With their forward options stretched to the limits after the injury to Shane Long, Saints now seem set to bring in a loan signing to cover it.

Saints are apparently about to sign Benfica's Serbian forward Filip Djuricic on loan, the player who will be 23 on Januart 30th year old has been on loan this season to Bundesliga side Mainz this season, but his agents are believed to be in the process of cancelling that loan so he can go to St Mary's for the remainder of the season.

Djuricic can play as a forward, an attacking midfielder or a left winger and joined Benfica in the summer of 2013 from Heerenveen in Holland were presuambly Ronald Koeman first came across him.

He joined the Portugese side for £4.5 million on a five year deal with a release clause of £32 million, he hasnt quite yet reached that valuation but he did enough in his first season with Benfica to warrant Celtic tabling a £6 million bid for him that was turned down by his club in favour of loaning him to Mainz who have an option to buy at around £9 million

He has been capped 19 times for Serbia and scored 4 goals in the process.

Like most of Koeman's signings he is a player who is versatileand can offer options not least as cover to P elle.

On the face of it he is a player at the crossroads of his career, he has not yet quite made the breakthrough that he perhaps promised to do a couple of years ago, however this is a loan signing so it is getting Saints some experience to put on the bench as well as it being a player who like Elia has something to prove.

Photo: Action Images

TimSaint added 15:50 - Jan 28 Can only be beneficial to Saints, not only because of our injury crisis, but also because having a fellow Serb in the squad, may help Tadic improve his game. Lets all be honest here, Dusan has not been showing the same level of form that was on offer from August through to October / November. Not sure if Filip will be signed up in time for Swansea, but a positive move.

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