Southampton’s European Roster Update (18 June 2015)

Edit:  Corrected minor error which I left Barnes on a list I meant to remove him from.  It changed many numbers by one.

In January, I posted an article about Southampton’s European Roster issues.  (Found here.) This is an update of that article in light of the transfer activity thus far. I am assuming that the relevant rules will be the same this coming season as they were last season—except that the age cutoff will change by exactly one year.  I will repeat some things from the earlier post, but not everything.  The Europa League rules can be found here.

Southampton will have to submit two lists, an “A” list and a “B” list.  The “B” is for players who were born on or after 1 January 1994 and were eligible to play for Southampton for any two uninterrupted years since their 15th birthday.  If they are 16, then need to have been registered with Southampton for the last two years.  There is no limit to the number of players who can be registered on the B list.  I am not going to worry about the “B” list right now.

Southampton can register up to 25 players on the A list.  However, at least eight players must be “locally trained” and at least four of those players must be “club-trained.”  The other four can be “association-trained.”

“Club-trained” players are ones who have been registered with Southampton for three full seasons between ages 15 and 21.  The seasons can include the ones where the player turns 15 or 21.  Southampton has only two club trained players still with the club:  Morgan Schneiderlin  and Lloyd Isgrove.

An “association-trained” player is one who has been registered with one or more clubs from the same association for three seasons or 36 months between the ages of 15 and 21.  Obviously, all club-trained players are also association-trained players for the nation in which the club is registered.  If a club does not have enough club-trained or association-trained players, it must leave the roster spots empty.  This means that, right now, our “A” list would only have 23 players on it because we do not have enough club-trained players.  This is not a real problem right now because we only have 23 players to fit onto the A list and that includes Barnes, Osvaldo, and Ramirez.  (I am assuming that Ramirez and Osvaldo are finished here—although I do list them.)  My list assumes that we have decided not to retain Elia and Djuricic and that we won’t be allowed to retain Alderweireld.  If any of that changes, I will update at some point with a new list.

“A” LIST ROSTER

Other                    Association Trained         Club Trained

Fonte                    Bertrand                              Isgrove

Gardos                 Barnes                                  Schneiderlin

Gazzaniga            Clyne

Juanmi                  Davis, K                                               

Mane                    Davis, S

Mayuka                Forster

Osvaldo                Long

Pelle                      Rodriguez

Ramirez               

Soares

Tadic

Wanyama

Yoshida

Thus, we have plenty of association trained players.  If we exclude the two players who are unlikely to play for us again, the one player who we probably don’t care about (Mayuka), and the player who is not yet ready for senior action (Barnes), our European roster has exactly 19 players.  This has consequences.

Effectively, we can only sign three more players for Europe.  If we lose Schneiderlin, we can still only sign three more players for Europe.  If we lose Clyne, we could sign an additional player.  If we assume that Forster would not be ready to play before the end of the group stage, we could leave him off the roster at the start of the season.  That would create another opening.  Thus, we can sign—depending on events and assumptions—three to five more players for Europe. (Note: I assume that we will not re-sign club trained players like Gareth Bale and Theo Walcott.  If we did sign someone like that he would occupy an otherwise wasted roster slot.)

Because Premier League rules do not currently require club trained players, we could sign two extra players for domestic competition only.  Three extra players could be signed if Isgrove is left off the EPL roster.  Whether we could keep Isgrove and these three hypothetical players happy is another question.  Presumably, our participation in the Europa League is an attraction to some players.  Those players would not sign if they were not going to be eligible to play. 

There are other problems has well.  We obviously need three goal keepers who will need to be on both rosters.  This means that we need to sign at least one although we could sign two or three if we drop K. Davis and/or Gazzaniga to make room for them.

Consider our roster if we do not register Foster this summer, Barnes is excluded as being unready to play at the senior level, and (for various reasons) we do not register Clyne, Schneiderlin, Mayuka, Osvaldo, Rameriz, K. Davis, and Gazzaniga:

WHAT IF “A” LIST ROSTER

Other                    Association Trained         Club Trained

Fonte                    Bertrand                              Isgrove

Gardos                 Davis, S                                               

Juanmi                 Long              

Mane                   Rodriguez    

Pelle                     

Soares

Tadic

Wanyama

Yoshida

This is an obviously inadequate roster of 14 players—even allowing for the under-21s who would play like Ward-Prowse, Targett, and Reed.  For European purposes, we would be able (and need) to sign seven additional players. 

For domestic purposes, we would be able to sign 11 players of whom three must be home grown—12 with four homegrown if Isgrove is not used.

Presumably, in both cases three of the players would need to be goal keepers.  This seems unlikely.  Therefore, I assume that either K. Davis or Gazzaniga (or both) will be on next season’s roster.

Under this set of assumptions, we need another defensive midfielder and a central defender just to cover the departures.  That leaves openings for three non-goal keeper players in Europe and six or seven non-goal keepers in domestic competition—if we are going to buy players who cannot also play in Europe.

This situation creates a strange mixture of urgency combined with a need to wait and see what happens.  Obviously, the club is not going to sign another right back until and unless Clyne leaves—and maybe not even then if we can make a deal for Alderweireld.  The club is probably not going to sign the needed central defender until it is sure Alderweireld is gone.  The club probably will not sign the extra home grown players for domestic competition until after the European qualification rounds are complete—although there is no reason that new signings for Europe cannot also be homegrown.

On the other hand, the goal keeping need is urgent especially if Koeman does not want to use Gazzinga or K. Davis as his back up.  Presumably any decision on keeping Elia and Djuricic must also be made quickly.

Thus, I am predicting more signings, especially a goal keeper, before training camp opens.  But I am also predicting that some signings will not occur until after we have been eliminated from Europe or qualify for the Europa group stage.