Southampton’s Morgan Schneiderlin has been linked with Arsenal (Picture: Reuters)

It sounds like a summer blockbuster, the sequel to last August’s thriller on the South Coast. Exodus 2: The Awakening.

If the British press get their way this time will be bigger and better than the first.

The national press revelled in the exits of Rickie Lambert, Adam Lallana, Luke Shaw, Dejan Lovren and Calum Chambers in the last close season, predicting doom and gloom on the team that had offended them so much with their non-English speaking manager and their ideas above their station; and they have started the ball rolling on the misery all over again.

Pick up any of today’s newspapers and you will find Morgan Schneiderlin, Nathaniel Clyne, Toby Alderweireld and Jay Rodriguez all being linked to their ‘dream moves’ to the likes of Arsenal, Liverpool, Manchester United and Spurs. This campaign is still 10 games away from being over and yet the incessant need for journalists to sell the Southampton players to anyone with a passing interest has begun with gusto.


Ronald Koeman will expect to see his star players linked with other clubs (Picture: Getty Images)

My message to the Saints fans is this, don’t let it ruin what has been a brilliant year for Ronald Koeman and his team and don’t panic just yet. We don’t need another ‘meltdown’ amongst the fans that saw wildly false accusations aimed at the club’s owners, chairman and director of football. On the face of it, at the time, last summer looked to be the disaster the sports pages were adamant that it was, but look at us now.



The reality is that people don’t like what Saints are achieving, they will hide behind false smiles and tell us through gritted teeth that it is ‘great what they are doing down there’ but in reality the very idea of us breaking into their hideous elitist status quo is turning their stomachs.

Every Southampton supporter will have had some Chelsea or Liverpool fan tell them that they should ‘be happy with what they have achieved’ when they have had the gall to complain at a poor performance or the recent lack of goals, because that is where they want us to be, in our box, plucky, but ultimately harmless. They are frightened of us and they will continue to try to patronise us into acceptance of our place. Don’t let them.

If last summer has taught us anything it’s that the infrastructure and the philosophy of Southampton Football Club is far more important than any individual player or even a group of them. Instead of getting frustrated at another spate of negative press attention, embrace it, we’ve got them rattled.

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