Although it has been officially open for several weeks now, very little business has been done so far in this transfer window, however that will change on Friday, or at least for a little while.
As I constantly explain when people whinge that Saints haven't made any new signings yet, very few actual deals are done before contracts end on June 1st and annual bonus's are paid, Tottenham Hotspur may have paraded Fraser Forster in one of their shirts, but the goalkeeper is still a Southampton man until midnight on June 1st, when he has collected his final payday from Saints of his monthly salary plus a loyalty bonus, he will sign for Spurs on a much reduced wage than he was on at St Mary's
Likewise Gareth Bale, he may be spouting off in the press about looking forward to the challenge etc at Los Angeles FC, but he didn't want to sign for them and be eligible for their 2-0 win over New York Red Bulls, nor will he put pen to paper before their next game when they host Dallas on 30th June.
He won't be doing so until July 1st, he will be on a fraction of the £600k a week at Los Angeles than he was on at Real Madrid, was he going to forego around half a million in wages plus a hefty bonus to play two games for Los Angeles FC, as they saw in the North, "Was he heck as like "
From a Saints perspective talks are still on going with Shane Long on a new contract, but that contract will be on a lower wage than the one that is just about to end, player and club may already be in agreement about a new deal, but it won't be signed if they are until after this Friday.
July 1st will see a spurt in transfer activity, most of the deals will be like Forster's done in June in all but the paperwork, there will then be a surge of signings, but within a week or so that will die down until the week before the season starts, then there will be another burst.
The third and final burst will come in the last few days of the window on the first day of September, this is the silliest time to buy because it is panic buying time, the players who go in this window are usually the ones that the selling club has been holding out for the best fee and touting the player around to try and push up the price.
Hence the busiest period is always the final day, indeed the final hour of the final day, how many times do we see players having medicals with hours to go, you would think that the selling club would be keen to get the deal done and move on a day or so before the window ends, but no it always goes to the last hours of the last day.
We have seen some movement at St Mary's, we have begun to see how the transfer structure is being fine tuned, I say fine tuned because it isn't being overhauled, essentially it is the same strategy as was stated by Martin Semmens when Sport Republic took over, but it has changed slightly and we will begin to see those changes now.