With a shade over a fortnight to go before our opener at Premiership Champions Manchester City even the rumour mill is starting to dry up around Saints

A look at the "Paper View" page on www.theuglyinside.net makes worrying reading, in the last week there has been little news on any of the four featured news site, indeed the Daily Echo has not put up a Saints related story since its reports of the Ajax game published last Saturday, now of course the Echo is persona non grata at St Mary's, but the fact that they cant find a story of any substance to tell Saints fans about is worrying on two fronts, firstly its not exactly inspiring the masses to turn up for the friendly with Wolves tomorrow and after the poor turnout against Ajax, Wolves not exactly inspiring opposition even as a Premier Club when it comes to bums on seats, surely a bit of publicity via the local paper to try and get a few casual floating supporters along, would not have come amiss. On the second front it appears to signify that we have little action on the transfer front, of course the paper might just be refusing to comment on the club due to its treatment by them, at the moment with the Olympics on they dont need the stories to sell the papers, but it could also mean that there is nothing going on.

Some will glibly say that there is no news because we do our business behind closed doors, whilst that may be true and that the club certainly says nothing public about signings itself until everything is signed sealed and delivered, the fact about our transfer dealings, like every club, is that due to the big rumour mill in football mainly stirred by agents, nothing is secret any more, look at all our signings in the last year and indeed the ones that didnt happen, they were all in the press about our interest, long before they happened, of course much of its speculation at the time, but virtually to a man all of our signings in the last twelve months and they all have one thing in common and that was it was very public we were after them.

So why is it so quiet now, a fortnight ago we were being linked with a plethora of players, some of whom we signed and some of whome like Alexandra Buttner fell at the final hurdle, but in the last week nothing.

Some would say that this is testament to the club going about the business quietly and yes  would agree to a certain extent, but as we all know, agents look to get the best deal for their clients, Clubs might keep quiet, players might keep quiet, but agents dont, their job is to get it very publicly known that the player is available so that they can negotiate the best deal for their client and rumours of other clubs chasing the player are good for business in an agents world.

So given the quietness out there in the world of Saints media supporters are starting to get a bit tetchy about the lack of cover at the back, the only consolation being that in post match interviews after the Ajax game Nigel Adkins alluded that there could be some signings very soon and of course in Nigel we trust.     

stmichael added 12:44 - Aug 3 The worry is that it is rumoured the relationship between manager and chairman has broken down. IF that is so and it is a big IF , but it may explain why there is no activity, then we are in the Brown & Smelly	639 forum posts 192 news comments 0 match reports 0 blogs 0 polls

SaintNick added 12:46 - Aug 3 Surely no one believes that the chairman and manager are at loggerheads, they love each other and always have	17167 forum posts 779 news comments 10 match reports 0 blogs 0 polls

SaintNick added 12:47 - Aug 3 Just looked at the odds for first manager to be sacked, Adkins has jumped up from 4th favourite to second in the last couple of days	17167 forum posts 779 news comments 10 match reports 0 blogs 0 polls

Melbourne_Saint added 16:01 - Aug 3 Nick, I've been a reader for some time, and I appreciate the regular commentary you provide. However, can you please consider using a full stop from time to time? Thanks. In regards to the lack of signings, I share your concerns. Time is running out, but at least NA is on record saying that more signings are imminent. Given the way NC likes to operate, it wouldn't surprise me if something popped up on the club website while I'm writing this. Well, we can only hope.

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SaintNick added 16:25 - Aug 3 Thanks for the feeback, points taken melbourne .	17167 forum posts 779 news comments 10 match reports 0 blogs 0 polls

StChalkster added 17:28 - Aug 3 Some might say, that some say, that some might say (sometimes quite glibley)!	0 forum posts 1 news comments 0 match reports 0 blogs 0 polls

sidsaint added 17:32 - Aug 3 I'm not one for buying for the sake of it but we know where we need to strengthen and strengthen with quality. We also need to bed people in before the start of the season when we have some very difficult opening matches. Having watched the GB team v Uruguay it looks as if Butlland is going to be a great keeper and would have been a very good addition.	0 forum posts 68 news comments 5 match reports 0 blogs 0 polls

Whatsforpud added 17:51 - Aug 3 Nick, your point about the Echo is interesting. We all know that Cortese is a very single-minded man, but it is very disappointing that he hasn't buried the hachet yet. The club needs the Echo as much as the Echo needs the club. Everyone down here needs to be pulling in the same direction.	0 forum posts 211 news comments 0 match reports 0 blogs 0 polls

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