The everything-must go sale at Southampton seems to have finally ended and the club can finally look forward to spending the millions they have received for selling their stars from last season.

Virtually the whole of the backline has been sold. Luke Shaw has joined Manchester United, Dejan Lovren forced the club to sell him to Liverpool while Arsenal came knocking for the talented Calum Chambers.

The merseyside club also stole Adam Lallana and Luke Lambert but it seems the club have finally put their foot down after Tottenham came calling for the duo of Morgan Schneiderlin and Jay Rodriguez — especially after the north London club stole manager Mauricio Pochettino earlier on in the summer.

Ronald Koeman has replaced the Argentinian but even he must have been shocked at how many of the players were leaving. 

He managed to find a funny side to it though, tweeting a picture of their first training session which was completely empty apart from a few cones and not a single player in sight.

The recruitment drive has started though, goalkeeper Fraser Forster has been signed from Celtic which is a huge boost to the fans. Dusan Tadic was signed from FC Twente while the talented Graziano Pelle was recruited from Koeman’s former club Feyenoord.

But will these signings be enough to keep the club on the up?

Since their return to the top flight, fans at St Mary’s have enjoyed the football on show. They had watched the academy graduates flourish against the big teams and there was a genuine belief that the with a few more signings, European football wasn’t far away.

But with all the exits the club has seen over the past two months, many now feel that just staying up could be difficult.

Many of the new signings are yet to to be tested at this level, including the manager, and it is hard to know how they will cope with the rigours of the English game.

And they have been handed the worst possible start as they travel to Anfield to take on Liverpool. 

It was almost inevitable that they would come up against the team that has taken the most players from them but it is better to get it out the way early and move on.

A home game to West Brom the following week should be an easier test but it will be the games against the teams in the lower half of the table where they cannot afford to slip up.

They then visit West Ham at the end of the month and should they pick up six points in those two games, it may ease some of the supporters’ fears for the rest of the season.

But should they end up with zero points from the opening three games, fans may be in for a long nine months.