When Nathaniel Clyne finally put pen to paper and officially became a Liverpool player this week, Southampton fans – both old and new – must have been met with a familiar feeling of frustrating déjà vu.
Rightly or wrongly, the St. Mary’s faithful have had to become reluctantly accustomed to losing their most promising stars in recent times. The Premier League’s ‘top’ sides are seemingly falling increasingly short in producing their own young talent with every passing season nowadays – so sides like the Saints invariably have to witness their own stars getting cherry picked as a result of their competitor’s apparent incompetence in the development department.
Clyne’s recent move to Anfield is just the latest in a long line of similar deals that have seen Southampton’s once promising future assets look to try their hand at one of England’s more prestigious and traditionally successful clubs.
So, with this potentially concerning trend continuing to effect the determined Saints ahead of the 2015/16 campaign, we are left to ask whether or not teams like Southampton will ever be able to hold onto their most important players in the modern era?
The most recent pattern for Ronald Koeman’s side in the transfer market doesn’t seem to suggest that they will. The St. Mary’s faithful have witnessed their club truly come on leaps and bounds in the past few seasons. Southampton now try to adopt an extremely entertaining approach in their week-to-week matches, with a squad full of young home-grown talent just waiting to make a meaningful mark on the international scene.
Koeman has witnessed a great deal of success within his current group of players as a result of Southampton’s ability to produce young stars in the modern era – yet because such players inevitably get shipped off to the so-called better teams sooner or later – it seems the Saints will forever struggle to build upon their promising foundations in today’s game.
When players like Nathaniel Clyne – up and coming future England talents who were already well suited to the surroundings at St. Mary’s – leave their current employers with the hope of succeeding elsewhere, teams like Southampton are forced go back to square one and gather round the drawing board once again.
Yes, money always acts as an important compensation factor in these instances, but as transfer fees simply can’t buy your club a historic and illustrious reputation within the world of modern day football, financial gain never really fills the void left by departing footballers in the long run.
Brendan Rodgers and his current Liverpool outfit must also consider they’re position within all of this however, for the Reds’ shameless rinsing of the St. Mary’s talent pool in recent times really has been questionable to say the least.
The likes of Rickie Lambert, Adam Lallana and Dejan Lovren could have all been easily forgotten about on Merseyside last season. It seems Liverpool didn’t actually have much of a clue on how they wanted to play the aforementioned players, instead likely being lured in by the initial hype and expectation that first came their way more than anything else.
Does Brendan Rodgers want to continue hand picking expensive stars from elsewhere who will inevitably fall short of their inflated reputations, or will Liverpool eventually start giving more opportunities to their own youngsters with a view of turning them into solid first team starters down the line?
Either way, teams likes Southampton are currently being handed a harsh deal in the cold light of day. Obviously such activity from the Premier League’s top boys acts as nothing new with all things considered – but as Liverpool’s most recent interest in players on the South Coast serves to suggest – very little is being done to buck this trend in order to find a more sustainable approach.
These players, some of which are meant to be leading the line successfully for England throughout the next few years or so, will only fall short on the international scene if they don’t get enough game time at club level. Young stars need to be able to develop their game at a natural rate in the Premier League before they are truly worthy of their hype – yet because sides like Liverpool continue to speed up that process in the hope of an immediate pay off – the careers of such players inevitably feel somewhat rushed and subsequently damaged as a result.
So then, whilst the Saints continue to be punished for consistently producing promising players from the transfer market and their own academy alike, it seems Southampton will never truly be able to hold onto their most important stars in this ever questionable and money-driven world of modern day football.
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