Saints fans will be very pleased to see Sam McQueen put pen to paper and sign a contract that keeps him at the club till the summer of 2021.
Sam McQueen has been the subject of intense speculation over the past couple of months linking him with a move to Liverpool, this shows how the media will try and link anyone to a club if it makes a good story.
McQueen started this season at a crossroads in his career, at 21 he had only a cameo appearance as a sub in the FA Cup at Sunderland some 2 1/2 years previously to his name at his parent club and indeed spending the second half of last season on loan at Southend United had seen him make only 4 starts with 14 off the bench.
It looked like he had little future at either Southampton FC where although he had been converted by Claude Puel into a left back he still had Ryan Bertrand and Matt Targett in the pecking order in front of him, or in the Premier league where there was not exactly a queue of clubs, indeed a move to a League One club looked to be his future option.
Even coming into October he had still to add to those 8 minutes at Sunderland in a Saints shirt.
Then came his big break, with Ryan Bertrand injured suddenly Matt Targett pulled up against Burnley and McQueen had his big chance.
He took it with aplomb and helped Saints to a win and kept his place for the trip to Inter Milan and indeed for the visit to Manchester City although Ryan Bertrand was soon back in once fit.
The media went into frenzy about him moving to Liverpool in a big money deal and this rumour was still prevalent this weekend as the transfer window approaches, no one seemed to ask the question why they felt Liverpool would feel their left back problems could be solved by a player who to date has still only started one Premier league game with only another 32 minutes off the bench in his 4 sub appearances.
But McQueen has certainly been revitalised by his conversion and Puel's influence and worryingly for Matt Targett his style seems better suited to Puel's system and that has seen McQueen (Steve to his mates ?) leapfrog him into official back up to Ryan Bertrand.
Now that progress has been rewarded by a new deal at St Mary's for 4 1/2 years taking him through till the summer of 2021, not the actions of a player who is seemingly being courted by Liverpool, although not surprisingly Everton whose manager has probably never heard of him and anyway it's not his problem now.
Speaking to southamptonfc.com, McQueen said:
"It’s indescribable. It’s quite hard to put in to words because it¹s a dream come true for me.
"It’s been really special to share it with family, my girlfriend, friends and everyone else at the club because it’s like a family.”
"I’ve been around the first team for a while and everyone is friendly and gets on.
"We’ll have conversations and people know each other on a personal level so when it comes to doing it on the training ground or on the pitch it feels natural.
"You can worry about yourself and not have to worry about anything else that is going on.”
At some stage Ryan Bertrand will move on, he is a good enough player to play for any of the big six clubs, when he does Saints already seem to have his replacement lined up with McQueen in the ranks.
But until then he is a great back up and does not bring down the quality of the side when he steps in for cup games etc and indeed offers more than just the left back role as was shown in the recent League Cup win against Arsenal when he played in front of Bertrand, complimenting him perfectly in that although he could attack himself he provided cover for Bertrand to get forward and offer attacking options including the second goal.