After a year where communication out of St Mary's has been virtually zero, the arrival of Johannes Spors as Technical Director has seen a surge of media interviews, this time he has been speaking about extending players contracts.

The Daily Echo has run a story reporting comments made by Spors to BBC Radio Solent, regarding the players who are out of contract.

These days the online version of the paper seems to charge readers to read most of their news stories, so here is what Spors has been saying.

"I'm looking into these contracts now, of course. It's not so many players that are really running out of contracts this year or next year.

"Contract management, in general, is an important part. You have to find the right moment and also show appreciation and respect. That's a vital part.

"In general, honestly, I try to speak to literally everybody at the moment. But it's more like an introduction. Then we see what we are doing as a next step.

"I don't want to speak too much about what we are doing there really," he added when asked directly about Kyle Walker-Peters who will be out of contract after 5 years at the club in July.

Personally I think that one is a non runner anyway, KWP will be a free agent and there will be clubs in the Premier League who will be interested, Walker-Peters has given good value for money over the past 5 years and stayed loyal when we were relegated two years ago, he should leave with the respect of the Southampton fans for his service.

Spors continued with comments on the situation with Tyler Dibling, who has been locked in contract talks for most of the season, reports out of St Mary's suggested that Dibling & his family were keen to sign, but his agents were the stumbling block.

Although Dibling's contract ends in the summer of 2026, Saints have an option to extend it another year, so effectively he is tied to the club till 2027, that means that they are under no pressure to sell cheaply.

"At the moment, I see Tyler Dibling as a great success story for this club. It's a great result of a combination of academy work and first teamwork," he told BBC Radio Solent.

"They put him in the right moments, and it's exciting to see him on the pitch. He is still young and still has a lot of potential. He has areas where he can be better.

"It's a good situation for us to have a player like him in our club, and everything else in the future will show honestly. In the end, we always have the same goal.

"It's all about development. Development, in general, is a headline for this football club because it's possible and needed. Dibling is a good example of that, a role model for other young players.

"When you want to work on development, relationships are important. Relationships with his parents, agents and maybe family. That is a factor."

So although the sale of Tyler Dibling looks pretty certain from the outside, the comments about development & relationships are perhaps pertinent, Dibling returned from Chelsea 3 years ago as he saw no path to the first team, therefore he might not want to go to a club where he will not be a regular in the first team, he might look at Jack Grealish, who didn't desert Aston Villa when they were relegated, he stayed, continued his development and then left for Manchester City when he was ready to be a major part of their first team, physically, mentally and with the experience needed to be a top player.

Spors will have his work cut out with several players also out of contract, Adam Lallana is perhaps the highest profile and his one year deal is up, but there is also Jack Stephens and that will be an interesting one, under Russell martin Jack was made Captain and his reputation amongst Saints supporters has suffered as a result of that and he went from being respected club servant to be seeing as part of the problem with Russel Martin's management.

This is a hard one to call, had we stayed up, then I would have expected Jack to be released, but in the Championship perhaps we might consider it a cheap option to keep him on the books.

Joe Lumley has not played much for the club in his two year at St Mary's and the question here will be who is going to be back up to Gavin Bazunu, Alex McCarthy is not getting any younger, but stillhas a year left on his contract, so it is not straight forward, but I would think Lumley might well be let go due to this fact.

All Photos Via Reuters

Bowlercow added 08:52 - Mar 28 TD needs to man up and tell his agent to do what he wants not what the agent wants If we don't sell him now will that same agent tell him to run his contract down so we end up losing him for a development fee? If he signs a new contract,with or without an extension,will we still have to pay his agent a fee? Would really like to see him stay but with a coach who can get the best out of him a Martin did.

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SaintNick added 09:34 - Mar 28 Dibling is on a wage based on him being a 17 year old with potential, Saints want to pay him what he is worth, if he runs down his contract then he will spend 2 years on that wage, If he leaves at the end of it, as he is under 24 there will still be a development fee, so we would get something
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DorsetIan added 10:02 - Mar 28 Nothing interesting from Spor, as could only have been expected. But good to see he's already up to speed with SR speak: "They put him in the right moments, and it's exciting to see him on the pitch. He is still young and still has a lot of potential. He has areas where he can be better. "It's a good situation for us to have a player like him in our club, and everything else in the future will show honestly. In the end, we always have the same goal. "It's all about development. Development, in general, is a headline for this football club because it's possible and needed. Dibling is a good example of that, a role model for other young players. "When you want to work on development, relationships are important. Relationships with his parents, agents and maybe family. That is a factor." Meaningless waffle. "They put him in the right moments" - this is gibberish.

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underweststand added 14:35 - Mar 28 Of those mentioned ....Of course we want to keep KWP, but I read (somewhere) that he was only on 22 K /week (!)..a paltry sum compared with some others on the payroll. He is a Prem. grade player but a return to "somewhere in London" might be on the cards. As for Captain Jack(?)..I think his time has come and he could do worse than return to Plymouth (who may go down), but aren't amongst the worse teams in the Championship. Joe Lumley, was seldom called upon but was a breath of fresh air when he did play. He deserves to be playing in someone's first team instead of just occasionally sitting on the bench, and as he is OOC, it shouldn't be a problem for him to find a good club. I suppose we will retain Alex McCarthy until his contract finishes, but there was talk last season that he might be bench candidate for another Prem. side. We will likely see Bazunu return but we do need reliable replacements as back-up in the longer term. It was fun seeing Adam Lallana getting a little bit of game time (between injuries) but if he stays with the club?... it ought to be in some sort of coaching role. He'd do well there. Tyler Dibling (?) YES) it would good for us -if he stayed, but even if we don't get the quoted £100 Million for him, that sort of money would go a long way for a club like ours. We don't often see that sort of deal, and there will surely be another lad capable of taking his role. A lot of the VvD £ 75 mill. fee went down the drain with poor signings, and the later fire sale of Lavia & Co. seems to have gone up in smoke with very little reward. IMHO ..get the best deals we can on everyone in the squad, and give the new manager the cash to build a new side capable of making a quick return to the Prem.

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kingolaf added 17:47 - Mar 28 If Bazunu is our first choice keeper next year, we won’t go up. He is dreadful. The worst keeper I have seen in a Saints shirt, and I remember Peter Wells.
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mushinexile added 10:44 - Mar 31 Bazohno as keeper. Welcome to league one.
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