Wanyama wants to leave! [tough, you're staying - deal with it]

Whatever the truth, wanyama will not be as focused as he should be so little point in playing him today. After Tuesday I expect him to take the same approach as morgan last season and knuckle down for one last year in the limelight before disappearing into obscurity. Not that morgan will do that - a different class of footballer altogether.

 

Or we could call it loyalty to the person who built their career.

 

That too. It's a difficult situation to judge, really.

 

I don't think he'll leave till next summer window. Club will refuse offers or transfer request, and we'll get another season out of him before a big profit. Just my opinion though. I'm certainly not going to worry about speculation.

 

And then his faults we have forgiven because we usually love our players will become a source of amusement for us when he plays at another club.

 

Interesting point Fran. To be honest, to me it feels a *lot* like my job in some ways - you start managing a music talent at an early stage and basically act as a guide on and off the 'pitch' to help make the most of their usually short career. Thing is, if it's being driven by wanting the best for your client, rather than money, you have to take a long-view on things. To be honest, in this position he should be advising Vic to knuckle down and play well this season before negotiating a big money move next summer (which would benefit both him and Vic).

Look at the situation with Morgan - he could easily have ended up on the end of a £15m move to Tottenham at the back end of last season. Presuming an agent will take, say, 10%, he would have pocketed £1.5. Because he got his head down, he got a £25m move to a superior, far bigger team and the agent got another £1m for his trouble.

Trust me, with the job I do, I'm all for close relationships and loyalty. It's incredibly important and in the long run will serve a person far better than jumping around. But the key thing here is that the person you're working with doing that HAS to be relatively selfless and only look at opportunities that'll be positive for their client, not themselves.

Probably the key part of a job like that is the ability to say NO to your client if they show a sign of just 'chasing the money' that could be a detriment to their career. In fact it's the number one thing you have to be able to do.

 

I can't remember his name, but one of the top football agents said the same thing on Sky a bit back. A good agent wants to develop a players career and it isn't necessarily where the big money is at first.

 

Loyalty isn't always a good thing.

 

But I was pointing out that we can't praise loyalty to one thing and not admire it in another situation. Wanyama obviously thinks this chap has done well by him....as he said in the press conference a while back, he plays football and leaves the other stuff to his agent.

 

Ffs . if it was not so late in the transfer window i would say get rid.

 

But there is such a thing as realising the person who is meant to help your career isn't doing that. I get his agent found him and got him to Celtic and then to us. But that doesn't mean he really cares about you. The problem is some players aren't bright enough to see when their agent needs to be reined in.

 

Don't know anything about Victor, but he comes over as a big softie...looks can be deceptive though.

 

Not read the entire 13 pages so excuse me if this is a tad off topic, but for me agents aren't the only issues with this sort of thing. It's the whole football culture.

I can't say what things used to be like, as I only took an interest in football a few years ago. But how many times last season for example whenever we played well were comments made like "Schneiderlin played really well, United should buy him" or "Liverpool are crying out for a player like Clyne". It's the expectation that if you have players who are playing well, they inevitably could - and should - move on to a big club, purely because they're a big club. And if you have a team where lots of players are playing well like us last season... then we get into a bit of a mess, since everybody seems to be working towards the idea of "this is your chance, make that move now" (and I rather get the impression some players - and especially agents and pundits - see us as a bit of a stepping stone club) rather than "hey, things are going well, maybe stick here for a bit".

It's particularly funny when then the same people who spent all last season talking about how our players should be going to big clubs start taking the moral highground over us selling players, when they were trying to sell them off for us practically last year (I'm talking pundits and media again here).

In my mind, this sort of thing won't change until the culture in football changes where the big clubs are assumed to have some sort of divine right to all the best/most promising players and all the agents/players etc are happy to work under that assumption. Until then, think we're gonna see a fair bit of people pushing for moves.

 

Victor is a big kid.

On Rob Moore this sums him up. When we were buying Wanyama Cortese offered Wanyama a million to drop his agent.

 

If only it was that simple - I think in actual fact we will somehow have to dismantle capitalism itself to sort Saints' problems.

 

Just like Morgan last season. Sit this one out, but you'll have to play after.

Too late to be allowed to go now, and both Reed and Koeman are on record categorically saying we won't sell. Not 'we don't want to sell'.

 

I'd let him go. Sitting out the midgetland game is an utter disgrace IMO.

Get rid, replace with someone who wants to be here

 

I would only accept a stupidly big bid. But we know Spurs won't bid that high. So keep him.

 

Who? The window shuts in c. 48 hours.

The club shouldn't back down after such public statements from Reed and Koeman.

 

Always want to flag this up when referencing MLT, but it is always worth remembering that, even though he was a one-man club - and I commend and love him for that - it wasn't really down to loyalty. As is well-known, he agreed terms at Spurs, but changed his mind, because the personal circumstances at Saints - his missus didn't want to move, he was closer to Guernsey etc. - suited him. It wasn't solely the thought of leaving his beloved Saints. It was essentially a selfish decision - and he shares that in common with every other player in the country, then and now. Like all rational human beings, they make decisions based on personal preferences.

As fans, some of us were pretty sure at some stage that Danny Ings would come here, swung by the fact he supports Saints. But fact is, he'd never come here as long as at least one of six other PL clubs (and very probably about 14 or so) were interested in him. He can support Saints wherever he is.

Players seem to become very loyal around the age of 31/32. Unfortunately, that's when clubs start to become disloyal.