Southampton fans have been reacting to their first choice goalkeeper Aaron Ramsdale moving to Newcastle United.
Saturday bringing official confirmation from the two clubs that the deal had been completed.
Whilst the media had widely reported the deal previously as going to be a loan for the 2025/26 season, with also an option for Newcastle United to buy in summer 2026.
The clubs described it simply as a season-long loan.
However, media on the south coast have since stated that their information is that Newcastle United are paying a loan fee believed to be between £4m and £5m, as well as NUFC having that option to make it permanent at the end of the 2025/26 season.
Southampton fans commenting on Aaron Ramsdale moving to Newcastle United via their Saints Web message board:
‘Feels like the club have caved in again.
Absolute bargain for Newcastle.
If their champions league campaign fails then they have the option to offload him back to us at which time his value will probably have dropped. Another asset that could have provided funds for a rebuild has been lost it feels’
‘I expect Ramsdale believes himself to be far above our level. Was probably disappointed he ended up here in the first place.’
‘He’d be right! He is far above the level of the rest of our squad, bar Fernandes.’
‘Is it not false economics? We save on his wages, but have to pay Baz’s and or someone else’s instead. We gain £5m on Ramsdale’s loan fee, but won’t his value probably go down by a similar amount? If we have a suitor, is now not the time to exploit them?’
‘You’ve got a point here though why are we allowing our best player to go on loan ? We seem to prioritise what the player wants over what’s actually good for the team .. fair enough if they meet our asking price.. but why let it happen just for a loan fee and saving some wages ?’
‘I think if Pope stays fit he’ll be the one playing the big games.’
‘Ramsdale is not signing for Newcastle knowing he won’t play and not caring. He will be expecting to be first choice. And I think he will be.’
‘I would have foregone some outfield recruitment if it meant keeping Ramsdale.’
‘We’ve gone from having the best keeper in the league to the worst one .. at least if we sold instead of loaned we would have some decent money to get a replacement ..
I suppose as long as we do we get a replacement at least we have some time now .. but frankly if we loan him out with the view of having bazunu as our number this is just absolutely shocking.’
‘You can’t just ignore finances because you want to. We have a bloated squad with some very high earners in it, some of them are going to have to go and the likes of Ramsdale and Fernandes more likely to attract suitors than others.’
‘I don’t view the loan deal as a great win for the club (how does that help us get a decent replacement?) and I certainly don’t relish the idea of the worst GK in English football being our no.1 this season. At the moment, with much of the deadwood still here and losing our best players, it’s easy to imagine another very underwhelming season ahead of us, even if we are in the Championship.’
‘We’ve not seen decent recruitment since the days of Mané, Pelle, Tadic and Van Dijk.’
‘Do Ramsdale, Fernandes, Lavia, Livramento, THB, KWP not count as good purchases?’
‘Seeing those names listed out, you have to wonder why we’re where we are. Perhaps they just weighed down by the other rubbish players.’
‘Of course they do, but they were not all here at the same time and how many are likely to be here now? My contention is that recruitment is not just about bringing in new bodies – it’s about how the squad progressively develops and improves rather than stands still or worse still degrades over time.’
‘Did anybody expect us to get relegated and keep hold of Ramsdale, Fernandes, Dibling, kwp etc? I fear you may be disappointed.
The last time we went down did you expect us to keep jwp, Tino, Lavia, Tella? We will have to start another rebuild if and when we win promotion again next year. That’s just how it works. That’s football.’
‘Annoying thing is we get Ramsdale out on loan to save his wages apparently.’
‘Just think, Ramsdale wages is probably no more then the likes of stephens bazunu and smallbone combined.’
‘You say that like it’s an argument in favour of keeping Ramsdale. The fact that we could have three Championship players for his wages is literally the reason we’re loaning him out.’
‘So it’s better to have three rubbish players then one great one ? This is exactly why we got relegated, quantity over quality.’
‘Well, the Ramsdale deal to Newcastle is saving us a bit (lot) of cash and bringing in a few more mill.
God we better be investing that in another keeper.’
‘(Local BBC journalist) Adam Blackmore tweeting that if we gain promotion this year, the buy option for Newcastle is void.’
‘That is utterly meaningless if he wants to stay there and Newcastle want him to stay there.’
‘Means we can try to extract a bigger fee. But yeah, he’ll still end up there if they both want that enough.’
‘Not entirely.
If we go up, Ramsdale nails down the starting spot at Newcastle and has a good season, it gives us leverage to get a bigger fee in that case.’
‘Meh. Feels marginal. If we’d sold him this week we should have got our money back. One year on and one year less on the contract, probably not much more in it, especially as NUFC would have already given us £4m or something.’
‘Unless there is a lot of incoming quality signings, that won’t be a problem.’
‘All makes sense to me, and backs up what I was told about PL teams being unsure of Aaron.
Sensible all round.’
