Southampton: Could this ‘sell to buy’ policy hurt the Saints?
By Chris Hughes
It’s been said that Southampton will only spend more money this summer if they bring the funds in from further transfers.
It’s a policy that will leave the club with a nice net spend figure, as despite just the one permanent departure in Dusan Tadic the Saints would’ve logically acquired plenty of transfer funds from the sale of Virgil van Dijk in January.
Doing the maths and taking out the purchase of Guido Carrillo, Southampton would’ve – by this policy’s logic – has £56 million to spend going into the summer. This is pretty much the exact amount they’ve spent.
The remaining £10 million could’ve easily gone on money to agents or signing-on fees, but if we’re to assume it hasn’t, then the club have that fee to spend between now and the transfer deadline. With Matt Targett hopefully staying and Mario Lemina links dying out, the only logical sale between now and August 9th is Sam Gallagher, who wouldn’t command a transfer fee more than £5-7 million.
This leaves the club with £15-17 million to bring in more depth out wide and a fresh face up front, which isn’t a whole lot to work with when Jannik Vestergaard alone cost £18 million.
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Maxi Gomez is one player who many Southampton fans, myself included, see a real talent who could lead the line for the club. Granted, he would cost £25-30 million, but his record of 47 goals and 17 assists in just 91 career games speaks for itself.
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However, based off of this apparent transfer policy, the Saints simply can’t compete with sides bidding around £27 million for the Uruguayan’s signature, as they haven’t generated enough cash from other sales.
From a business point of view this does make sense – as mentioned before it’d leave the Saints with a nice net spend for the calendar year – but what about money from other sources? Staying the Premier League will eventually gift the side a good £120 million in television rights over the next year, and that’s before you even consider that they would’ve received a similar amount for participating in the top tier the campaign before.
Furthermore, Southampton were taken over by Chinese Billionaire Jisheng Gao in the past year – the whole reason Katharina Liebherr sold 80% of her ownership was so the club could financially be taken the next level. Forcing a side who have just flirted with relegation to only spend what is brought in through transfer fees seems nonsensical.
In fact, with Southampton having been relegation-threatened for much of the 2017/18 season, the stock for plenty of their main players would’ve dropped – not only that but they don’t want to lose their remaining stars like Ryan Bertrand, Cedric Soares or Mario Lemina.
As mentioned, the only player who could realistically bring in funds between now and August 9th is Gallagher, as the club aren’t able to command such high transfer fees and also desperately want to hold on to their best talent. So where is the money coming from?
Southampton are dangerously vulnerable in depth up front – if Charlie Austin is sidelined they’re left with Gabbadini who struggles as a lone forward and Shane Long, who struggles to score entirely. Out wide they only have Mohamed Elyounoussi, Nathan Redmond and Josh Sims.
If the board don’t dip into their pockets because of their ‘sell to buy’ policy between now the transfer deadline, Southampton could be in deep, deep trouble this coming campaign. If they struggle to score once again they simply won’t tally up enough wins.
Unless the club have an ace up their sleeve or only mean they want to shift bodies before replacing, this policy could instead really hurt the Saints.