Victor Wanyama is still in contract talks with Southampton Football Club, but is he serious or will this be a case of deja vu ?

News that a player is talking to Saints about a new contract will sound familiar to Saints supporters, they have heard it all before, this time last year with Nathaniel Clyne being the most recent in the memory.

Now it is reported that Saints are still in talks with Victor Wanyama about a new deal as speculation that the player or at least his agent s trying to put him in the shop window ready for the summer's merry go round.

Personally I think that if Wanyama was serious about committing his future to Saints then the deal would have been signed six months ago, players that get to the last year of their contract get to that stage for a good reason and that reason is they have wanted to do so to make themselves an attractive proposition for a potential buying club.

That is a fact of life in football these days, the real discussions go on behind the clubs backs, of course this is illegal in footballing terms, but how do you stop it and how do you police it, when Paul Mitchell now of Spurs rings Victor Wanyama is it as an old colleague catching up or to tell the player that Spurs are interested so don't do anything stupid like sign a new contract which would push the transfer fee up again.

Of course whether Mitchell has phoned Wanyama is hypothetical, but this sort of thing happens all over the country and there is no way of knowing what has and what hasn't gone on.

We at Saints are victims of our own success in identifying transfer targets at good prices and developing them into quality players, it is something we have done as a club since the 1950's and continued to do over the years right through to the present day.

Of course we have vastly improved the way we do things including the use of technology, but the process has always remained the same.

The reality is that nothing will change, clubs like Saints will always produce good players and the so called big clubs will always be willing to throw big money at those players.

Good players will of course always want to improve their lot both on the pitch and off it financially, many players who have left Saints in the past couple of years have of course got far richer than they would have got staying at St Mary's but the grass is not always greener in terms of their playing careers.

So now it looks like Victor Wanyama will be the next to go, the reality is that we have had three good seasons out of the player (or more like 2 when we take into account his early days here and the amount of games he has missed this season) now we have to cash in and repeat the process with another player.

The main problem for Saints this summer though won't b selling Wanyama, they will be well prepared and well along the road in the process of doing this, but in avoiding the bedwetting that has gone on in some sections of the support who will accuse the club of lacking ambition and demanding that Saints don't sell.

Again the reality is that Saints are not in control of this situation and are already starting the PR battle as was sown by recent comments by Ronald Koeman.

“I didn’t talk to Victor about his contract, what I know is that the club, Les Reed, is talking to Victor and talking to his agent about his future in the club and about his contract.

“I don’t know what the state is of that talks.

“We like to keep Victor in the club and that’s why Les Reed is talking to the player and to his agent.”

“It’s always the same problem if you have a player in your team, in your club, who goes in his last year of contract like it was with Clyne. That makes it more difficult because we don’t like to leave players who are out of contract, and that’s not the business what Southampton likes to do.”

The inference from Saints is clear, if Wanyama leaves in the summer it is not because they have not tried their best to keep him, they have not let him get into the last year of his contract through poor management, they have been trying since last summer to sign him to a new deal.

But the reality is that if Spurs want Wanyama they will be able to offer him far more money than Saints and they will be able to offer him Champions League football, Saints cannot compete with that, they can as they did last season and indeed the season before with Morgan Schneiderlin, hold on to players with at least two years on their contracts left, but when it hits that last year a club has to sell and get some money or face seeing him walk for nothing a year later.

Saints fans are starting to realise that and they are starting to realise that Saints have a strategy and that strategy is already happening, the club will be looking at a dozen or more potential replacements for Wanyama, on the surface Saints might appear to be doing all they can to persuade the Kenyan to stay, indeed they might still harbour some hopes that he will, but underneath they are working towards the day he does leave and will have his replacement already lined up.

It is of course not ideal but the sal of players over the past two years has seen us build a squad that can compete, in 2013/14 Pochettino took us to 8th, we thought that was the pinnacle, we could not get higher because we did not have a squad we had barely 14 outfield players of the standard required.

The money brought in enabled us to buy more players and that resulted in us finishing 7th last season because of a far stronger squad and the fact that we could handle injury and suspension far better.

This season has continued in that vein, another top ten finish has been secured and we will now repeat the process improving slowly but surely every year.

Photo: Action Images

SaintBrock added 19:41 - Apr 23 Why would Spurs need him they are doing just fine as they are? More likely Arsenal would benefit from a strong man in central midfield where they are critically weak at the moment. Sometimes Koeman does't help us in his press interviews when he keeps saying that a small club like Southampton cannot hope to challenge the rich half dozen clubs implying we do not have or intend to deploy the resources necessary to join the true elite clubs. What kind of message does that send to players and it is no wonder the more gifted see more headroom for their careers elsewhere. Did anybody else notice Mane patting the badge on his shirt to Saints fans after he scored today? Read into that what you will but maybe we will be seeing his talents at SMS next season after all.

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IWOZTHERE added 14:24 - Apr 24 Yes Brock I noticed Mane, he looked slightly more cheerful? I agree totally about RK's comments too, not what we want to hear.
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IWOZTHERE added 14:30 - Apr 24 I'd also like to see the book closed on the futures of VW,SM and even Ron, one way or the other as soon as the season ends. We've plans to make!
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SaintBrock added 20:59 - Apr 24 Yep! A committed Koeman would have more fight in him to keep our players here. His fence sitting on this issue is becoming a tad irritating and is easily read by players. I like the guy as clearly many singing fans do but we deserve more from him than a shrug of the shoulders. Presumably the young lads look to him for leadership and guidance. You stay here, I might be off... does not sound like a good message

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