Southampton raced past unsettled a few sold players ago I'd say.

2 months later

Schneiderlin said: "Chambers left the day before our meeting with Arsenal. They had a bid accepted and I was ready to sign for them, I was desperate. Tottenham wanted me, but with all due respect to them they are not the same level as Arsenal. I enjoyed my time under Mauro [Pochettino], but he knows I was never going to sign for them. I needed a change, an upgrade, not the same."

"The club then saw that our fans were starting to freak out after so many players left. The owner then told me: 'If Morgan goes the stage will be burned.' They then told me, and my agents: 'Morgan is not for sale.'

"I had to show my disagreement. Either I was going to the club to throw a tear gas bomb or say something on social networks."

"Through this tweet, I wanted to do something to make people understand the situation. In five seconds, I saw the reach of social networks. It was a kind of bomb. This tweet is a passage in my life."

"I felt the leaders at Southampton would not let me leave. They would have preferred to leave me in the gutter, so to speak, for six months."

"So I started training, I took pleasure in touch the ball, I really needed to play football, and I was made to play against Liverpool at the first day of the Premier League."

"At Anfield, all fans of Southampton applauded me and my name was chanted. It has warmed my heart and changed my mind. I knew then that I would spend the season at Southampton. It's not as if I had a choice, but for now I am happy to stay."

Feel a little daft about being happy Southampton refused to sell now. Funny how everyone assumed it was to go to Tottenham.

Oh ffs arsenal. Why didn't we wrap the deal up at the start. He even had his "I preferred Arsenal over Tottenham" signing speech prepared. What a waste.

There's nobody else to blame for this than the management and those in charge of our transfers. Had there not been 'little bit dither', we could have easily signed him in June. Like Liverpool did with Lallana and Lambert.

Goes to show our ineptitude in the transfer market. Most of the time it looks like they don't even know who they want and are just looking for bargains and feeding on other big clubs scraps.

This is one of the reasons why we are on course for another dogfight for fourth while Chelsea march on for the title. There wasn't much between us last year, but two successful transfer windows later, Chelsea are miles ahead.

you just know wenger was hemming and hawing. either you like the play or you don't. his ability didn't change since the end of the season. he should have been out with that first wave that went to liverpool. or wrap up both chambers and schneiderlin at the same time. it wasn't inconceivable that the fans would get really pissed after chambers went, he was the last straw.

god fuckin damnit.

So it comes out that we'd stumped up the money for a player we all want, had the offer accepted and factors out of our control prevent the signing going through, yet we blame it on our own anyway?

There were no factors out of our control, that's the point.

Southampton turning around on the agreement already made wasn't our decision.

Macca wrote:

So it comes out that we'd stumped up the money for a player we all want, had the offer accepted and factors out of our control prevent the signing going through, yet we blame it on our own anyway?

Thats one way of looking at it. To me it looks like Schneiderlin was obviously available but leaving it until Southampton had sold half their team ruined any chance we had of making the signing. From early on, after the Lallana sale, it was quite obvious we needed to move fast. Southampton were never going to sell everyone but of course we were the ones who missed out. I don't care about Chambers too much. Wasn't a key signing for us and Southampton had a good RB at the club already so it was an easy enough signing.

We had already signed Debuchy ospina and Sanchez by that point so perhaps resources were stretched. You could argue we could of prioritized better perhaps but I'm comforted by those quotes as it shows we're aware of what was needed and was on track of getting it done and will likely try again in January or the Summer.

Regardless of what really happened we didn't sign any midfielders this summer. At all. If we were in for Schneiderlin it means we had recognised a weakness in the squad, but when we couldn't get the player we just figured: "Fuck it" and went with no one instead. This is the real problem in a nutshell, and one of the biggest arguments for why current management might need to go. We've done this too many times over the years.

Macca wrote:

We had already signed Debuchy ospina and Sanchez by that point so perhaps resources were stretched. You could argue we could of prioritized better perhaps but I'm comforted by those quotes as it shows we're aware of what was needed and was on track of getting it done and will likely try again in January or the Summer.

We say that every year though. It was Luiz Gustavo in 2013, i think M'vila in 2012, and probably Blaise Matuidi every year since football began. Still no midfielder.

I remember Wenger saying he was being coy about Khedira and saying he respect Southampton so refuses to comment about Schneiderlin. At that time most of the tabloids were saying that he was going to Spurs and we definitely ain't interested. This interview with France Football has cleared all the things up.

I think we should definitely have seen it coming that if they sold too many players, we would have less of a chance. In that sense we are already lucky to get Chambers having gone for their players so late. If we had done a double deal early on, one of Lovren and Lallana wouldn't have been allowed to leave making it a double whammy.

Just find it ludicrous in the end we didn't sign anyone, Wenger keep saying we didnt manage to.

Macca wrote:

Southampton turning around on the agreement already made wasn't our decision.

Our decision was to wait until the end of July to try and sign him. The fact that they initially agreed terms with us, but then decided to close up shop(because they'd already sold half of their team) makes our failure even more transparent.

Macca wrote:

So it comes out that we'd stumped up the money for a player we all want, had the offer accepted and factors out of our control prevent the signing going through, yet we blame it on our own anyway?

Isn't there a player like that every window? Is it always the other clubs fault?

Anyway if we'd signed him Wenger would have left us short in another area again. Maybe we wouldn't have signed Welbeck, maybe he'd have sold Gibbs, who knows.

Disgusted to read this. All the good news today, plus plenty more chances for the players we do have to get injured on international duty.

With the start southampton have had they might be open to a move in Jan. The wheels haven't come off and the player is desperate to leave.