Marked for Alex McCarthy
From our football correspondent
Steady
Transfer targets6 Sep 2027
The window shuts on the Xavi Simons deal
Southampton ran out of time with Tottenham. The paperwork was open when the deadline passed, and a transfer that was almost done is now a transfer that never happened.
Market6 Sep 2027
The fee was agreed and the flight was looked at — and then the phone stopped ringing. Chelsea moved on, Taylor Harwood-Bellis reports back to Southampton, and everybody pretends Monday is just Monday.
Market6 Sep 2027
Bromley come back empty-handed
The bid was some way short and Southampton did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Market6 Sep 2027
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Southampton, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad6 Sep 2027
294 appearances across 10 seasons in one shirt. Careers like that are not built on purpose any more, and Southampton know exactly what they have.
Boardroom6 Sep 2027
Window shuts: 15 in, 28 out at Southampton
The deadline has passed and the squad is the squad. 15 arrived, 28 left, and everything else printed about this club last month was a rumour that stayed one.
Market6 Sep 2027
Léo Scienza wants to know where this is going
“I want to win things, and I would like to do it here.” Nothing has been demanded and nothing has been threatened — but a boardroom at Southampton hears a sentence like that exactly as it was built.
Squad6 Sep 2027
The step up is real for Luke Hawe
At 18 he is doing things this season that he could not do last season, and doing them every week. Form comes and goes; this has stayed long enough to be called something else.
Loan watch6 Sep 2027
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Southampton, and 4 appearances in 12 say he has earned the hearing.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Transfer targets16 Aug 2027
Southampton have gone to Zenit with a bid, and the supporters have gone to the internet with an opinion about it. Whether either changes anything is up to the selling club.
Market16 Aug 2027
The clubs have settled the fee and he has settled his wages. What remains is a medical and a photograph, and around Southampton people have started saying his name in the past tense.
Market16 Aug 2027
Finn Azaz has left for Plymouth Argyle in a $6.2M deal. The accountants are pleased; the supporters are less certain.
Transfer targets16 Aug 2027
Southampton offered $4.1M; Bolton Wanderers said it was not close. The manager will be told the money is still there for the right player, which is what managers are told.
Market16 Aug 2027
The bid was some way short and Southampton did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
Market16 Aug 2027
The interest is real enough to have reached print. Southampton have said nothing, which in a transfer window is its own kind of answer.
Squad16 Aug 2027
Flynn Downes was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Transfer targets16 Aug 2027
Not now, not at any price the club was prepared to say out loud. Chelsea have kept their man, and Southampton go back to a list with one name crossed off it.
The dugout16 Aug 2027
Flynn Downes gets it from the manager
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market8 Feb 2027
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Southampton, and it is not being withdrawn.
Transfer targets8 Feb 2027
The window shuts on the Levi Colwill deal
Southampton ran out of time with Chelsea. The paperwork was open when the deadline passed, and a transfer that was almost done is now a transfer that never happened.
Market8 Feb 2027
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Market8 Feb 2027
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Joe O'Brien-Whitmarsh will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Southampton the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Market8 Feb 2027
Everything was agreed until it was not, and Alex McCarthy reports back to Southampton with a summer to forget. Neither club is saying who walked away from the table.
Squad8 Feb 2027
“The easiest signature of my career.” Tom Fellows and Southampton agree another 5 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Transfer targets8 Feb 2027
The approach was made and the answer came back in a sentence. There is no number on the table because there was no number that would have been enough.
The terraces8 Feb 2027
At 23 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Match2 Feb 2027
A 1‑0 win over Preston, earned rather than given, and the sort of afternoon that sends everyone home talking about next week instead of this one.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match9 Dec 2026
Leeds United ended it 1‑3. The season narrows to the league now, and everyone in the ground knew it before the final whistle.
Market14 Dec 2026
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Squad14 Dec 2026
33 days, the medical staff say, and medical staff are optimists by profession. The team sheet will look wrong without him.
Player ratings14 Dec 2026
Marked 7.51. Ask anyone leaving the ground what settled it and you will get one name, which is the only award that has ever really counted.
Squad14 Dec 2026
Lewis Bailey in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Southampton this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings14 Dec 2026
Successful dribbles: 14. There was always a defender in front of him and there was never a defender in front of him for long.
The dugout14 Dec 2026
The view from the dugout
“We did not lose. Some weeks that is all you get, and I would rather have the point than not.” Charles Cunningham chose the glass-half-full version of 0‑0; the supporters left with the other one.
The dugout14 Dec 2026
The manager makes an example of Jack Stephens
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Squad14 Dec 2026
Player of the week, judged against every other man in the division. A small award, and one most careers never collect.