Building a War Chest: Saints get rich by getting rid of money grabbers

Article by e-Southampton's Sam Wilkes

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The summer sale at Southampton seems set to continue as Dejan Lovren is the latest player to show his true colours and run for the money.

While not necessarily a surprise, it is again the manner in which the process has been conducted which has raised questions amongst fans. If you want to play Champions League football, don't leave a team in the Champions League for one which is not. If you want the fans to be vocal and support you, don't move somewhere else because it sounds a bit louder and they sing a song from a musical before every home game.

Most of all, treat your current team's players, management and support with the respect that they showed you.

Lovren and Lallana have failed miserably on both counts. An interview with a foreign news agency saying "my head is already in Liverpool" or throwing your toys out of the pram to a local journalist shows a lack of common decency.

Take a leaf out of the book of Luke Shaw and just keep quiet or even better, follow on from Rickie Lambert and move to your boyhood club and thank those people who have helped you get there.

Lallana's meek letter in the Daily Echo had all the sincerity of an American sales assistant wishing you "a nice day now". Lovren even went so far as to apparently mock "small minded" Saints fans via instagram. Nice touch.

The upside of all of this? We have got rid of those players who did not believe in the future of the club and we get a chance to rebuild, arguably with a better manager than last season.

Where Lallana, Lambert, Shaw and Lovren (by the time I've written this, the list may be longer) have left, they can be easily replaced.

Without wishing to sound like sour grapes, the reality check of them leaving has given me time to reflect on what they are actually like as players;

Lambert is the probably the one player, along with Fonte, who bought into the journey and the progression from League 1 to Premier League. His goals, hold up play and spirit are a credit to the work he has put in and I wish him all the best at Liverpool. But he is 31 and there were signs last season that the physical side of his game were beginning to go. He was always a "heavy" player at the best of times but this is only going to get worse as he gets older. It happens to the best of us sadly.

Luke Shaw has all the makings of a world class player. But he is 18. He could turn out to be the new Gareth Bale or he could turn out to be the new Theo Walcott. Or the new Wayne Bridge - yes he married one of The Saturdays but his football career could've been so much more.

A special place in the Southampton "Hall of Fame" should've been reserved for Adam Lallana. Instead, he has burnt any bridges with the fans that his badge-kissing was aimed at creating. At best, he was a world-class player. At worst, he was a slow winger who barely completed a full game in his best season for Saints.

If Lallana has burnt bridges, Lovren has been dive-bombing them with a squadron of Messerschmitts. Annoyingly, he is hardest to pick holes in. He has a brought a stability at the back which the rise through the leagues has lacked and improved Fonte so much that he was talked about for the Portuguese national team. But if this attitude comes about after one season where his team finished 8th, he will be at Liverpool the same amount of time before he finds somewhere else to whore his wares.

So thats it, bitter or not. We need players who want to play for the fans and for the shirt. We now have a manager who can build a team in his own image. We now have millions in the bank to build a team of which the city and supporters can be proud.

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