Southampton Hype

The biggest transfer story of the Summer is Southampton - a bunch of their players being picked up by some of the top clubs in the Premiership. At the time of writing, they've sold five of their better players for over £100m. And more may leave.

The question to ponder is whether this is a bad thing for Southampton (the prevailing view) or a rather good thing (my view)?

Historically fans of smaller clubs hate losing players, because it underlines their club's position as a feeder club to the bigger outfits. But in those terms, all clubs except the very biggest and best in the World are feeder clubs. When Real Madrid wanted Ronaldo there was little Man Utd could do to stop it. I doubt Southampton or their fans are very happy about losing so many of their players in so short a time - that is undoubtedly problematic, as it leads to a period of unsettled uncertainty and flux. Never the best thing in such a competitive league.

But modern football is modern football. The relationship between clubs and players has changed enormously in recent years. Running down contracts is a thing, and it just means that any well-run club simply cannot hang onto players and let their value run down without disastrous results. We're already at the point where most contracts for footballers outside of the big time are relatively short-term deals, and players simply flit from club to club looking for the best deal. The idea of a player sticking with a club throughout their career is becoming less and less common. I don't think fans or pundits have come to terms with the reality yet - that players move clubs a lot. These players used to get called mercenaries, but that description has died out now because it's simply become the norm.

I remain convinced that the best (and maybe only) way for any 'normal' club to succeed now is to sell their players at their highest value, and create or purchase replacements who are undervalued.

And there's little doubt in my mind that a number of Southampton players are at the peak of their value. Jaws dropped at the £33m paid for Luke Shaw at aged 18 - two solid if unspectacular seasons at left-back give little real indication to his valuation. Lovren's value has gone up 150% in the space of a season. £27m for Adam Lallana, who was playing in League One three years ago, is similarly surprising. Actually there's an odd theory with Lallana - if he is really worth £25m to Liverpool at 25, then he was probably worth even more than that to a top club at a younger age with more capacity to excel (as Shaw is at that price). But I'm not sure anybody really subscribes to that theory - the most likely and obvious truth is that Liverpool have paid well over the odds for Lallana, and full well know it!

One explanation for these high prices is the state of the transfer market in Britain. There is undoubtedly a lot of transfer money sloshing around, and prices have gone up as a result. But I don't think that is necessarily the primary factor here - after all there are still potential bargain signings coming in elsewhere in the league. But maybe the major difference is that the expanded list of big clubs battling for a Champions League place are, perhaps more now than ever before, desperate for proven quality over value. So while the 'normal' (ie not endlessly rich) clubs still need to operate in terms of value, those at the top are simply desperate to pay for 'quality', wherever that might seem to be guaranteed.

And there's something about the hype around Southampton that has created a sort of price bubble around their players. Something to do with the mystique of Pochettino as a progressive modern manager (though Southampton and many of their players were doing well enough before he came). Something to do with their early season form that made them the media darlings and designated surprise team of last season (even though their success was fleeting and they finished in mid-table just above Stoke). And something about the club's reputation as a hotbed for young talent, which has been building over years and is fed by the success of former youths like Walcott, Oxlade Chamberlain and Bale (who the club almost released at one point). I just think it's become the perfect storm where being a promising player at Southampton is suddenly enough to turn heads not just among the competition in mid-table, but from the biggest clubs in the land. And I also think this clamour for their players has been infectious, as if the big clubs are panicking over the pickings in the desperate assumption that they must get on board or risk missing out.

It sounds like I'm belittling the professional judgement of big clubs in Britain, but I'm really not. It's just that I think that clubs in the transfer market are considering imponderables in terms of ultimately valuing possible signings, and that this is a sign that they are more and more reliant on measures of short-term form than almost any other measure. It's all very well to search the World for technical ability, but at the end of the day the top British clubs are desperate for players who will hit the ground running and deliver in the first few weeks of their new seasons at their new clubs. As it happens I think that Shaw must be judged as a good player for Man Utd to have, whatever he cost them. Same with Lovren and Lallana for Liverpool.

What of Southampton? I would argue that if their plan was to produce players of great quality in demand at the highest level, then they are at worst a victim of that success. I speak as the fan of a club who would love for any of their squad to be considered worth £5m in the market, let alone £25m. I fail to see how this episode can be taken as anything other than a sign of the good health of Southampton and their methods. Their investment in their youth academy must already be in massive profit, with more to come. Their transfer strategy must be judged absolutely superb, with the few exceptions that are always to be expected. They seem like the current model for what a well-run club should be. Those predicting disaster in the wake of these sales seem to me wilfully oblivious to the reasons the players were worth that in the first place - isn't it more logical to expect that Southampton will repeat to at least some extent the process with new signings and new youth products.

I think their future looks extremely rosy. They have bought statistically the two best players from the Eredivisie, Pelle and Tadic, and in Koeman a respected player and manager with good experience of working in that arena. They've just loaned Bertrand who seems a very worthy short-and-maybe-long term replacement for Shaw. They still have Schneiderlin and Rodriguez among their prize assets, along with Fonte and Wanyama and Yoshida and others. And they may well have youth products to blood in the next season, of which Ward-Prowse is already a noted talent. As long as they don't syphon off the profits from their recent sales, they have many millions to reinvest in the squad in future, in the infrastructure of the club, to keep them healthy long into the future. Whether they can ever step up to the very top level is very debatable, but I can't think of another club in a better position to have a decent attempt over the next decade or so. And I'm in no doubt that they're in a better state to do that with £100m extra in their pocket.