Saints are carefully watching the progress of Charlton Athetic's Ademola Lookman, however they will face competition from a familiar rival.

Ademola Lookman has been one of the highlights of Charlton's dismal season with the South East London club being in turmoil both off and on the field and on the verge of relegation to League One being 11 points adrift of safety with just five games left to play meaning they could be relegated on Saturday when they travel to Bolton Wanderers.

Lookman has been a bright spot though since making hid debut back in November and in 13 starts plus another 7 as sub has scored 4 goals bringing him to the attention of Saints and surprise surprise Tottenham Hotspur.

Lookman who is 18 can play as a forward or a winger and is the type of player that Saints like to recruit.

It is no surprise that Lookman is also on Spurs radar given that their head of recruitment Paul Mitchell was at St Mary's up until 16 months ago, that means he has the knowledge of every target Saints have been monitoring over the past two seasons and given that he would have ultimately been the man compiling the list and deciding who should be on it and who shouldn't he will know it intimately.

This means that virtually every player that Saints have been monitoring since his departure are also on Spurs radar and one immediate effect of Mitchell leaving for Spurs was that Dele Alli a player that Mitchell had his eye on at his previous employer MK Dons was snatched by Spurs within weeks of Mitchell leaving Saints.

It could be that Lookman will also go in the same direction of Alli, this is going to be a fact of life for perhaps the next year for Saints, a competitor who has intimate knowledge of our scouting systems etc is always going to try and jump in, however there is light at the end of the tunnel in that by the middle of next season, many of the players who Saints have been monitoring under Mitchell will be off the radar and replaced by new targets unfamiliar to Mitchell

Photo: Action Images

SonicBoom added 11:36 - Apr 19 Or maybe SPurs are a rival and so we must encounter them geographically anyway when scouting. Plus he's at Charlton so closer to Spurs than us. And finally he's broken through at Charlton so he's not exactly below the radar for premier league clubs anymore. I expect there's more than just us and Spurs looking at him.
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SaintNick added 12:28 - Apr 19 Your right there will always be some crossed paths when scouting, but dont underestimate how much Mitchell actually knows, he will have been scouting players for Saints so naturally will be recommending those he liked to spurs
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simmo400 added 11:49 - Apr 20 Expect he has someone on the inside at Saints..........be even easier for him then.
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