Ralph Hasenhuttl has spoken of how he is looking to build a squad that can play the way he wants, that means some will go and some will come in.
The Austrian has confirmed that Saints are not simply looking to reduce their squad but are looking to build on what they have to create a playing roster that suits the styles that he may want to play given the opposition and situations that may arrive.
Hasenhuttl knows though that the squad is too big and that some must be shipped out to make room as well as provide transfer funds and money in the wage budget to pay for them.
The departure of Steven Davis will provide little if any transfer fee, but it will be £60,000 a week off the wage bill and modern football is not just about being able to afford the transfer fee but the salary's as well.
Manolo Gabbiadini is one set to move as Hasenhuttl confirmed.
I know there is few interested in him," Hasenhuttl said of Gabbiadini. "The fact is our squad at the moment is too big and we have to sell players and he is one other clubs are interested in. In the next few weeks or days it could happen."
"For my kind of football, for my philosophy, I need more speed, I need more running quality, and therefore we will need new players.
"What we do now is [make] the big squad get a little bit smaller and then we will have a look if we find someone who helps us to move our deficits away."
"We are open-minded and our eyes are open so we know in the winter period it is not so easy to find transfers.
"If we do something it must also be for the future, it doesn't help us if we have a short term we are facing, we have to have a longer-term [plan].
"It should be a player who is not too old but fits perfectly in our philosophy and then it can be possible that we do something."
Hasenhuttl is quite rightly playing his cards close to his chest, but it is good that he is telling the fans that there is a plan, there is a philosophy, showing them a way forward, sowing them that the club will invest in the playing squad when the time is right.
Since Ronald Koeman we ave not had a manager that has done that and the club's PR has been abysmal, now it seems that has changed.