AT SOME stage Les Reed will finally stop patting himself on the back for selling Virgil van Dijk to Liverpool for £75million.
Southampton’s vice-chairman of football would have you believe there is nobody better placed and certainly nobody with a better skill-set to make the big calls around St Mary’s.
With Saints hovering just above the relegation zone, out of the bottom three on goal difference, the former FA man will have to go to work.
It was only a few years ago, when Reed worked under Howard Wilkinson at the FA, that he was responsible for promoting and nurturing young English coaches.
He has never appointed one at Southampton, mind.
Since Nigel Adkins was fired by former executive chairman Nicola Cortese and replaced with Mauricio Pochettino in 2013, he has always looked abroad.
Last summer Reed fired a perfectly decent manager in Claude Puel, who took Southampton to the EFL Cup final and eighth in the Premier League.
They wanted more ambition, more drive, more personality to bridge the gap between mid-table and a return to European football.
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So, they hired Manuel Pellegrino.
The Argentinian coach is without a Premier League win since Southampton thumped Everton 4-1 at home on November 26.
Pellegrino seems like an honourable fella but his eyes were glazing after Crystal Palace mugged them on Tuesday night. This is all happening on Reed’s watch, after he was entrusted to handle the day-to-day running of the football operation when Katharina Liebherr took over.
The modern-day Southampton, the Southampton that Reed is more than happy to take credit for building with his own bare hands, are having a wobble.
Selling Van Dijk, especially for £75m, is unquestionably a tidy bit of business for a club of Southampton’s size.
It is also confirmation that if the price is right, Southampton are willing to sell.
Reed famously claimed in April 2014 that the big names would be staying on the South Coast.
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Within three months he had sold Luke Shaw, Adam Lallana, Dejan Lovren, Calum Chambers and Rickie Lambert for £98m.
Nathaniel Clyne (£12.5m), Morgan Schneiderin (£24m), Sadio Mane (£30m), Victor Wanyama (£11.5m) and Jay Rodriguez (£15m) have also all been allowed to move on.
Many of them forced their way out, with Southampton driving up the prices during a bidding frenzy for some of the best players outside of the top six.
Yet the famous academy system that nurtured the talents of Shaw, Chambers and James Ward-Prowse is starting to crumble.
That production line of young talent, once admired and envied by Premier League clubs across the country, has ground to a halt.
It is great shame because there is nothing more satisfying for clubs and their supporters to see one of their own coming through.
For now, the first team is the priority. And the recruitment, all of it overseen by Reed, has been uninspiring and unsuccessful.
Manolo Gabbiadini has scored three times; Pierre Hojbjerg has only recently returned to the side, and Sofiane Boufal has never really got going.
Despite the backing for Pellegrino this week, Reed’s remit from the club’s new investors is to do whatever it takes to keep Southampton in the top flight.
Reed has left them in no doubt that he is the best man for the job.
That, as everybody at the club is aware, is the Southampton Way.
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