Southampton's transfer dealings in the past few years have very much focused on signing young and up and coming players, but that may change slightly if Ralph Hasenhuttl's comments on the subject are to believed.

"You never win anything with kids" was the famous comment by Alan Hansen back in 1995, when referring to Manchester United's penchant for playing some of their youngsters in the first team.

Back then United had an outstanding crop of youngsters coming through, but they counterbalanced that with some experienced professionals in the team.

Saints have been in danger in recent years of signing two many youngsters and not enough experience, this is highlighted by the defensive signings of the past two years, Tino Livramento had not played in the Premier League, Kyle Walker Peters at 22 had played very few games for Spurs, Mohammed Salisu, 20 year old Mohammed Salisu had just 30 games for Vallodolid under his belt, 23 year old Romain Perraud just 54 games for Brest.

Lyanco was 24, but had amassed just 59 games in Serie A.

Jan Bednarek is the most experienced man in the back four at 25, but he has had to learn on the job, joining five years ago at age 21.

Indeed yet to break through they have two other young signings in Thierry Small & Dynel Simeu.

This season like most others has seen some basic mistakes at the back due to a lack of experience and leadership.

Ralph Hasenhuttl has been speaking about the upcoming transfer window and has suggested that Saints will look to move early, but they will also be looking to fine tune the transfer strategy regarding the age of players recruited.

"We will move earlier this season, this is for sure,I think we have a squad at the moment where we have young, potential players and they are going in a good way."

" The question this summer will be how much of young players we need or maybe even some, I won’t say experienced players but players that give us something different also. We have to balance it quite well and this is the goal for the summer."

"In the end, we are now back known as a developing club that gives young players a chance to play. This is definitely helpful for our transfer activities in the summer, the rest we will look very carefully and see."

That hints that the Austrian is aware of the shortcomings of his team and perhaps we might do something about it.

I have been banging on about a lack of an experienced leader in the back four since the departure of Virgil Van Dijk and Jose Fonte over four years ago, we have never replaced their experience.

I do not think there will be a drastic departure from the strategy, but there is a slight change of direction, overall both Saints over the past few years and Brentford under Rasmus Ankersen have pursued similar paths.

But the Bee's made signings not just of the untried, but those slightly older such as Ivan Toney and one time Saints target Pontus Jansson who was 28 when signed from Leeds in the summer of 2019.

Saints will be looking to clear the decks this summer, poignantly wide players Nathan Redmond, Theo Walcott and Moussa Djenepo all never even made the bench for the trip to Leeds, this was more tactical than anything else, but it showed the way that Ralph Hasenhuttl is thinking for next season.

As stated when Sport Republic took over at St Mary's, it isn't going to make a lot of difference in terms of the transfer strategy Saints pursue, but there will be changes, the opportunity to be able to sign players before selling others and doing things quicker than we have been able to do before.

But it now seems that we will also look for something different and that seems to be some experience.

Photo: Action Images

landsdownsaint added 12:33 - Apr 6 Djennepo has gone from being our new Mane too becoming our new Guly ! Meaning so much was expected as with Guly . I’m not slagging Guly he was good & in a way a saints legend
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felly1 added 15:15 - Apr 6 It would be good to see a clear out of 3 or 4 players who perhaps have reached the end of their time with us. The art is in bringing in improved versions of who you're getting rid of and that's not always easy! I agree that we could do with a few more experienced players coming in rather just promising youngsters as you have to have some pragmatism in this league if you want to survive and prosper. A new goalie, centre back, creative wide or attacking midfielder and another striker if and when Broja goes.

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Block8 added 16:51 - Apr 6 It might be a longshot but with his current situation at Man U, maybe a loan offer for Rashford could be worth a try?
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saintsfanbrock added 16:54 - Apr 6 Block8 at £200,000 a week I think Man U would have to be feeling very charitable to loan as Rashford at an amount we could afford.
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Block8 added 14:14 - Apr 7 Saintsfanbrock, you never know unless you try, it's just an idea as he appears to have been brushed aside to accommodate Ronaldo. Perhaps a 3 month loan would benefit both him, for his England place and United to give him some form?
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underweststand added 14:51 - Apr 13 If nothing else the result showed the difference between a class CL side ...and the rest of us. Chelsea were quicker to the ball all over the pitch and with Saints playing a high line it left us open for our back two defenders to keep pace with a marauding Chelsea midfield. Finding "good young talents" is something clubs like Saint need, and which Chelsea can afford to do, and still let talents like Broja and Livramento go and play elsewhere. Going back to the old Ted Bates adage ..."the right balance of youth and experience" is still appropriate but a.t.m. we are fairly good on youth, but we do need a bit more experience ON the pitch, and not taking up space on the bench and in the dressing room.

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