It is very strange that Jose Fonte cannot seem to leave his past behind and concentrate on his new club, something that West am fans will not be too pleased to hear.
No one can deny that Jose Fonte was a great servant to Southampton Football Club for most of his seven years at the club but after his success for Portugal in the summer of 2016 something changed in him as a man, some would put that down to his change of agents to Jorges Mendes, but that is not the whole reason as Fonte is an adult who can make his own decisions and his decision as he has admitted seems to be solely money.
When he left the club for West Ham in January it put an end to a sorry six month ending to what had up until then been a great 6 1/2 years in the Saints defence, indeed there was no sign of Fonte having any discontent at St Mary's in October 2016 when he signed a new deal with the club keeping hi there till the summer of 2018 when he would be approaching his 35th birthday.
Speaking to the club's official website back then he said.
"I want to thank the manager, Les Reed, Ralph [Krueger], Katharina [Liebherr] — all of the staff and all of the board — for showing their trust and belief in me.
"I am extremely happy that they are giving me this opportunity to keep being in this great club, and I hope I can give back with good performances and by helping the club move forward.
"This is where I feel happy and where I’ve been very successful, so this is where I want to be and where I want to win.”
Contrast that to his protestations a year later and it is quite shocking how his attitude has changed so quickly.
But perhaps more shocking is the fact that Fonte can't seem to let the whole sorry affair pass quietly into history, something still seems to rile him and he can't seem to keep his mouth shut and his latest outburst in a clearly stage managed interview with Graeme Souness who asks him no difficult questions, does nothing for his own image and cannot sit easily with his new supporters at West Ham United.
In the interview on Sky TV Fonte starts off saying the right things.
"In the summer, there were a few offers, including West Ham. But in January they came back in and it was a no brainer for me because of the size of the club and the move to the Olympic Stadium."
"The passionate fans they have and also the ambition of the manager and the chairman. It was an easy descion to choose West Ham. London is also closer to my wife's side of the family - so provided her more help to raise the kids. Everything made sense and I'm extremely happy."
Very good Jose, although funny these things should only surface now when you have lived down here quite happily for the last 7 years and I'm sure that your wife can do with help raising the kids, after all it must be hard having to stay at home and work your fingers to the bone with only a footballers wage to get buy on.
But the bitterness soon comes out of Fonte as Souness asks the stage managed questions.
GS: You had a great European Championships and came back to Southampton - what happened next?
JF: I spoke to the club and said there could be possibilities [to move] and I would like the club to consider it.
GS: Seven years with the club shows you were a good servant. Did the club not get that? If someone is coming to you offering a better deal, then Southampton had to understand that you was in demand. I think you can't have enough experienced players in the dressing room - you won't have a successful team if you don't have people like yourself, good seasoned pros that put the lesser likes in the dressing room in their place before it becomes a problem.
JF: I appreciate what the club had done for me since day one but we all have to take care of our families. There were offers that came in that would take care of my family in ways that Southampton weren't willing to. It's a difficult situation.
"Did the club not get that" !
You have to ask what planet Souness is on here, what did the club not get ? If it was the fact that a man they considered a loyal employee and who they had looked after with a contract only 10 months earlier, one he was by his own admission extremely happy with and they had even offered him a better one, despite they were quite within their rights to insist he honoured the original ! NO the club did not get it .
But the stage managed interview reached a new low with Souness's next rhetorical question.
GS: The club want to portray you as a bad guy - that's the reality. You're the one that wanted to leave - you're the one that wanted to make all the demands. That's how it appears to someone who doesn't understand the game. Supporters out there will say Jose left us in the lurch as we lost Virgil [van Dijk] to injury and we were short in the cup final. But your conscience is completely clear of it?
JF: It's completely clear. When I see all over the news that I submitted a transfer request to leave the club - that's disappointing. That never happened. There was an interview from the club; from a press conference that I demanded to leave, which then the press took it as a transfer request and I wonder where is it?
As I said before, in the summer there were possibilities of leaving - that's normal, everyone fights for their own interests to get the best possible outcome for yourself. To say that I wrote an official transfer request to the club, that's a lie. And also that I refused to train and I wasn't being a good captain? That's a complete lie. I've always given my best to that club. That's the main thing the fans should know. My conscious is very clear.
This is perhaps the most sycophantic drivel I have ever heard from a football pundit.
Who is the bad guy hear ? it is not the club who have offered Fonte a new deal something they didn't want to do, whilst I appreciate that Fonte has to do his best for his family as he puts it, it is a two way thing, the club signed him to a big new deal less than a year ago at an age where his form might drop, the risk was with the club, why should they not expect him to honour that deal.
"Someone who doesn't understand the game" say Souness patronisingly, it is lucky for him that clearly millions don't because if we all did and saw what arrogant, egotistical self centred people the game has bred then we would turn our backs on it in our millions, Souness and Fonte are taking the proverbial here and admitting that to them at least the supporters mean nothing, the guy who has forked out £750 for a season ticket has no right to expect a man on an alleged £75 k a week contract to do anything than the best for his family.
We understand why he would want to do it, but we understand the game enough to know that a contract should be honoured, the average man in the street cannot just walk away from his contracted commitments just because it suits him best, Souness and Fonte are clearly out of touch with reality here.
Another strange thing is that I have never seen anywhere, in the media or otherwise that Fonte had refused to train, why then would he bring that up.
The subject of did he didn't he ? with regard to putting in a transfer request is strange, he has stopped short this time of accusing the club of lying, subtly he suggests that it was the media who took the clubs words and twisted them to the fact that he had asked for a transfer.
But the whole transfer request" issue seems to be about semantics, what actually constitutes a transfer request, as Fonte himself has stated he was making it quite clear to the club he wished to explore other options and asked them to consider it, in plain English that means "I want to move and will you let me" in all but putting it in writing with his signature to it it is a transfer request, here Fonte seems to have stepped back a few steps and is resisting taking on the club, perhaps because they have evidence about what ha and hasn't been communicated, but this doesn't rest easily with him and he clearly can't let matters rest.
Oh for those that don't understand the game if a player has not submitted a transfer request then he is seen as being sold against his wishes and he is entitled to any loyalty bonus payments in the remainder of a contract and in most cases a percentage of the transfer fee, there were probably a million reasons why Jose Fonte would not wish to officially hand in a transfer request all of them £'s.
From a fans perspective it's hard to see what Fonte has hoped to gain from this interview, it has put him in an even worse light than before and for many fans opened up the question of whether he refused to train or not, the only thing we now know is that for Jose Fonte there was only one motivation for being at Southampton Football Club and that was we were paying him more than he could get elsewhere, perhaps that is a little unfair over parts of his time at the club, but certainly during his last six months that was his motivation.
We perhaps should not have been surprised though, after all when he joined us from Crystal Palace in 2010, he was dropping down a division to the third tier of English football, there was a reason he was doing that and it wasn't he fancied a Tuesday night break at Hartlepool.
For West Ham fans there is now a conundrum, they have a player who has openly admitted that he is only at their club for one reason, that is because they can look after his family financially better than Saints or any other club because they were the highest bidder.
I hope for Fonte's sake that West Ham fans done understand the game any better than Souness and he think Saints fans do, other wise he could be in for a rough ride.
We thought that this was the end of this sorry saga when Fonte departed back in January, but for some reason, perhaps guilt, perhaps regret he can't seem to let it go.