SUCH MAD PURSUIT
One of the results of the football transfer window which has just ended is to reinforce the number of foreign players in the game in this country. The constant influx of foreign players does absolutely nothing to further England`s international cause and forces manager Roy Hodgson still to rely on the tainted Terry, Cole and their ageing chums. It says much that my own club, Southampton, could if manager Nigel Adkins was so inclined, put out a team with an Argentinian goalkeeper, a back four from Portugal, Holland, Japan and Scotland, a midfield quartet from Uruguay, France, Northern Ireland and Japan and two up front from Zambia and Brazil.
Southampton spent almost £30million on a handful of new players in this transfer window, which might please the fans, but the trouble is that most of the other clubs spent the same, if not more, with the result that you seem to have to spend that much just to stand still. And all in the mad pursuit of trying to compete with clubs from the great conurbations of the land of which, it has to be admitted, Southampton is not one.
Now, being in the benevolent hands of billionaire foreign owners - the family of the much lamented Markus Liebherr - and with the club`s affairs managed by an astute Italian ex-banker, the Saints would appear to have few, if any, financial problems and the ambition to take the club forward has been demonstrated by the amount spent in recent weeks. But I just wonder whether, in this process, the club might lose some of its identity with its supporters as the homely, provincial, local family club it has always been and is now in danger of turning into yet another plaything for our foreign friends.
And the more the greasy pole of the Premier League is climbed, so a little more of the soul of the club might well disappear in a welter of foreign mercenaries and interests and the mad pursuit of attempting to join the so called `big boys`, from which the only way might well be back down again. Anyway, given that the Saints now find themselves bottom of the league with nil points after three straight defeats, maybe such mad pursuit need trouble me no more.
Now, being in the benevolent hands of billionaire foreign owners - the family of the much lamented Markus Liebherr - and with the club`s affairs managed by an astute Italian ex-banker, the Saints would appear to have few, if any, financial problems and the ambition to take the club forward has been demonstrated by the amount spent in recent weeks. But I just wonder whether, in this process, the club might lose some of its identity with its supporters as the homely, provincial, local family club it has always been and is now in danger of turning into yet another plaything for our foreign friends.
And the more the greasy pole of the Premier League is climbed, so a little more of the soul of the club might well disappear in a welter of foreign mercenaries and interests and the mad pursuit of attempting to join the so called `big boys`, from which the only way might well be back down again. Anyway, given that the Saints now find themselves bottom of the league with nil points after three straight defeats, maybe such mad pursuit need trouble me no more.
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