Saints have announced the first pre season fixtures of the season with an expected visit to Holland as well as the usual home fixture.

Saints have arranged a nine day training camp in Holland as part of their pre season build up.

On Saturday 23rd July, Saints will take on PEC Zwolle, kick-off 7pm local time (6pm BST), with the venue still to be confirmed.

Three days of training will be followed by a game against DuÅ¡an Tadić’s former club FC Twente. The friendly will get under way at 7pm local time (6pm BST), at the Q20 Stadium in Oldenzaal.

A further two training days will be followed by a second trip to the Euroborg in as many seasons, as Saints take on FC Groningen at 3.30pm local time (2.30pm BST) on Saturday 30th July.

On Sunday 7th August Athletico Bilbao will be the visitors to St Mary's for the usual final friendly , they last visited in 2011 when they won the Markus Liebherr trophy beating both Saints and Werder Bremen.

They have strong links to Saints, they chose to emulate Saints red & white striped kit when a young student from Bilbao named Juan Elorduy, who was spending Christmas 1909 in London, was charged by the club to buy 25 new shirts, but was unable to find enough.

Waiting for the ship back to Bilbao and empty handed, Elorduy realised that the colours of the local team Southampton matched the colours of the City of Bilbao, and bought 50 shirts to take with him.

Upon arriving in Bilbao, the club's directors decided almost immediately to change the team's strip to the new colours, and since 1910, Athletic Club have played in red and white stripes. Of the 50 shirts bought by Elorduy, half were then sent to Atlético Madrid, which had originally begun as a youth branch of Athletic.

But that is not the only link, Matthew Le Tissier became the first winner of their "One Club Man" award.

Ticket details will be announced in due course.

Photo: Action Images

derbydog added 16:23 - Jun 21 The Echo says these matches were put into place by Big Ron when he was still at the club, which does give some added credence to Ron's explanation that he was not allowed to see out his contract. I unfollowed him on Twiter yesterday which was peculiarly satisfying...
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Jesus_02 added 16:54 - Jun 21 The question is for all saints supporters would you prefer to have RK in charge with a definite resolution to leave at the end of the season or 5m in the bank and trust the board to make a good appointment?
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1970 added 17:04 - Jun 21 I don't think Ron had any intention of staying after his 3 year deal but the club need to make plans so they forced his hand a little, the board must have some idea this would happen so take the money and start interviewing, the problem now is if Ronalds dream jobs come up next season what does he do I think we all know what he will do and so do Saints, we need to trust the board but I cant help thinking we cant always be successful at replacing players and managers so I hope we don't come unstuck coyr

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SanMarco added 00:42 - Jun 22 He would have been involved with these plans even if he knew full well that he wouldn't be around when they happened. At least Holland is closer than Chile where we'll have to go next summer...
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