Hello Again!

I have again inspiration to play and therefore I have complete my pre season for the upcoming season. On this post I will cover Southampton transfers show team report and pre season games. Also tell you a bit our season targets and finances.

So lets start with the money issue. Like every year we start our season with setting our targets and board gives us money to spend.

Board set our Initial Budgets to very generously. 60M to transfers and 925k to wages. I think our success last season and very good financial status at the end of the season made this possible. But still I don’t think we need to sign any big names only make squad a bit larger with some quality signings.

 

Like you see our last season success at Europa League made this. Top half finish would be good but honest I think our squad is strong enough to push in EURO Cup qualification so I choose that. That means that we should be at top6 end of the season. So we stick our Initial Budgets 60M to spend on players and 1M to wage budget. I think with this amount of money we can strengthen our squad significantly.

So our this season target is definitely league. Last season we had problems coz we had lot of games. Now we have a bit larger first team and therefore I think we have better chance to be in top6 which is our target.

Transfers:

Firstly lets see how left.

Big bunch of players leave. Lot of players run out of contract and therefore were leaving but notable sold players were Jason Puncheon, Mike Williamson and Michael Keane. I also tried to sell Jermaine Pennant due his contract expires in 1 year and I don’t want to renew it but no-one wanted him so that could happen later. Especially I’m happy with the deal of Keane. I bought him at Manchester United with 250k 2 years ago and now receive 4,3M bid for West Ham it was easy deal for me.

Newcomers.

Total of 8 players came in Saints. You can see that I signed two Chelsea defenders. Jeffrey Bruma who we had last year in loan and transfer-listed Gary Cahill. Probably now you understand why I sold 30yo Mike Williamson away. We also sign new left back when Aidan White came from Leeds. Two players came to center midfield. Jack Colback from Liverpool and Jon Williams from Crystal Palace. I was disappointed with Billy Sharp so I bought young talent from Bolton. and also two youngster came from other teams. 

Lets look closer those players.

Gary Cahill 7M from Chelsea

We got new leader in our defence. Gary is one of the best in league for sure. High hopes for him.

Aidan White 6,75M from Leeds

Our new left back. He can also play in midfield which gives lot of options to me.

Jason Marshall-Jones 2,5M from Bolton

He’s young, big and talented. Do I need to say more? JMJ will be one of the 3 strikers for this season I’m going to use.

Jeffrey Bruma 10M from Chelsea

Jeffrey wowed St. Mary’s last year and I didn’t hesitate to sign him. He will paired up with Cahill to complete our starting central defence.

Jack Colback 3,8M from Liverpool

Jack was bought from Liverpool where he didn’t make his break into first team last year. I hope he could cover Schneiderlin in defending midfielder position.

Jon Williams 7M from Crystal Palace

Jon is young backup. Next year I will sell Steven Davis so I bought Jon to the team for that reason. He have year to blend into team and I hope he can jump next year in first team.

 

I’m quite happy with players I got. Of course there is lot of young guys but I think it’s only positive. We got older players like Davis and Pennant who could help the young guns.

Team Report:

I don’t think this picture tell the whole truth. I think we have solid young team which will grow and develop so in couple of years we can win the league.  What do you think?

 

Pre Season:

Good solid pre season. I think our players played good pre season. Maybe there is couple of games we should’ve won but still good results. Mostly I’m happy with our new defence which conceded only 4 goals in 6 games.

 

How we start our season:

I think our fixture list looks decent for us. There is only few games that I’m unsure how we going do. Of course biggest of them all is that Euro Super Cup game against Champions League holder Bayer Munchen.

 

So season 3 is started. How you see our chances?

Thanks for reading!

Yours

-Jani-