Despite the rumours spread in the press when it was revealed that our new major shareholder would not be bankrolling this transfer window, Saints do not need to sell before they can buy.
Last week when it was revealed that the new Chinese major shareholder would not be putting in transfer capital in this window, many media sources and Liverpool fan websites put 2 + 2 together and made £60 million by claiming that now Saints would have to sell Virgil Van Dijk if they wanted to buy anymore players this month.
That is far from the truth as will be shown by the imminent signing of Wesley Hoedt from Lazio in the next day or so.
Saints strategy is based on breaking even or thereabouts on transfer dealings in any given season and although that may sound strange to some supporters, what has to be take into account is not the gross fee but the net after agent fees and indeed 10% to the player if he hasn't asked for a transfer, Saints have to use the best part of their income from non transfer business in not only continuing to build the infrastructure of the club but in annual bonus's and wages etc.
Of course with our new major shareholder in the medium to long term it makes us more stable and with the ability for transfer deals to be underwritten so it cannot be a bad thing.
So the need for Saints to sell before they buy is not strictly true as although they like to break even, their is money in the kitty to fund transfers above any money we have raked in from selling.
So far this summer we have raked in around £15 million when you take into account the sale of Jay Rodriguez & Jason McCarthy and a loan fee for Sam Gallagher and we have spent just over £22 million in buying Jan Bednarek and Mario Lemina and we are about to spend £15 million on Wesley Houdt, meaning that our transfer deficit this summer is going to be around £22 million.
This is large compared to recent years but it should be understood that three years ago we were not in a very good position budget wise, we were paying high wages for players like Ramirez and Osvaldo who were not playing and the squad was top heavy with players left over from the Championship years, add to that the training ground cost and we had little left over from our everyday income to supplement transfer fees.
That has now changed slightly, but our strategy will remain unaltered it will just allow us more leeway.
Therefore I do expect Saints to sell a player or two before the end of the season, Jordy Clasie is likely to leave and that would fetch at least the £8 million we paid, possibly a little more and there could be a few more smaller departures, Florin Gardos and Paulo Gazzaniga could both go.
Those three players alone would fetch somewhere between £15 -20 million and if Saints did wish to complete their transfer business by bringing in another forward then it's likely that Shane Long would depart and that in itself would generate somewhere in the region of £10 million.
So those who say that Saints need to see Virgil Van Dijk are way off the mark, we can do what we do without the need to bring in £60 million.
Saints will feel happy with the squad they have, yes it needs an addition or two but what squad doesn't but overall they will feel they are in a better position than this time last year, last season we had a good squad and it was poorly managed but still managed to finish 8th, the club will be confident that with Mauricio Pellegrino we now have a good manager with a good squad, he can do better than last term without the need for major buying.
Big transfer fees is not the Saints way, especially not in this summers inflated market, some clubs are paying over twice what a player would have been worth a year ago, if the bubble bursts they could be in trouble, therefore Saints will keep doing what we do well with the confidence that it is now a proven strategy rather than pot luck.
So Liverpool fans will be disappointed to hear we are under no pressure to sell Van Dijk, if the right deal came in we would do what we always do and take a business decision, but Liverpool have totally burned their bridges with us, they will need to pay big.