Saints fans have endured a miserable transfer window so far as the club has shelled out just £5 million and the big story surrounds their captain going on strike. Virgil Van Dijk is seeking to force through a big money move to Liverpool, which would make him the 79th Southampton star to do so in the last few seasons, and has been training alone. The only signings have been unheralded £5 million Polish defender Jan Bednarek and Bury teenager Will Ferry, who signed for a nominal fee. Meanwhile, Southampton’s rivals for seventh place – which let’s face it, is about the ceiling for the Saints right about now – are spending money like it is going out of fashion.
Everton may have sold Romelu Lukaku for £75 million, but they have already splashed out £90 million on Jordan Pickford, Michael Keane, Davy Klaasen, Henry Onyekuru and Sandro Ramirez, while England captain Wayne Rooney rejoined the club on a free transfer, and they do not look like slowing down anytime soon, with monster bids for the likes of Gylfi Sigurdsson in the offing. West Ham meanwhile have snapped up Marko Arnautovic for £24 million and bought Javier Hernandez, one of the deadliest strikers the Premiership has ever seen, for £16 million.
Of course, it is not the Southampton way to spend big on hyped players. But last the Saints only just scraped eighth and it is hard to see how the current crop will keep the club at the lofty heights it has grown accustomed to unless reinforcements are brought in. With the likes of Everton and West Ham spending like crazy, Southampton could struggle to finish in the top half. Even Bournemouth are going for it: Asmir Begovic, Nathan Ake and Jermain Defoe will provide a great new spine to a team that finished level on points with Southampton last season.
Losing Van Dijk would be a huge blow, six months after the sale of Jose Fonte to West Ham. He has been a titan at the back and a strong captain, but there seems no way back for him now. He has been left out of the Southampton squad for the summer training camp, and the squad would be full of contempt for him were he to stay on. Saints should drive a hard bargain and accrue the sort of whopping fee they have achieved time and time again from Liverpool over the years. One day they will have to stop selling their best players to Liverpool, but it will not be this day. Not yet. But there will be other suitors, with the likes of Arsenal and Chelsea rumoured to be interested. Van Dijk is big, strong, tough, great in the air and surprisingly mobile, so teams will come in for him and a bidding war could suit Southampton down to the ground.
Then it is time to reinvest. Time for another one of those pieces of summer magic the club so frequently pulls out of its hat. Remember when Saints finished eighth but then Ronald Koeman turned up for summer training and half his players had already been sold: Adam Lallana, Luke Shaw, Rickie Lambert, Nathaniel Clyne, Calum Chambers and Dejan Lovren, all gone? They went out and bought Sadio Mane, Fraser Forster, Dusan Tadic, Ryan Bertrand, Shane Long and Graziano Pelle, lynchpins of a side that finished even seventh. Saints continued to sell stars and replace them well and finished sixth the next season. Ok, so we finished eighth last time out, our worst finish in three years, but that is hardly disappointing for a club of Southampton’s stature when you consider the level of competition out there.
So when the odds are shown for which clubs will finish in the top half of the table and you see Saints at around 4/6, bite their hand off. Head over to Bookmaker, which as this review shows is a competitive and trustworthy sportsbook and back Saints to the hilt. They have pulled it off time after time, and they are highly likely to get it right for new boss Mauricio Pellegrino this summer. The floodgates will soon open and in will come the new arrivals, fret ye not, Saints fans.
