How Much Do Supporters Expect Saints To Spend In The Transfer Window ?
The question on everyones lips is what is the club going to do in the transfer market.
Firstly the difficulty in predicting what Saints do in the transfer window is dictated by whether Saints reap a large windfall by selling Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain or dont, firstly lets assume that they dont.
If Saints keep Oxo then it will be a boost in many ways to a promotion push, but it will only be a meaninful boost if the Club invests in players in key positions to back up a promotion push, so how much might they have in their pockets.
A look at the increase in prices shows that prices have gone up across the board by a third, of course its difficult to work out eactly how much extra revenue that might bring in because not every ticket costs the same, if we took a rough guess and said that on average 22,000 people per game would pay £4 more per game that would bring in about £88k x 23 = £2 million give or take a few quid.
At a very basic level that would provide Saints with just about enough to make one decent signing, so anything above that figure would have to be funded by the owners, we would then get a very good idea as to how comitted both they and Nicola Cortese are to the club, I think most Saints fans would agree that just to finish in the top half of the table Saints would need to consider spending at least £5 million.
If Oxo should be sold however that would bring in at least £10 million, although some of that would be payable in installments, the fact is most transfers are so we would be able to buy in on a similar deal, the question though would be what is the guaranteed transfer value and what is reliant on appearances etc, we should only spend the guaranteed figure rather than gamble as to if and when he would reach appearance targets.
If he was sold for £10 million then most would expect to see that spent and more, this is where we would really see the commitment or not of the owners to the cause, at least the increased ticket revenue added to the transfer figure giving a minimul of £12 million to spend, if not now definately over the next 12 months.
If all of that was spent now though I would say it would give Saints a massive boost in the hunt for promotion, £12 million could buy around 5-6 very good proven Championship quality players in the key positions we need and to be blunt we do need those positions filling, rrors in these key positions made last season much harder than it should have beenm football is a harsh game, if we want promotion then we have to be harsh.
So in conclusion how much Saints have all depends on Chamberlain, but sold or staying Saints fans will want to see that the owners are now prepared to make significant investment of their own if they are serious about the so called five year plan and a return to the premiership.
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