Mark Hughes has been talking about the Southampton way of doing things in the transfer market and he is impressed by what he sees.
Saints transfer policy of the past four years has been condemned by some Saints supporters who take no account into the fact that the players who have left have been demanding to go to big clubs for big wages.
The reality is that we cannot compete with the big six in financial terms so we have to do things differently, that means trying to control players leaving to suit our needs and not there's, sadly that is something we can't control as much as we would like to as the Virgil Van Dijk situation showed us last season.
Indeed if other clubs are after our players then that shows we are doing something right, clubs like Stoke or West Brom haven't sold many players that is true, but there is a good reason for that, no one wanted them and as the League table showed for good reason.
But every club has a blip every now and then and our was last season, perhaps it is down to a little complacency, maybe even arrogance on the part of Les Reed, but so far this summer it looks like we have learned our lessons spending £51m on bringing in Stuart Armstrong, Mohamed Elyounoussi, Angus Gunn and Jannik Vestergaard to bolster a squad which struggled last season not due to the quantity or even the quality, but due to key areas not being dealt with especially in the centre of defence.
Certainly Mark Hughes likes the way things are done, speaking to the Daily Echo he said.
"I’ve been involved in the process. I came in [at the beginning of June] just to go through the potential targets that were there that the club had lined up and felt were viable,”
"We went through and categorised who we felt would be number one, number two, number three. Not necessarily because they were lesser players, they were all A-list players, but just which ones would be a preference if we were able to get them.
"It was a good process, it was encouraging for me because I understood that a lot of work’s gone on before they actually present to me as they manager.
"The worry I’ve had in the past about understanding the character of the players and whether they’ll come into the Premier League and have an impact.
"A lot of that work is already done before they even get presented to me.
"All transfers are risks, you’re never quite sure how a player will react to a certain environment, a different way of coaching, a different country."
"It’s difficult but if they’ve got the fundamentals as people and players, then they shouldn’t have a problem.”
Hughes also alluded to his time at Stoke where the main gripe about his final time there from the fans was the quality of the signings, some clubs still rely on the manager to do the spadework on finding new signings and although in the past that was the British way of doing things, in the modern game that is not the case, at Saints the manager is part of the transfer process, but his main task is to coach the first team.
"Sometimes you can spread yourself thin getting involved in different aspects.
"What I found when I came here was that everything, almost without fail, is already here, in terms of structure and support to the first-team.
"It’s very easy for me to focus on the job in hand, which was eight games and getting the maximum out of the team.
"Hopefully, that’ll be the case this year. We’ll have a real focus on maximising our chances of winning.
"Everything that surrounds me as the manager and the operation as a first-team that’s in place and we’ve got quality people.
"Hopefully I don’t have to get my hands dirty in that regard because it’s all in place which is really impressive.”
So Mark Hughes is impressed, the cynics in the Saints support might say that it's all PR spin, but Hughes has a reputation for saying it how it is and although of course as manager of the club he is there to talk it up, he clearly is impressed by the set up.
The problems in the past two seasons have been about over coaching and a lack of man management, hopefully Hughes can redress that balance.