Are Southampton being sold down the river?

[Not Andy Naylor]

I'm not going to be an idiot and deny that's a factor at work, but for me it's not a convincing explanation to explain the totality of our transfer work - plenty of deals have been done already at our level.

My alternative explanation is that Southampton are willing to go aggressively after their targets and take a good punt on reinvesting a LOT of their transfer revenues in signing replacements - I think they see it as vital to retaining their Prem status to do so. We seem much more diffident at the moment, as if the board think we can muddle by this season even if we miss out regularly on targets.

As a rather good interview in today's Independent on Sunday with Southampton executive director Les Reed explains, they consciously waited until they had their new manager in place before buying players. Unlike certain other clubs, they didn't see any point in bringing in players they had targeted until they knew that their new manager wanted them. And they say that all the money that player sales have brought in can be re-invested.

Of course, they have TV money and don't face the same FFP restrictions that we do ...

 

[DumLum]

Sitting in second place tonight. I know its really early on in the season but I still didn't expect that.