Goodbye Jose and......

Maybe a promotion to Major from Captain would sway Fonte to stay.

MHO he is staying.

 

Major loss.......

 

My gut feeling is that Fonte will leave. He clearly wants to go, United are clearly interested and I imagine a player of his standing in the club would have a certain amount of weight around the place and the club will ultimately respect his wishes. He hasn't been the same since he arrived back from his holiday, a player's body language can be very telling and there has been enough silence to indicate that his heart isn't really in Southampton any more. I know he started against United but there was even (for me) signs in his performance that he wasn't entirely committed. He didn't even leave the ground when Ibrahimovic scored. This is just how I see it, I stand to be corrected and I hope I am.

 

Erm your sentences about his performance are pretty crazy

 

Er.....Zlatan is the master of scoring headers. he's unbeatable in the air.

 

Crazy how? It's just how I saw it.

 

VVD would beat him

 

He wasn't committed? He threw himself into a tackle against a speeding Martial taking man and ball. He misjudged the cross and ended up jumping/falling backwards in a desperate attempt to stop Zlatan, only going to be one outcome. His only other mistake was getting done for pace by Martial in the second half.

 

Its a case of when he goes,not if.........

 

This. I thought he played well, considering he was thrown in at the deep end. You can't possibly expect him to outmuscle an oncoming Zlatan.

 

Only if he was captain

 

He's only going if we have a more than capable replacement lined up. The board know that selling him this late in the window without one would be suicide.

I'm sure Les has fingers in a lot of pies.

 

Pretty sure the club holds the nap hand here. Jose probably has his agent puffing and blowing in his ear, and his head has doubtless been turned. But he doesn't appear to have burned any bridges, at least not publicly. If the club insists he stays, then I'm sure once the window is closed he'll accept it and knuckle down. He then just has to decide if he wants to take the improved contract on offer - which he'd be daft not to do considering he ain't going nowhere.

 

All of this "The club have control" vs "Can't stop players from going" is killing me.

In any endeavor, you are presented with obstacles. The Fonte situation is definitely one of them.

We absolutely, 100% can keep Fonte. We also have the ability to raise his salary well above the 75k we are purportedly offering. Or we could sell him.

Beyond that, I suspect the club have a Plan B if Fonte leaves. But Plan B is not as good as Plan A. That is why it is Plan B.

So there are many options. And yet none of them are particularly appealing options and they are all fraught with risk.

I mean, I don't know. The club has done a fantastic job, but they are a hairbreadth away from a **** season. That's life in one of the most competitive leagues in the world on a shoe string budget compared to the big clubs.

If it weren't really hard to to get it right, it wouldn't be so awesome when we do it.

 

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/...-bastian-schweinsteiger-matthew-a7204806.html

Article suggesting that ManU have to offload players before a move for Fonte is sanctioned. Let's hope they can't shift their unwanted players. Interesting to see that United make expensive mistakes as well.

 

I thought that's what they were doing with McNair and Blackett, making way for centre back reinforcement.

 

The key difference is they can afford to make multiple expensive mistakes and not really impact them financially. Once saw an article (awhile ago now, so not sure I'll be able to find it) that was talking about how big clubs financially basically let teams like Saints buy a £10m player (think Wanyama was even referenced in the article) as they can afford to see if they actually become any good in the PL and will just be able to buy them for £20-£25m a season or so later. This article was basically arguing that any player who gets picked up by a PL team in the £10-£15m bracket has clearly had a good season at whichever club they have come from so it can be hard to judge how good they would be in the PL, so big teams are better served not signing this type of player until they have proven it with a smaller club in the PL.

 

Makes sense I suppose. I'm sure by now Southampton fans are under no illusions as to where our place in the food chain lies.

 

This has always seemed strange to me. We all know Fonte and his strengths and have been surprised (and grateful) that he has been overlooked by teams such as Liverpool and Spurs when they have been busy sniffing around our players. But Manchester United?? Like Chelsea, this is a team that pays huge sums for players that I've even heard of. To keep Fonte, Saints don't want to increase the length of his contract....even his most ardent fans are expecting his game to drop off in the next year or two. The link must be Mourinho....does he need a friend....does he see Fonte as a coach even more than as a player. We know Fonte is taking his coaching badges....does he see this not as just a chance to work for United, but also the chance to attach himself to Mourinho's star.

 

Yeah it was a good article, and I found myself agreeing with a lot of what it said. Quite often I see a player joining Swansea/WBA/Everton/West Ham who I am jealous of them signing and thinking why a top team hasn't gone in for them, only to see a year/18 months later that they have been pretty average at the mid table club and wouldn't have been the answer for a bigger team. Lucky I am not a scout