As we head towards the final week of July the transfer window will start to pick up the pace as the season gets closer.

I sometimes wonder why supporters get over heated about transfer rumours in May and early June, a look at any given year shows that nothing much happens in the 4-6 weeks after the end of a season as players and indeed managers head off on holiday and/or International duty.

This leads to a phoney war of words in the media as journalists look to write stories when they have little to go on, spinning the smallest gossip into a major story. You only have to look at how any clubs Morgan Schneiderlin has been a "certainty" to sign for this summer for evidence of this.

However as we get into the final week of June things will start to get serious as we head into July and as such rumours will have a lot more substance.

So in the coming week or so we should start to get an idea of who is leaving Saints, who might be coming back and more importantly who is coming in. We will soon find out how accurate all the rumours of the past month have been.

One thing is for sure though, Saints go into this transfer window a lot more prepared than they have ever been, they have a solid strategy going forward and that takes into account that we will always lose a player or two and that when we do we rake in top money and reinvest that wisely, you almost have the feeling that Saints are relishing the task ahead.

Photo: Action Images

halftimeorange added 09:19 - Jun 22 In my humble opinion we have to keep the midfield. That is what our success in the past two seasons has been built on. We are poorer for the loss of Lallana but Schneiderlin, Wanyama, Davies (if you can forgive his shooting) and an on-song Ward-Prowse or Tadic are essential to the up coming campaign. Sections of teams that stick together are largely more successful than those full of new faces.

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