Not Andy Naylor
Well-known member
I heard an interesting podcast recently with the guy who is something like the Head of Football at Southampton.
He was explaining how they have to strike the balance between getting the best possible price for their players but also not to be seen as a club who make it difficult for players to move on to better things by holding out for ridiculous sums.
The reason this is so key is that the young talent would never join them in the first place if Soton were seen as a club who make it difficult to move onto that next step.
I have no doubt we play it similarly. We must approach people like Biss, Trossard, Cucurella with the idea of "look, come to us, we play good football, you will get noticed and if a sensilble offer comes in you can go with our best wishes".
With that in mind, although he is OUR asset, and we obviously won't let him go for peanuts, there is no way in my opinion that we are going to do a Daniel Levy and say "It's 80m or no deal".
"Interesting" and "Southampton" in the same sentence? No, I can't deal with that at all.
But if I could, I'd point out that the reason we pulled out of the deal for Livramento is that we didn't like the terms that Chelsea were asking for, which guaranteed them first refusal on a buy-back with a capped price. It would have made it too much like a loan which, as we know, TB doesn't like because in effect we are developing other clubs' players for them. Southampton obviously aren't of the same opinion, hence the Livramento signing and the loan of Broja.
So TB obviously draws the line in a different place from at least one other Premier League club. Turning down 80m would be a bit strong even for TB, but I'm perfectly prepared to believe that he will let whoever is negotiating for him over a possible player sale that there is a minimum price and they can either pay it or walk away.