Liverpool FC have been the largest single investor in Southampton Football Club in recent years, are they set to make a further substantial investment into the future of Saints ?

All the talk of recent weeks has been whether the Lander Group from China will enter into a majority shareholding at St Mary's, however perhaps it isn't Katharina Liebherr they should be speaking too, but the people who have put the real money into Saints and enabled us to go from a mid table Premier league club with aspirations of reaching the top ten, to a club now seen as a serious contender as the 7th best club in the Premier League.

The people behind that are Liverpool Football Cub or more accurately Fenway Sports Group also owners of the Boston Red Sox a rounders team in the colonies.

Over the past three years their £100 million donation to our cause has been well appreciated and there is an English Heritage Blue Plaque at the tree overlooking Staplewood where Brendan Rodgers spent so much of his time in the summers of 2014 &15.

On his arrival Jurgen Klopp was immediately handed a secret briefcase in which were secreted the plans for the revival of the once Anfield giants, it contained blueprints, aerial surveillance pictures of the Southampton area, instructions of how to climb trees, a camouflage kit, a yearly pass for the Solent Blue Line number 8 bus and a blank checkbook, all things essential to a Liverpool manager.

Indeed one of the reasons why Klopp had been appointed was that FSG had noted that the last people to have completely ravaged Southampton had been the Germans in 1940, he seemed ideal.

Now Liverpool are set to invest more in Saints and are making noises about matching anything that Manchester City offer for Virgil Van Dijk and more !!

This means that with Van Dijk still having 5 years lef on his contract, Katharina Liebherr can play hard ball with the Scousers/Yanks/Scandinavians.

TUI sources understand that the Manchester City offer so far stands at.

£60 million transfer fee
300,000 unsold Noel Gallaghers High Flying Birds Albums (Street value £25.48)
An autographed picture of Bernard Manning
One of the two chips on their shoulders about United
Badly Drawn Boy's head on a platter ( those at Maine Road in 2003 will understand)
A Lionel Messi signed Barcelona shirt.

Liverpool's counter offer is just as tempting though.

£70 million
A Percentage of the profits on the next 5 re issues of Sgt Pepper
An autographed picture of John Bishop(Street value £17.56)
A picture of John Bishop (Not autographed, Street value £100)
Both chips on their shoulders about United
A Cavern Club T Shirt
A souvenir pair of Jurgen Klopp glasses.

However this is not enough and Saints are now looking to get both interested parties to increase their offer.

Southampton City Council are now involved with the discussions, John Lennon famously sat in the dock at Southampton ( ferry port dock not the one at the magistrates court) in The Ballad Of John & Yoko and SCC are keen to secure the official acknowledgement that because of that Southampton Dock is just as important in the Beatles legend as Penny Lane or Strawberry fields.

This may sound trivial, but with the Beatles now Merseyside's biggest tourist attraction and the 50th anniversary of that song due in 2 years, SCC are keen to muscle in on the action and the yen that would pour in from Japan to our Beatles themed museum just by Ocean Village on the very spot that the man in the mac said you've got to go back. With the official title to be Maya Yoshida's Definitely Authentic Beatles Museum, there is a chance of double whammy.

Liverpool supporters are not overly impressed at their club's latest move to invest more money in Southampton than they have their own, there is still a lot of resentment that the £20 million spent on Dejan Lovren could have been spent on something more useful, like emptying the bins on the Kop's concourse's more often ,10p off a pint for season ticket holders or discounted tickets on Oslo's metro system.

So how far are Fenway Sports Group prepared to go in their pursuit of everything Southampton and more importantly how far can we push them ?

The answer is to the very brink of admitting the Beatles formed in Woolston not Woolton, that the Woolston Ferry is better than the Mersey Ferry, that the drummer out of Coldplay is better than Ringo Starr and at least doesn't try to sing, that as a comedian Liverpool has no equal to Mike Osman, that West Quay makes Liverpool One look like a car boot sale, oh and the little matter of increasing their bid to somewhere around £100 million.

The Beatles once said that "Baby you can drive my car" well we are driving this one and its a Rolls Royce !

Now give me money
That's what I want
That's what I want, yeah !

Photo: Action Images

dirk_doone added 11:18 - Jun 5 Les Reed has built a Champions League team at Liverpool and Kat has tens of millions more in her bank account. Yes, this is absolutely hilarious for us Saints fans.
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SaintNick added 11:43 - Jun 5 Dirk, take a look at the accounts for Southampton Football Club, Kat has invested more than she has taken back, but even if she did put it into her pocket, then why would we have a go at her, her Father saved the club, she has continued to build on those foundations and run it as a business, what has she ever done wrong, absolutely nothing. Plenty of Saints fans know what the situation is, just as they did when the last central defender we sold held us to ransom demanding a move to a big club for big wages.

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allsaint54 added 11:56 - Jun 5 If we have to sell VVD for 50-60m let it be to any club except Liverpool.
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SaintNick added 12:03 - Jun 5 If we have to sell VVW let it be to the club that offers the most money regardless of who they are, that is all that matters
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bstokesaint added 12:24 - Jun 5 Nick, I agree with you and I don't. Your first point about what the Liebherrs is valid, but I think we should let Liverpool know that they can't just coming wading in and get first refusal. They need to be pushed out of their comfort zone. Things have changed, contracts have been improved and we're no longer the easy pickings that we once were. I think as it turned out £35m for Mane was a bargain. Didn't they pay something similar for Andy Carroll? If they want their man this time I want to see them throw their whole transfer budget on it. I still think with the likes of Man C and Chelski said to be interested VVD would be nuts to go to Liverpool. Although that said I'd still be waiting to see what giants from abroad might come calling!

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highfield49 added 12:33 - Jun 5 Considering the media generated frenzy of the bidding war for VVD's autograph on a contract, has anybody actually made a bid?
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pintsizedsaint added 12:38 - Jun 5 The saga that is unfolding is part a compliment to Saints and part an unwanted element. The strategy for Saints very soon after avoiding administration (remember that?!) was to identify talent and sell on for big bucks. It's the perfect simple strategy for any club that cannot compete with the financial might of the top EPL clubs. But saying it and doing it are different things. Saints have mastered this. But it came with a price: endless summers of seeing players leave and the inevitable media tag of being a selling club for the big boys. Continual league improvements do not help the fans anxiety at seeing players leave just when consolidation looks and feels like it will bring the holy grail. What this has inevitably resulted in is the endless media claptrap about where our players are goimg next. It's trash journalism but Saints have helped to feed that particular fire. VVD is the apex of this - the media have sold him to several clubs numerous times over. One media outlet called Saints deluded for even thinking we can hold on to him. Now Saints sit at a crucial moment. To my mind they need to make statements this closed season. Not selling VVD for any price is utopia, but lacks business acumen if a silly offer is made. Yet if more sales occur this summer then the selling club tag will perhaps becoming a permanent fixture. And that will see some fans turn their backs for understandable reasons: why support a club that has the potential to compete but just keeps offering up stressful summers of change?

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SaintNick added 13:02 - Jun 5 I am glad that this piece has sparked such serious debate, the only thing it was meant to highlight was the fact that depending on which media outlet you are reading VVW is definitly off to Liverpool/Man City and that being the case we should stand firm till they have thrown so much money at us we really cant refuse. This time last year £35 milion looked a bargain for Mane who in two seasons scored most of his goals in the final couple of months of each season

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highfield49 added 14:10 - Jun 5 Point taken Nick, in all honesty though I think we are probably best off taking the money from the highest bidder. One more cheap shot from Vardy next season and we could have a worthless asset on our hands.
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SaintNick added 14:40 - Jun 5 The trick is to buy low and sell at the right moment when the price is higher than his worth
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SaintBrock added 14:49 - Jun 5 Slow news day Nick?
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SaintBrock added 14:56 - Jun 5 To be fair Nick, this is quite funny. Nice one!
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saintsnutcase added 15:43 - Jun 5 I hope the Board realise that selling our best player to Liverpool yet again is just about the most depressing thing they could do from the point of view of virtually all Saints fans. If they want loyal support from the fan base, this is the one thing they should avoid at any cost.
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SanMarco added 15:48 - Jun 5 I don't think it is feasible for us to keep selling to Liverpool. We are not a feeder club. One of the bigger teams will bid more anyway. Sadly the only certainty is that he wont be playing for us again.
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RogerToye added 16:26 - Jun 5 sell abroad... hate seeing players sold to premiership rivals but maybe thats how we get good players to stop buy as a shop window, to see them come back and turn us over however it has'nt happened to often especially Liverpool.. What an Idea Liverpool to buy Southampton and to rename themselves as Saints North
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BoondockSaint added 18:17 - Jun 5 I don't see anything funny in this as it is rubbing our noses in it. You might as well title the article "Liverpool Invest 100 Million in Their Academy" because that is what Les Reed has made us. Check out the prize money this year: http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/premier-league/the-premier-league-pr Mane got sold for 35 million, but not to a top club, to one below us. Saints not holding 6th meant they lost 16 million. So you could say we only made 19 million on the sale of Mane. The Scouse, jumping over us from 8th to 4th, made 24 million more than they would have so Mane only cost them 11 million. Plus they will have Champions League money coming in next year. Now their were a lot of factors in our disappointing season, But if we had sold Mane to one of the 2/3 top teams, or overseas, it would not have impacted our position in relation to the Scouse as much. If we sell again to the Scouse, whether its VVD or the pen holder from the front desk, it will be a statement from the club that they absolutely no respect for the fans. If Les Reed is such a great spotter of talent, why haven't the Scouse swooped in for him? Oh, that's right, they wouldn't want him selling their top two players every year to Everton, or ManU . And they wouldn't laugh it off with "But we got good money!"

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