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FULL TIME: #SaintsFCU23s 4-0 #ReadingFC U23s
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Summary of non-mainstream articles: 14/08/2017 20:09:30
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...disgustedly fabricated by Optimus trousers...beta v1.9 - now with EXTRA pictures!| For just £15.4 million, Tottenham simply must challenge Southampton for Wesley HoedtHEREISTHECITY |
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Which other clubs are owned by Chinese investors and how successful are they?
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SAINTS are the sixth English club to have welcomed Chinese investment into them in the last two years.
Four of the other five are West Midlands based - Aston Villa, Birmingham City, West Bromwich Albion and Wolves.
They are all under majority Chinese ownership while China Media Capital, a Chinese state-backed investment conglomerate, own 13 per cent of Manchester City.
Back in December 2015, CMC paid £265m to buy a share of the club owned by the oil-rich emirate of Abu Dhabi.
The main aim of that deal was to capitalise on the growing appetite for football in China.
Since then, the only other Premier League club - prior to Saints - to have Chinese investment are West Brom.
Guangzhou eco-town entrepreneur Guochuan Lai bought the Baggies for around £175million in the summer of 2016.
There has certainly been investment, with three players signed for £10m or more - Nacer Chadli, Jake Livermore and Saints striker Jay Rodriguez.
They might not have been mega signings, but £13m and £14m signings for West Brom were unheard of until Lai’s arrival.
Boss Tony Pulis is obviously happy with Lai’s ownership, as he signed a new contract extension only last week.
Globally, Lai has taken steps to boost Albion’s global brand - a new partnership with Werder Bremen of the Bundesliga as well as the emergence of six ‘West Bromwich Albion’ football towns in China.
Aston Villa were also taken over by a Chinese company, the Recon Group, in the summer of 2016.
It was headed up by Dr Tony Xia, who immediately sanctioned a £25m spending spree for new manager Roberto Di Matteo.
The Italian was sacked shortly after a poor start to the season, while replacement Steve Bruce was handed £11m more in January to bring in Brentford striker Scott Hogan and Nottingham Forest’s Henri Lansbury.
Though there have been no hugely expensive signings this summer, Villa did persuade John Terry to sign for them - and he wouldn’t have been cheap.
Wolves were also taken over in the summer of 2016 by Chinese company Fosun International for a deal worth around £45m.
Fosun co-owner Guo Guangchang quickly brought in a new high profile manager, Walter Zenga - then sacked him a few months later.
Guangchang is obviously not a patient man as Zenga’s replacement, Paul Lambert, was also dispensed with at the end of 2016/17.
Portuguese coach Nuno Espirito Santo, a former Porto boss, was brought in and given a healthy budget.
Santo went straight back to Porto and made youngster Ruben Neves, who cost around £16m, the most expensive player in Championship history.
Saints fans could well see him in action in next Wednesday’s League Cup second round tie at St Mary’s.
Last autumn, a fourth Midlands club - Birmingham - were taken over by businessman Paul Suen of Trillion Trophy Asia.
The new owners quickly sacked boss Gary Rowett, with the Blues on the outskirts of the Championship play-off zone, and replaced him with Chelsea legend Gianfranco Zola.
The move was a total flop and Zola was replaced by renowned managerial firefighter Harry Redknapp with three games left and relegation looking increasingly likely.
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Transfer report: Atletico Madrid only want to sell Southampton loan target Luciano Vietto
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Atletico Madrid want Southampton target Luciano Vietto to leave permanently this summer – and not on loan.
The striker has fallen out of favour at the Spanish club and he is looking to secure a move in the coming weeks.
Southampton have explored the possibility of signing the 23-year-old on loan, as have French club Marseille and Italian side Sampdoria.
But Atletico, according to AS, have their heart set on Vietto leaving for good this summer as they want to bank the cash from his sale.
Originally the Spanish club had considered allowing the Argentine to leave on loan, but they have now decided they want the money from his sale to reinvest in new players.
Atletico are expected to go on a major recruitment drive in January, when their FIFA transfer ban ends, and they want the funds from Vietto’s departure to help bankroll their spending spree.
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Get the thoughts of #SaintsFCU23s boss @RadhijaidiOff following tonight’s impressive victory over #ReadingFC:
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Sourced from Southampton FC - Official Site article
SOUTHAMPTON FC | Official Website of Saints – latest news, photos and videos
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Located next to the away section of supporters, the place to be for many of our most passionate and vocal fans. Young children may find the atmosphere a little overwhelming.
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Southampton announce new ‘partnership’ with Chinese investor
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Southampton’s owners have announced a new partnership with Chinese investor Gao Jisheng and his family.
The businessman is reported to have bought 80 per cent of the south coast club, with previous majority shareholder Katharina Liebherr retaining 20 per cent.
Liebherr promised fans and employees “business as usual” in a statement announcing the new deal on Monday afternoon.
“Following extensive and fruitful work, we are entering into a partnership with the Gao family and I am excited about what we will achieve together.
“Today is the start of a new and exciting chapter for our club. Mr Jisheng Gao and his daughter, Mrs Nelly Gao, with whom I have built a close relationship, share our values and ambitions.
“As a team, we will strive to build upon the strong foundation that is in place towards sustainable long-term success.”
Liebherr added that the club’s current chairman Ralph Krueger had the full support of the new investors and would continue the “Southampton Way in the years ahead”.
Gao, who has been in talks with Southampton for nearly a year, said he was “honoured and humbled” to have a stake in the club.
“I am honoured and humbled to become a partner of Southampton Football Club alongside Katharina Liebherr, who, together with her father, has been such a great steward of the club, its growth and success,” the businessman said in a statement.
“Together, we have the passion and motivation to build on Southampton’s excellent progress in recent years as we look forward to an exciting next chapter for the club.”
Liebherr inherited Southampton following the death of her late father, Markus, in 2010 when the club was playing in League One.
After successive promotions in the following two seasons under the guidance of manager Nigel Adkins, the club have re-established themselves in the Premier League.
Gao has reportedly paid £210m for his share of the club and becomes the seventh Chinese investor to have a stake in an English league club.
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Summary of non-mainstream articles: 14/08/2017 21:09:44
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| Southampton sold: Liebherr hands over control to China’s Gao familyINSIDEWORLDFOOTBALL || Kevin Davies Looks At Saints Chances For The Season - Southampton NewsTHEUGLYINSIDE |
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| | Chinese businessman in £210m Southampton takeoverRTE |
| | Virgil van Dijk more likely to join Man City or Chelsea than Liverpool – but Saints want £70m – report – City WatchCITYWATCH |
| | Southampton eye up van Dijk replacement from LazioNEWSLADBROKES |
| | Chelsea and Southampton in convenient domino effect transfer chainSPORTWITNESS | ...unsurprisingly given life to by Optimus trousers...beta v1.9 - now with EXTRA pictures!
Sourced from Daily Echo article
ANALYSIS: A look behind the Saints deal
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At around 3.10pm Saints fans ran through a whole gamut of emotions.
As the club confirmed that Jisheng Gao and his family had ‘partnered’ with Saints and Katharina Liebherr – in real terms paying her £210m for 80 per cent of the club – the rollercoaster started immediately.
A sense of surprise, delight, excitement, pride, sadness and uncertainty took hold, one after the other.
Surprise because a deal that seemed to be dead was completed, though to be precise the deal with Gao’s company, Lander, which had been in the melting pot for over a year did die, but he personally stepped into the breach to fund this audacious move.
Delight and excitement because it is a new chapter in the club’s history. Nobody knows what it will hold but this could be the first full day of something truly transformative.
Pride as Saints were the target of this purchase, not some other club, but they, the fans, the culture, all of it meant Gao felt compelled to put his money on the line to get involved.
Sadness as while one door opens another starts to close. Katharina Liebherr retains 20 per cent of the club, but certainly the Liebherr influence now diminishes and fades into the background.
Her late father, Markus, is celebrated amongst the most exulted of names associated with the club for buying Saints out of administration in 2009 and starting the comeback before his untimely death.
There are more questions than answers provided by the statement issued by the club on behalf of Katharina Liebherr.
What we do know is that Gao and his daughter Nelly who, as the Daily Echo previously revealed has struck up a close friendship with Katharina, are funding the deal from family capital.
This has been a long winded process. The negotiations for a deal with Gao’s Lander company were completed around six months ago.
However, the well-publicised difficulty in Chinese firms being able to finance major overseas purchases meant the money was not forthcoming.
In the end it is believed that Gao simply lost patience, didn’t want to lose this chance, and so took the brave decision to front up the cash himself.
Given the difficulty of obtaining information from China it is hard to be sure of his estimated wealth, but several reliable sources have plumped for around £1.5bn.
If that is correct this deal consumes about 13 per cent of his wealth, so is certainly not a minor footnote in his empire.
So what exactly does Gao want with Saints?
It’s the burning question that nobody seems to have the answer to just yet.
Gao is clearly an extremely wealthy man, but given the level of this investment just to buy most of the club it seems unlikely he is going to start pouring the cash in.
Perhaps there could be more investment than under Liebherr, whose comparatively modest wealth in the low hundreds of millions meant she could not afford to lavish out on players given the size of deals at the top level.
But, even so, all the noises around St Mary’s are that it will be, as the statement put it, ‘business as usual.’ The talk at the club is that this move secures the financial future of Saints – certainly they are now virtually debt free as the loans Liebherr put into the club have been repaid as part of the deal - but don’t expect Saints to start competing for mega money star players in the remaining fortnight of this transfer window.
All the early indications are that Saints will follow a similar business model to the one they have had under Liebherr, where they have tried to move away from being reliant on her handouts.
In a remarkable turn of events, the club really looks the same at the top despite what is in effect a change of ownership.
The relatively new look top level strategic board of chairman Ralph Krueger alongside Les Reed and Martin Semmens continues to take charge, as they did under Liebherr.
Below that is a management board, which is still being pieced together and runs the club on a day-to-day basis.
If and how the Gao family involvement changes any of this, any policy, any direction, is impossible to say at this stage.
Surely they have bought it for more than the pleasure of owning it and taking a backseat while somebody else runs it as was.
Surely they want to see a brave new world, perhaps large scale off field development, maybe great new players on the pitch, and you would assume they will not just want to waste their money and will be looking for a return on investment.
To achieve that you would think they would need to speculate to accumulate.
All the indications are that the huge increases in valuations of Premier League football clubs thanks to the mega TV rights deals will dampen somewhat. The new TV deal when it is negotiated is expected to see much more modest growth.
That means that without something changing, Saints are surely somewhere near their peak valuation.
So either the Gao family don’t really care about the money and that’s not why they are in it, or they see a way to take Saints on a stage further than they currently are, either via lavish investment or more prudent methods.
Certainly if they want to know how to make money out of a football club and enjoy yourself along the way they can take lessons from the Liebherrs.
When Markus bought the club it was put to me by those close to him at the time that he saw it as a ten year project. He would turn it around, have some fun, and then sell and make a profit. A hobby and a business venture combined. Job done.
Certainly this deal is remarkable for Katharina.
Over their ownership the Liebherrs spent around £69m on Saints.
Markus was responsible for about £15m – mainly connected to the original purchase of the club out of administration.
Katharina sanctioned the remainder of around £54m, writing off some of it as equity in the club with the rest sitting on the books as loans which she never asked to be repaid. Those loans are now gone, and the Liebherr profit from this deal equates to £141m.
Though you can squabble over the technicality of whether this is a partnership or a takeover, Katharina still retains a 20 per cent stake in the club which at this valuation is worth more than £50m.
All of this talk of individual wealth and profit is well and good for the owners, but the supporters will want to know what they get from all this – not personally of course but how the club as a whole benefits.
That is the uncertainty of the situation, but also part of the excitement, and we will find out in due course as the Saints rollercoaster takes another twist.
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@SouthamptonFC - Southampton FC
Watch back all of the goals and the best of the action from #SaintsFCU23s’ #PL2 win over #ReadingFC: http://sfcne.ws/U23RFCHlights
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Summary of non-mainstream articles: 14/08/2017 22:09:57
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...mousily pieced together by Optimus trousers...beta v1.9 - now with EXTRA pictures!| Southampton reportedly bid £15.5m for Everton linked centre-back Wesley HoedtHEREISTHECITY |
| | WHUFC |
|| Chelsea want €55 million Van Dijk, United close in on Portuguese prodigy and all today’s transfer gossipTHE42 |
|| Report: Inter Milan offer Andrea Ranocchia to Southampton, potential Virgil van Dijk replacementHEREISTHECITY |
| | CHINADAILY |
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The Ugly Inside News for Southampton
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| Kevin Davies Looks At Saints Chances For The Seasona day ago |
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Ticket Information: Saints vs West Ham United
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Saints welcome West Ham United to St Mary’s on Saturday 19th August (3pm). Ticket information is as follows:
Become an Official Member and get priority access on tickets to each and every home match. Adult Members will also now benefit from £5 off two Premier League fixtures whilst Junior Members will receive enhanced Welcome Packs with free gifts. Find out more about Official Membership here.
Secure your seat for all 19 Premier League games with a 2017/18 Season Ticket. Prices start from £541 for Adults, £150 for Under-18s and £50 for Under-11s. Read more and buy online at southamptonfc.com/seasontickets or call 02381 780 780.
Tickets are restricted to one per Supporter Number. Fans can purchase more than one ticket in each transaction by linking other eligible accounts with theirs using our friends and family function.
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Chelsea transfer news: £50m Van Dijk bid this week, confidence about Ox deal, Costa latest
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Chelsea are confident of signing Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain from Arsenal this summer.
The Blues are keen on a deal for the Gunners ace and are ready to pay £35m to get him.
The Evening Standard claim Chelsea have received ‘sufficient encouragement’ over a transfer going through.
Starsport understands the England man is up for a move to Stamford Bridge, which would allow him to play Champions League football this term.
Chelsea are also prepared to pay him a better wage than Arsenal.
Oxlade-Chamberlain wants a new £120,000-a-week deal, but the Gunners are well short of that figure with their offer.
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Summary of non-mainstream articles: 14/08/2017 23:10:12
| | Chelsea round-up: Closing in on Arsenal deal; £50 million Van Dijk bid prepared; Perisic move possibleTHEBOOTROOM |
| Southampton’s owner and Gao Family enter Chinese ‘Partnership’SBNATIONSTMARYSMUSINGS |
| | Southampton finalise partnership with Chinese investorsFOURFOURTWO |
|| A Chinese businessman has just bought Southampton for €220 millionTHE42 |
| | Southampton become seventh Chinese-owned club in EnglandCITYAM |
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| | Chinese businessman Gao buys Southampton stakeNEWSTRAITSTIMES |
| | WEAREWEARSIDE |
| | Chinese businessman Jisheng Gao snaps up 80 per cent stake in SouthamptonBELFASTTELE |
| | SWANSEACITYFC |
| | Southampton warn Premier League duo that Van Dijk would cost record fee101GREATGOALS | ...macabrely thought-up by Optimus trousers...beta v1.9 - now with EXTRA pictures!
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Fantasy Premier League tips: 10 players to keep faith with
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We’ve already had one weekend of Premier League action and we’re already seeing some knee-jerk reactions.
Fantasy Premier League bosses are already tinkering with their teams and transferring players in and out of their teams.
Some decisions, though, looks a little baffling. So, we’re here to talk you away from making move you might regret.
We’ve taken a look at some of the most transferred out players and picked the footballers you need to keep faith with.
Click the rigth arrow above for more Fantasy Premier League tips…
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U23 Report: Saints 4-0 Reading
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A Jonathan Afolabi brace and Gabriel Osho own goal followed Tyreke Jonson’s early opener to ensure Radhi Jaïdi’s men secured their first three points of the new campaign.
Pierre-Emile Højbjerg, Matt Targett and Alex McCarthy were included in the under-23s starting line-up, which was captained by centre back Alfie Jones at St Mary’s.
And it was Reading that created the first meaningful chance of the evening. As a deep cross from the right was tossed dangerously into the penalty area on ten minutes and Richard Bakary was forced to chest the ball behind to safety.
The opener then came on 15 minutes and it was Saints that secured the advantage. Marcus Barnes worked enough space on right flank to drill a cross low into the penalty area and Johnson was on hand to smash in from close range.
Five minutes later the advantage was almost doubled. Matt Targett’s 30-yard free kick eluded everyone and was drifting towards the far corner before George Legg reacted to pull the ball back from the line and out for a corner.
Having netted the opener, Johnson then turned provider. Afolabi beat Reading ‘keeper Legg to the forward’s cross from the left to head in and double the advantage on 25 minutes.
Barnes then almost got in on the act before half time, as Radhi Jaïdi’s side continued to dominate proceedings. Højbjerg found the forward lurking on the right corner of the penalty area, though he was unable to keep his shot down.
Saints quickly put the game to bed after the restart. First Reading captain Osho headed in Bakary’s cross on 52 minutes to make it 3-0 before Johnson and Afolabi then combined once more on the hour mark and the latter provided a superb first-time volley to make it four.
The visitors almost found a way back into the match from an unlikely source on 70 minutes as Axel Andresson lashed a fierce volley towards goal, though the defender was unable to prevent his strike flying harmlessly over McCarthy’s crossbar.
Jaïdi made his first change of the evening with ten minutes to play, as Harlem Hale was introduced in favour of Afolabi.
The winger almost made an immediate impact from the bench, as he cut in from the right flank and took aim at goal but curled his left-footed effort just wide of Legg’s far post.
Despite a late rally from the visitors, Saints stood firm to ensure a clean sheet and their first three Premier League 2 points of the season.
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Jaïdi: That performance ticked most of the boxes
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The Saints youngsters kick-started their Premier League 2 season with a 4-0 win at St Mary’s, and Jaïdi has now challenged them to maintain that standard over the coming season.
“I am pleased with the performance the boys have put in tonight,” he started.
“They have ticked most of the boxes in terms of the objectives and plans we set for the game – we also scored four goals and kept a clean sheet.
“It was a great performance and we’ve set the standard now. We’ve told them that is the standard that we need to show and put in every game.”
Tyreke Johnson’s opener on 15 minutes was followed by a Jonathan Afolabi brace and own goal from Reading captain Gabriel Osho to compelte the scoreline.
And Jaïdi was delighted to see some his side’s training ground work come to fruition in a match scenario.
“We focused a lot on crosses from the wide areas and crosses into the box,” he continued.
“Today we saw the four goals come from crosses from both sides, so I am really pleased to seen that being taken into the game.
“Hopefully we can continue to use that as a strength and reinforce it with some more good work.”
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Summary of non-mainstream articles: 15/08/2017 00:10:25
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| Reading FC U23s fall to defeat in PL2 opener at St Mary’sREADINGFC |
| | Report: Southampton have offered 17 million Euro for Lazio defender101GREATGOALS |
|| Southampton’s goal worries should tempt Saints to ignore Sam Gallagher interestHEREISTHECITY |
|| Southampton complete partnership with Chinese investors Jisheng Gao | Goal.comGOALDOTCOM | ...long-sufferingly cobbled together by Optimus trousers...beta v1.9 - now with EXTRA pictures!
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