Saints are starting the Will Still era in a state of uncertainty, they know that several of their assets will be coveted by others, but they are not going to lie down and sell players under the market value.

The Saints squad falls into several categories, firstly the one that the players who are in high demand, that would include Mateus Fernandes, Arron Russell, Tyler Dibling, these are probably the only ones who will potentially fetch a high transfer fee, at least £25 million for both Ramsdale & Fernandes & slightly higher for Dibling.

I would expect the first two to depart with no shortage of potential suitors, however Dibling may prove more problematic, in January his stock was high, but his lack of game time and performance level dropped in the second half of the season, so Saints may struggle to get top dollar for him.

This category should fetch somewhere between £75-100 million in total.

The second category is those who will probably be courted by Premier League clubs or other top flight clubs abroad, but may be a little stuck because firstly clubs aren't willing to match Southampton's valuations and secondly their own wages at St Mary's are unlikely to be met, here we find Taylor Harwood-Bellis, Jan Bednarek, Kamaldeen Sulemana, Armel Bella-Kotchap & Tall Paul Onuachu

.
In the case of THB, we will be looking to at least recoup the £20 million we paid, and with the rest if we can scrape £10 million each we will be doing well, so in this category we could bring in around £40 million, a lot less than what we paid, but getting something back.

Then there is the section that contains the unknowns in terms of their future at St Mary's, players whose future is uncertain, ie contracts in final year, have been out of favour or have been out on loan, here we find Sam Edozie, Juan Larios, Joe Aribo, Shea Charles, Adam Armstrong, Ben Brereton-Diaz, Yuri Sugawara, Charlie Taylor, Ryan Fraser & Cameron Archer.

Now I would hope some would stay, Adam Armstrong & Shea Charles for two, but I would expect around half to go and the other half to find they have to take a pay cut or stick it out for more money.

This category could see some leeway where Saints cut their losses to get players off the books, but again, if all were to go, I would think that we could get as much as £60 million if their current market values are reached.

I would not think that all will leave, but I would expect half to leave, i would not think that we would keep both Cameron Archer & Adam Armstrong for instance, but I would be surprised if either could achieve the wages they receive here at another club.

So if we sold all these players we could get anywhere between £130-200 million, although I would not expect this to happen as it would leave the squad fairly barren.

But I would expect Saints to be tough in negotiations as we were two years ago when we were relegated, certainly we need to be on the players we would like to keep and Johannes Spors has shown in his first weeks at the club that he is a man with a plan.

We will lose some key players that is for sure, we would want to lose some of them, but key here are the players that I would expect to stay and who may not be Premier League players, but are proven quality in the Championship, the core of the squad will be Gavin Bazunu, Ryan Manning, Welington, Nathan Wood, Ronnie Edwards, Flynn Downes, Will Smallbone, James Bree, Ross Stewart & then youngsters such as Jay Robinson and Joachim Sanda who have looked good in not only the U21 side but in a couple of Premier League appearances.

That is the basis of a squad that can compete for promotion and when we add half a dozen or so players from the three sections above, we will have around 18 players that are proven in the Championship, that is a good foundation.

Then it will be a case of filling the key positions, partly using transfer money we have received in, but also by utilising the loan system as we did to good use in 2023/24 season.

Of course some of you will disagree with me in some areas or some players, but that is football it is all about opinion's.

The good thing though is that we can look forward to next season with hope, instead of writing countless articles about how poor we have been, we can take actual fact, that many of the players who will stay formed the basis of our last promotion side and that we can improve that side with the likes of Ronnie Edwards.

I may not be proved right, but for the first time in nearly a year, there is something to look forward to other than constant possession football and errors costing us dearly. WE have a manager who looks like he can be the real deal, a Director of football who seems to have his finger on the pulse, we have direction.

I am not making excuses for last season, it is now done and dusted, it can't be changed and we now have to move forward, but we should not judge players in the context of the Premier League, we did not have enough proven Premier League quality to give those that may have been able to step up a chance of doing so.

But we do have a lot of proven Championship quality and that is what is needed now, a team to get us out of the division and then we can build on that next summer.

All Photos Via Reuters

OoohTerryHurlock added 09:36 - May 28 I’m a tad confused. Who is Aaron Russell?
3

kenchilds70 added 10:23 - May 28 And add sell-on clauses to these players sales.
1

WoolstonSaint2 added 11:03 - May 28 I would flog at least half our squad asap, even on the cheap. Deadwood lightweights see ya later. We desperately need a couple of badass tough nuts at CB and CM, who can stop Saints conceding a ridiculous number of goals- must be about 140 odd in the last two seasons?
4

DellBoyWally added 11:19 - May 28 Get a proper gk, definitely not Bazumu! Failed at all levels; and out on loan. Not Armstrong. Can't score in the Championship now.
3

Bowlercow added 11:29 - May 28 I did a similar summary and came up with £150m from transfers It still left us a sound championship squad If we can add a keeper,a senior cb and an attacking m/f Remember we have a m/f player at Gotzepe who has done well out there but is unknown to us Could be the Fernandez replacement
0

onetowatch added 12:35 - May 28 I was just about to renew my season ticket , then I read your article containing who you expect to make up the core of the squad.....Smallbone!!!! I'm now 'reviewing the situation'....
4

WoolstonSaint2 added 12:55 - May 28 Saints must not be too tough on sale fees. Otherwise we’ll still have a squad of 30 at the end of August, because no one’s fee has been agreed and we have no money to spend on quality additions desperately need. Have a fire sale, get rid of deadwood lightweights. Raise £100m and off we go to the toy shop.
2

JoeEgg added 14:03 - May 28 We have no one to blame but ourselves for the horrendous mess that we are now in. The players will decide who goes and who stays - they look after themselves not Southampton FC. What is the point of filling the squad with bang average Championship players and then argue that we need to get back into the Premier League.. This is a challenge and a half for Will Still and many of the players that you propose we retain should be dispatched to the lower divisions. It will take more than one season to recover from the debacle that was the 24/25 Prelmîer League season.

0

Block8 added 19:22 - May 28 We absolutely need to get top dollar for the real stars and something for the also rans. Unless there is a relegation clause we need to either get their value or hold onto them! I can't see our wage structure being an issue to clubs over here but the PL pay is significantly higher than most of Europe. So in that instance for some of the also rans we may have to take a bit of a hit to move them on. Also, we like all of the small clubs with ambition have to sign young up and coming stars that are a bit of a gamble. Despite, as fans, our desire is to sign top PL ready stars it is virtually impossible to do so. Being a Championship team makes it even harder. What we should do is look at some of the best youngsters and add some class older experienced players to help them along but ensure we give them game time!

1

Blogs 31 bloggers

Derby County Polls