There have been plenty of outs but so far in this window no ins ! with only around 36 hours to go before the window closes, do Saints need a new signing or not is the question.

This transfer window is due to close at 11 pm on Thursday 31st January for those who like to round off their transfer windows by gurning behind Sky Sports reporters in the freezing cold.

So far there has been a few rumours but little movement, with Saints quite rightly putting out the vibe that they are looking but only at the right price, it seems the vibe at St Mary's is they feel that they can get out of trouble with the squad they have got and then plan properly without having to panic buy.

On the face of it there is a lot of evidence to suggest that this is a good path to take, firstly of the four departed players only really Cedric has played any significant game time under Hasenhuttl, Gabbiadini only played 15 minutes at Cardiff and Hoedt and Davis none at all, so from this respect even with these departures the squad has not been depleted and with the return of Josh Sims some would say its actually improved a little in options.

However the danger is that we are too thin is some areas, we now have no right back of experience and on the left we are also short as we no longer have the option of switching Cedric to cover and with the injury issues this season for both Bertrand and Targett this could be a problem short term.

Even in the centre of defence the departure of Hoedt has left us short, only Bednarek has an unblemished reputation, Vestergaard was the worst of a bad lot up until the last few weeks and the jury is out and Yoshida and Stephens although having their moments have yet to put any true consistency into their game.

I am surprised that we are countenancing selling Austin given the fact that we have few other options up front with questions about Obafemi's fitness levels, he had to have three weeks out after his opening burst of games and after returning for the trip to Huddersfield he has yet to feature again in the five weeks since.

So I think in this transfer window we should be considering a striker at least which we appear to be doing in that we are serious about Che Adams from Birmingham, but I think more important is a central defender and I think here we are struggling to identify the right target at the right price and are going to risk going through the rest of the season with what we have which is a gamble, we should remember how Swansea dropped from a better position than us to relegation last season.

So perhaps Saints will pull a couple of things out of the bag in the final 36 hours, the good thing is that they are playing their cards close to their chest, they are making the right noises and saying the right things, that has always been how our best deals have been done in the past, out of the blue and under the radar, a club that boasts of how much it is going to spend and who they are going to buy is always going to pay over the odds, fans don't like silence, but it is the right strategy, last January we deviated from that policy to pacify a revolting fan base, or should I say a fan base that was revolting lol, we paid the price on having to be seen to be doing something indeed anything.

This January is different, we do have the squad it is really only in a couple of key positions we could do with strengthening.

Photo: Action Images

beynali73 added 11:31 - Jan 30 Agree with the above Nick. Buying in the January window is a fine balancing act between not be too eager (bidding early) but also not backing yourself into a corner (bidding with a few hours left). Brum hold all the cards on Che. He'd probably go straight into the first team with us which gives Brum an incentive to ask for more than the board would be willing to spend. If the rumours of bigger clubs being interested are true they can bid as low or high as they want in the summer knowing that their pull is stronger in terms of wages they can offer the player. We know what our boards loose strategy is - buy reasonably sell as high as possible. It puts a ceiling on what the club can achieve but we all know that. At least we have a vital component in this type of strategy - an intelligent manager. The other vital component is a sympathetic board which gives the manager the tools to do his job. This means not only supporting transfers but, more importantly, keeping hold of our best players for as long as possible.

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SanMarco added 13:02 - Jan 30 Very, very risky not to at least strengthen the centre of defence. Some people on here seem to be thinking we are already safe, one look at the league table tells the true story. A good CB and a goal-scorer would see us safe in my view - to do nothing is to assume there will be no injuries and suspensions and that the current squad is definitely good enough, very dangerous assumptions in my view.

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A1079 added 13:29 - Jan 30 In answer to your question in your first paragraph - do we need a new signing or two?-Undeniably Yes, but do I think it will happen? - No - at least, not where we need it most.
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mikesaint added 14:10 - Jan 30 I hope we sign a striker and a defender before the window shuts. Several teams have been linked to Charlie Austin and Nottingham Forest and Swansea have made approaches to loan Sam Gallagher if this happens we could be very short up front. One paper states that Sam Gallagher is on £40,000 a week what idiot put him on that much?
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