Alan Pardew has hinted at new signings for Saints this summer by insisting “we will get stronger.”
Speculation has started to ramp up with Saints being linked with a host of players already, the latest of which is Hayden Mullins of Portsmouth, but Pardew says he has not even discussed any potential budget yet with executive chairman Nicola Cortese.
Pardew again insisted that he does not fear losing his star names and is instead focusing for now on the difficult task of deciding which of the 13 players who are out of contract or have loan deals expiring should be kept on.
Inevitably the focus of many fans will be on potential new signings and Pardew said: “It’s a conversation for myself and Nicola in terms of the budget, what’s available, what we’re going to keep, what’s going to go and what are we going to bring in.
“All I would say is we will get stronger.
“Nicola has suggested that to me, I can’t guarantee that there will be new signings as yet because there is so much to be done when you’re signing a player, so many things can happen.
“But I do know one thing – that this team will not be weaker when it kicks off in August, no way.”
Pardew has a host of big decisions to make in the meantime with 11 players out of contract and two loan spells expiring.
He says he will shortly be starting the worst part of his job as he sits downs with players over the next couple of weeks faced with having to tell some of them their time at Saints is up.
Those out of contract are Jon Otsemobor, Graeme Murty, Chris Perry, Bartosz Bialkowski, Wayne Thomas, Olly Lancashire, Kayne McLaggon, Michael Poke, Simon Gillett, Anthony Pulis and David Connolly. Papa Waigo’s loan spell from Fiorentina comes to an end as does Michail Antonio’s with Reading, though Pardew is looking to make that deal permanent.
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