.  It's Saints fault he's not spending his entire career here, not his.

There's a Child on the Pitch, 2012

So, I feel that we have to remember what he’s done for the club and how much service he has given, wish him well and remember the good times.  JWP‘s first appearance of Saints came in 2011 when as a 16-year-old, he was picked to play in the League Cup game against Crystal Palace when Saints were in the Championship.  He also played in the FA Cup that season against Coventry and scored his first goal.  Nigel Adkins got us promoted and the opening game of the Premier League season in 2012 was away at Champions Manchester City and Ward-Prowse was on the teamsheet, as a 17 year-old.  

Premier League Debut at 17

From that moment in August 2012 to our relegation in May 2023, his career at Saints has completely encompassed the 11 seasons that we were in the Premier League and his only game outside the top flight was the opening game of this season at Sheffield Wednesday.  He’s had nine permanent managers in that time and they’ve all picked him regularly.

Significantly, he got regular game time under both Mauricio Pochettino and Ronald Koeman and when you consider the players we had at those times, to be an Academy lad of 20 to 22, getting games even as a substitute, in a team packed with internationals is no mean feat.  It's hard for Academy lads to get games when there is always the latest new flashy thing from Europe arriving to play in your position. Ralph Hasenhuttl was the manager who got him to toughen up and perform as a central midfielder in a two, something that never looked possible before.  Made captain after Pierre Hojbjerg left for Spurs and keeping his head above water and in the main, maintaining performance levels whilst the squad was getting weaker and weaker and seeing his number of goals and assists going up whilst everything else was crashing down.

Most people younger than 20 will struggle to remember a time when Saints put a team out on the pitch that didn’t have JWP in it, such has been his record of being available and being selected.  His last four seasons for the club have seen him play 38, 38, 36 and 38 Premier League games.  The four seasons before that saw 33, 30, 30 and 26 and you have to go back to that initial Premier League season of 2012/13 to find a season where he played less than 25 out of 38 Premier League games.

As our longest serving player, his leaving is a severing of the last playing connection to the last decent generation of young players who came through the club Academy. JWP of course broke through with Luke Shaw, Sam McQueen, Harrison Reed and Callum Chambers. Shaw and Chambers of course couldn’t leave quickly enough.

Don't Shoot From There, It's Miles Out

Having said that he is about considerably more than free-kicks, my personal favourite JWP moments from his 11 years in the first team of course, include some free-kicks.  The one against Spurs at St Mary‘s to win the game 2-1, the one at Wolves which was ridiculous and best of all, a non-free-kick moment - getting Wilfried Zaha sent off at St Mary‘s. Yes, JWP could be a proper shithouse. I find some comfort in the fact that though Zaha has now left Palace and JWP doesn’t play for Saints anymore, he will still be living rent-free in the heads of the Palace fan base next season.

Hi Wilf!

He's signed a four-year deal at West Ham but keep on eye on what’s going on in three years’ time.  It wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if he comes home but for that to even be an option, we have to get back into the Premier League and the only way we’re going to do that is if we move on from him and get things right, starting with adequately replacing him.

When some of these players who leave give it the “Once a Saint Always a Saint” upon departure, I replace the word “Saint” with something unprintable.  “Once a Saint Always a Saint” rings true for James Ward-Prowse however and hopefully he’ll be lining up against us next season in the league… and not because West Ham have been relegated.  JWP has moved on and so must we.

Club legend?  For me, he's up there and I wish him all the best.