Could Southampton's Loaned Out Players Return To Play This Season
With the Championship regular season due to end on Saturday 3rd May, one question being asked is whether Saints players out on loan, could return and play in the final matches of the Premier League season.
When the regular Championship season ends on 3rd May, Southampton will still have 3 Premier League matches left to play and to be blunt they could do with the likes of Adam Armstrong, Shea Charles & Ronnie Edwards all out on loan to Championship clubs who will not be involved in the play offs, they will be effectively leaving their respective clubs after their final game on 3rd May.
Given our lack of firepower up front, getting Adam Armstrong back would perhaps be the priority, although it would good to give a run out to the other two.
Saints do have form in this, looking back to 2004/05 season, there are many parallels to be drawn, firstly we had 3 managers, Paul Sturrock was sacked barely into the season to be replaced by Steve Wigley who himself was sacked in December with Harry Redknapp being the 3rd incumbent, secondly we ended up getting relegated and thirdly Redknapp loaned out one of our strikers in the January of the season who we could have done with as we sank to relegation.
That man was Brett Ormerod, he like Adam Armstrong this season was seen as a good workmanlike striker, who was perhaps too good for the Championship, but not quite good enough for the Premier League, although he had played a big part in our 2022/23 season both in getting us to 8th place and also the FA Cup final.
But he was surplus to requirements in this season, firstly he was loaned to Leeds United in the September of 2023 in the pre transfer window days for a couple of months and then when he returned he was soon surplus to Redknapp who loaned him to Wigan Athletic in January..
When the Championship season ended Ormerod returned to the club just in time for the final do or die match against Manchester United at St Mary's, by now Redknapp was desperate, he dithered about his starting line up and could not decide on who would play up front, he considered Marion Pahars who had been out injured all season but was just about fit, but he decided against that, in the end he left Kevin Phillips on the bench and went for Henri Camara and Brett Ormerod who had not played for the club since January and who hadn't exactly set the World alight at Wigan.
It did not end well as we all know.
So the big question is whether the trio of Armstrong, Charles & Edwards can play in the 3 remaining matches after their season and therefore their loan effectively ends or whether they will have to sit and watch from the stands.
To be honest I don't know the answer, googling it doesn't come up with much except that the loan would be to "the end of the season" but is that the regular season or including the play offs ?
Personally I hope that we are able to play the trio, Adam Armstrong may not be a top notch Premier League striker, but he is better than anyone else we have up front in his overall play, we could use him for the last few games.
We don't need Shea Charles or Ronnie Edwards so much, but it would be good to re integrate them in the squad and show they are wanted for next season, perhaps even give them some minutes in the Premier League.
All three could play a big part in our promotion push for next season, we need to start the rebuild of the squad now, we need to make sure that those who will be staying know they are wanted.
What to read next:
U's Vs Accrington Match Preview As the round of matches over the festive period draws to a close, we have the visit of Accrington Stanley on that most rare of events in our football history, a Sunday afternoon kick-off. If you filter out play-off and cup games, in the league this accounts for just 25 games since we were formed, seven won, six drawn and 12 lost. As you would imagine, Sunday games are generally focussed around Christmas and the New Year, or more recently, Sky-mandated final games of the season. It’s been a pretty positive holiday schedule for the U’s too, eight points from four games, and with other results often going our way, we’re now just two places and three points outside the play-offs.
U's Vs MK Dons Match Preview Happy New Year U’s fans! After two hard fought 1-1 draws away from home across the festive period we kick off the New Year with a home match against Milton Keynes. Tickets look to be selling well, although not in the West Stand it seems, so should be a decent crowd providing MK bring more than their normal coach load. I know it doesn’t count for anything but the calendar year League Two table has us in fifth with 72 points from 46 matches played so 2025 hasn’t been a bad year to be a U’s fan.
Gillingham Vs U's Match Preview First and foremost, I hope you are all having a pleasant Christmas break relaxing with family and friends, and wishing you all a very happy, healthy and prosperous New Year. This will be our final match of 2025, with a trip to Priestfield to face old adversary Gillingham, our second game against them this month and our third this season. This will be our 112th game in all competitions against the Gills, a relationship that started with a Ted Davis U’s side winning 2-0 at Layer Road on 27th August 1938. At the final whistle tomorrow we will also be at the halfway point of the season, so considering at the end of September we were 20th, plenty of optimism for the second half of the season.
Crawley Vs U's Match Preview Merry Christmas U’s fans! Boxing Day in proper football leagues means football matches and the U’s face one of their shortest trips of the season as they venture across the Thames to face creepy Crawley. Crawley’s “stadium” is one of the few grounds I’ve gone away with the U’s (the 3-1 League Cup win back in 2019) and it felt like a ground that should be in the National League South but Crawley have been established in the football league since 2011 with two promotions to League One during that time which is impressive given the relative size of the club. We don’t have a huge history against Crawley Town, with just 24 meetings to date of which Crawley have won 11. In fact since that memorable League Cup win we hadn’t managed to beat Crawley until the, not as memorable but probably more important, 3-2 away win towards the end of the 2023/24 season that went a long way to helping us stay in this division.
U's Vs Newport Match Preview And so, Danny and Nicky enter their second century of games managing the U’s, at home to struggling Newport – let’s hope it starts a bit better than the first century finished. There won’t be many games we score three and lose, trouble is there’ll be even fewer where we concede four and win. That being said, I couldn’t fault the first hour of the Salford game, with the U’s in control of a game against good opposition, and on a typically heavy pitch. Then we kind of fell apart, certainly defensively, helped in no small part by a masterclass from ex-U’s Luke Garbutt (how is he only in League 2?). Credit must also go to 250+ of the faithful, a long trip starting at stupid o’clock – they deserved more than that for their support.