Saints are being reported as the favourites to land Liverpool defender Mahamadou Sakho although any potential deal could be held up by the League Cup Semi Final.

Saints look to be at the front of the queue to sign French International central defender Sakho from Liverpool, however the fact that they are due to meet his current club in the League Cup semi final could put the deal on hold till after the second leg of the League cup semi final is completed at Anfield.

Liverpool for obvious reasons would not be keen to see Sakho play aganst them and play a part in knocking them out of the competition, so although they would be quite happy to transfer him to another club in the Premier League now, they are not so keen at the moment to let him join Saints till after the semi final.

From a Saints viewpoint ideally they want a replacement for Jose Fonte sooner than later and perhaps would be keen to come to an arrangement with Liverpool even if that meant agreeing that he would take no part against his former club in the two legged semi.

The price quoted for Sakho is £20 million, however Saints would look to cover a chunk of that from the sale of Fonte with Everton seemingly interested at around £10 million.

If anyone is stupid enough to pay that sort of price for a 33 year old then Saints should want to bite their hand off at that price providing they have a replacement lined up.

It is sad that Fonte's career at St Mary's should end on such a sour note, but the fact that the player himself seeminlgly is unable to give his all for the club therefore meaning the manager has no choice but to leave him out in a vital fortnight for the team, perhaps points Saints fans in the direction of where the blame for this lies and they should perhaps ponder that over the past few years Saints have had no realistic chance of holding on to players who have already had their heads turned by stupid amounts of money by the so called big clubs.

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SanMarco added 22:47 - Jan 10 "If anyone is stupid enough to pay that sort of price". I think that is outdated thinking. 10m is nothing now and if Sakho is worth 20m then Fonte is certainly worth 10. Big clubs can of course afford "stupid" amounts, that's why they are called big - although whether Everton are currently in that category is a question that Koeman would be interested to hear the answer to. They've paid 22m for MS now - is that 'stupid' money?? A lot of us would have been pleased to see him back. I think rather than allocating 'blame' for the Fonte departure, and certainly using this one unusual case to make points about previous departures, we should simply say "thanks Jose now get on your bike my son". The big and immediate consequence is that Yoshi will be centre stage tomorrow. My fingers are already crossed....

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SaintNick added 23:39 - Jan 10 £22 million is not stupid for MS in that he will have a resale value, £10 m for a 33 year old central defender is silly money as there is no resale value, its a lot of money for a player who will possibly give you 2 seasons if you are lucky with no resale value, there are a lot more players around who of that age for less
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BoondockSaint added 00:01 - Jan 11 This would be just Les' style: "Oh, no, that is silly money!! Offer me less and I will be glad to take it!" As for Sakho, please see my post on the "Fonte Not in ...." article, (Sorry it posted twice, lousy computer at work!
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saintmark1976 added 06:43 - Jan 11 As one who can remember Mark Wright (arguably our best centre half of recent time) coming to us from Oxford, are their no similar lower league prospects around anymore? If more than a rumour then why on earth are we considering Sakho. Have we learned nothing from the Osvaldo debacle? Sometimes with the Saints I truly feel that "you could not make it up".
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the_saint added 08:33 - Jan 11 I think San Marco meant 22m in general is stupid money nick not for spider
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JGH added 09:24 - Jan 11 Crystal Palace and West Ham favourites to sign Fonte, pretty sure that wasn't what he had in mind....
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lemmsy added 10:48 - Jan 11 I think football has changed somewhat from the days of mark wright( 1/4 of a century) & saints recruitment policy has been outstanding, Osvaldo being the exception rather than the rule!
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LordDZLucan added 10:57 - Jan 11 Sakho looks like Bambi on ice to me. Not what we need at any price. Agree with saintmark1976. We should be picking up the best from the Championship....especially if they have Premier League experience.
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Jesus_02 added 12:17 - Jan 11 @SaintNick. 10m is less than 2 years wages for a Man U player. I think that is what drives what is stupid or not. Re-sale value isn't an issue for big clubs really
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SaintBrock added 13:15 - Jan 11 Does anybody seriously believe that SFC have even the slightest intention of shelling out £20m in the January transfer window for Sakho or anybody else for that matter. Get used to Yoshi San at CB and we've already got a young EFL back-up in Jack Stevens as many suggest. Like it out or not HMS Les is blithely sailing on across the North Atlantic.... with the best crew in the world aboard etc.

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SanMarco added 14:03 - Jan 11 Ah - SaintBrock - the nightmare, VVD has a long term injury and our first choice CBs are Yoshi and Stephens. If that was the case I would accept 17th place now from that mythical bloke who 'offers' things. In my original post I just used 'stupid' from the article itself. If Fonte is worth 10 units and MS 22 then I don't really believe Sakho should be as much as 20. I agree with Jesus that 10m would be peanuts for manure but if JGH is right then his pride may have come before a fall. 10m would be well spent for Palace if he kept them up though. If not he's familiar with lower league grounds of course...

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SaintJez added 14:30 - Jan 11 Sakho is the exact opposite of Fonte. Pace, athleticism and zero understanding / reading of the game. I know which one I'd rather have. That said, if Fonte wants to leave he has to go and we need to buy someone else as Yoshida probably isn't the answer 50 games a season and we'll need at least 3 anyway. Anyone but Sakho though. please.
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