Shane Long Absent From First Day Of Pre Season
Thursday, 30th Jun 2022 10:22

Saints returned from the summer break yesterday and one notable absentee was striker Shane Long, prompting speculation that now his contract has ended his time at St Mary's might be at an end.

Other media sources have made much of this saying that Shane Long has not been retained by the club nor has he been offered a new deal and use his absence at Staplewood yesterday as proof of that.

However it may not be as clean cut as that, Long's contract with the club ends today and from that perspective having not signed a new one yet, he would not be expected to turn up, if for nothing else but insurance reasons, Long would have been expected to take part in medical assessments and there would be no point in doing that until his future was decided, also there is the risk that he could injure himself and that could have prejudiced his chances of finding a new club if that is the route that is taken.

So yesterday would be a day off for Shane Long despite still technically being in contract.

But he wasn't the only one missing from training, as mentioned yesterday was all about assessments and these have been staggered for time purposes.

Aside from the injured Romain Perraud &Tino Livramento those in yesterday were four goalkeepers
Mateusz Lis, Gavin Bazunu, Alex McCarthy & Willy Caballero.

Defenders
Armel Bella-Kotchap, Dynel Simeu, Lyanco, Jack Stephens, Kyle Walker-Peters

Midfielders
Oriol Romeu, Ibrahima Diallo, Nathan Tella.

These were also joined by youngsters Kamari Doyle & Dominic Ballard.

Alongside Long on the absentee list were;
Mohammed Salisu, Yan Valery, Nathan Redmond, Adam Armstrong, Theo Walcott.

Presumably they will return either today or tomorrow.

The International players in the squad will be given an extra 10 days off and will join the team when they travel to Austria for the training camp, these are:

Jan Bednarek, James Ward-Prowse, Stuart Armstrong, Moussa Djenepo, Will Smallbone, Moi Elyounoussi, Che Adams.

The real issue in terms of pre season training though is that so far Ralph Hasenhuttl has lost three coaches from last season and so far replaced them with only one Ruben Selles.

Now this week will not seen much done on the training ground other than basic drills and warms ups etc aimed at getting the muscles moving again, but next week preparation will begin in earnest, as it stands at present we do not have enough coaching staff.

Photo: Action Images

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dirk_doone added 10:33 - Jun 30 Sounds promising. Pity McCarthy was there though.
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I_would added 10:36 - Jun 30 Plenty of L1 clubs will be 'falling over themselves' to sign a proven striker like Longy.
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underweststand added 14:29 - Jun 30

Quite a lot on this site might look at his birthdate and say he's too old, but few would deny that he is still very fast and fit for his age.
Now that he is out of contract he can assess who is interested and how much they might pay him. I don't see him as a full time Prem. player but he might still DAJFU just by being on the bench and encouraging younger heads in the dressing room.
Should we give him an extension?....we'll if Ralph doesn't get all the players he is
targeting then keeping Shane around for another season might be a good option. It was no bad idea to keep Willie C. on the books for another season and both he and Shane might just make the difference in a critical situation.