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Southampton F.C - The Five Year Plan
Southampton fans have suffered this summer seeing a host of top players leave for opposing teams. Former club captain Adam Lallana, Rickie Lambert and Dejan Lovren all left for Liverpool. Luke Shaw was sold to Man Utd and Callum Chambers went to Arsenal. With so many stars leaving an the abundance of talent walking out the exit doors. Many fans would have been forgiven for thinking the worst and fearing the club could be relegation candidates.
Club manager Mauricio Pochettino also left heading off to Tottenham, further hampering the 8th place Premier League team. The club hierarchy acted fast and after several meetings and hours of negotiations Dutch legend Ronald Koeman became the clubs manager.
Within the talks Koeman had with the clubs owner Katharina Liebherr and various other directors, a five year plan was laid out. In this plan and within the timescale the club want to become one of the front runners in the Champions League. They would ideally like to be playing in Europe's premium competition within two years and see the stock rising at the club if this happens. If this is achieved the directors see this as a huge opportunity to sign some of Europe's if not the Worlds best players and feel that if the first two year targets are met then this could be an obtainable plan. Within this plan it also paves the way for Southampton to posses the best youth system not only in England but in Europe and the club would like to continue creating world class players as they already have done in the past. (Bale, Chamberlain, Walcott)
Koemans's first task was to recruit some players to fill the void left by the outgoing players. He sent various scouts out over Europe and impressed the fans with the players who were bought in. Fraser Forster, Ryan Bertrand, Graziano Pelle, Dusan Tadic, Shane Long, Sadio Mane and Florin Gardos were purchased along with Toby Alderweireld, Eljero Elia and Filip Djuricic who are all on season long loans at Saint Mary's.
News has just filtered through as well that Koeman has just signed another player...
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Memphis Depay has signed from PSV in a deal which is reported at £8.5M but will eventually rise when the young Dutchman makes international appearances and plays a certain number of games for the Saints. It's believed that Depay chose Southampton after being told that Man Utd were not interested in him and that Liverpool were waiting on other transfer targets before making up their mind on signing Depay.
With those clubs seemingly looking to do business elsewhere Depay who knows Koeman well as they both hail from Holland jumped at the chance to work with a man who he knows well and knows trusts him. Depay is a player who will really excite the fans as he is a quick, strong and technically gifted winger who also possess' a fantastic freekick.
Koeman who has a Pre-Season to look towards now has admitted that he will still keep his eye towards the Transfer Window but conceeded that the club may be looking for younger talent to ensure the club has one of the worlds best youth systems.
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