There aren’t many with a good word to say about Ivan Juric’s tenure as Saints boss, but he has covered his losses for the club after buying Kamaldeen Sulemana for much more than we could have hoped in our wildest dreams

Southampton FC have confirmed that they have completed the deal for Kamaldeen Sulemana’s transfer to Italian side Atalanta, if that is not enough reason to be cheerful, the further news that the club have received €17 million plus a reported €4 million in add ons is a lot more than we could have wished for.

After signing for £22 million in sterling 2 1/2 years ago, his value dropped like a stone as he failed to shine in the Championship and initially back in the Premier League, his 4 goals in over 70 games a not very impressive return, he didn’t have much different in terms os assists and even the most optimistic of Saints supporters would have imagined that the club would be lucky to get £10 million for him.

His stature did go up though under Ivan Juric and it seems that Juric has pushed this deal through with his new employers and in his enthusiasm has also pushed up the fee that we will get for him.

Juric’s spell at the club was costly, not as much as some would think given that there was a break clause in July and that his period of employment with Southampton ended before even that due to his securing the job with Atalanta.

But he has repaid a big chunk of his wages etc with the €17 million initial fee being a tad under £15 million and the potential for that to rise by £3,500.

If this works out well for Sulemana in Italy and I truly hope that it does, then we could recoup £18.5 million, only a £3.5 million loss.

So a big thank you to Ivan Juric who finally did something for Saints, even though he had already left the club.

Now if we can complete the transfer of Tall Paul Onuachu to Trabzonspor, that would see over £20 million in the coffers and two big chunks of wages of the books in the space of a few days.

Reuters

Bowlercow added 08:16 - Jul 3 A pity he didn't work out I enjoyed watching him play but he just couldn't find that end product
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IanRC added 09:12 - Jul 3 We will regret selling him, under a good manager and with decent strike partners he will shine and we will again count the cost of poor SR decisions. SR incidentally appear intent on having the women's team relegated as well given that they have released our best player Molly Pike. Utter nonsense.
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Block8 added 09:37 - Jul 3 If you look at his performances and considering his confidence was clearly undermined by Martin, it's a good deal for us. There are performance bonuses built in plus a 15% sell on fee. I really wanted him to succeed both for him and us but he just came up short too often. I hope he eventually shows his talent as it may prove that the problem wasn't him!
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HythePeer added 10:00 - Jul 3 With Onuachu and Ramsdale gone, that'll be the three best players gone. Still has got his work cut out trying to win a game with the remainder.
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SaintPaulVW added 11:44 - Jul 3 I don't think taking KS off our hands really covers his share of blame for our the loss of PL status. If he buys Tall Paul and BBD as well, I'll consider the debt settled.
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codge added 11:58 - Jul 3 Just goes to show he really doesn’t know what he is doing as we thought all along.
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WestSussexSaint added 13:15 - Jul 3 Couple of points 1) Even if Juric has paid over the odds, I don’t think this transfer covers the losses felt by Saints through relegation. Now if he and Russel Martin would like to reimburse all the fans for the ticket money they spent last season watching the cr@p last season then fair enough. 2) To IanRC and all the other Sports Republic bashers out there. Our owners are far from perfect and no doubt have made mistakes which Dragan recently acknowledged. But before you complain again have a read of what is happening at Sheffield Wednesday to see what really bad owners are like.

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SWH1748 added 16:24 - Jul 3 Hythepeer, you really think that’s the 3 best players gone lol. Fernandez was by far our best player.
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YosemiteSaint added 17:35 - Jul 3 The Kamaldeen and Paul transfer sagas are so well worn I almost stopped clicking on Saints news altogether. Glad to see we're paving the way for a new era without those fruitless panic buys.
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Colburn added 19:24 - Jul 3 Wow there really is some divided opinion here! The truth is usually somewhere in the middle. I think the biggest issue we have had is recruitment, this impacted heavily on Martin and Juric last year and I would suggest that opinion is shared by the likes of Rangers and Atalanta. We didn’t have anywhere near the right recruitment to enable the better players to thrive. Sulemana clearly had the talent, he destroyed Man United at OT and showed much in other games. The issue was the end product and that may have been just down to the overall confidence of him and the team. In a fresh start in a better and established team, he might well produce the goods. In that league, I think he will as it’s not as tough as the PL. Equally, it was probably time for him to move on as it just didn’t work for him here and to get the fee we have as definitely more than I could have hoped for. I didn’t hear about any interest in him from any Prem teams so it’s a good fee. According to Transfermarkt and some other sites on Google, Onuachu is a Trabzonspor player with a fee of 6 million euros. That’ll do..

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mumps added 22:18 - Jul 3 Interesting of all the players on loan at other clubs last season only Bazunu and Charles have been added back into the team on the Saints website, yet they have already removed Onuachu and Sulemana. No Armstrong, Brereton Díaz, Edozie, Matsuki, Juan or new signing Quarshie (albeit that he could be off to Turkey for a season). https://www.southamptonfc.com/en/teams/mens-team

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AJDubYa added 23:50 - Jul 3 @IanRC - yes, its very sad to see sooooo many women leaving the squad, have we even barely got a Team in situ still?! Know there's been 3 new faces through the door today, but we lost something like 10! And experienced heads too - new ones are young. A lot more recruitment needed, and soon!
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AJDubYa added 23:53 - Jul 3 Ref Sulemana sale - I think that's a pretty good deal, with the bonuses and the sell on (15%). Not TOO much of a loss overall. Good deal - never really done it for us, sure he'll bang them in for Atalanta now! lol
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