When Paul Mitchell left his job as Saints head of recruitment it was inevitable that he would take some of the St mary's secrets with him, now it seems he is using them for Spurs benefit.

The latest player to be linked with Saints is Feyenoord's central defender Sven Van Beek, but any potential move could be usurped by Spurs.

Sven Van Beek made his debut for Feyenoord in 203/14 under Ronald Koeman and clearly he was seen as one for the future, Koeman although knowing Van Beek was far from Premier league standard would have almost certainly have earmarked him to Saints player recruitment department when he arrived as one to watch.

That seems to be the case as its now claimed Saints have been monitoring him over the past season where the 20 year old has established himself at the centre of the Rotterdam Club's defence,

But Saints have a rival for the youngsters signature and that rival is Spurs, who guess what have the man who was head of recruitment when Koeman arrived now doing that job at White Hart Lane.

Paul Mitchell would have been privvy to the entire Saints structure and recruitment planning going forward when he departed St Mary's and now it seems he is using this knowledge to get Spurs piggy backing all of Saints potential targets.

Of course Mitchell would also have been responsible for sourcing a large chunk of Saints monitoring list himself, but Van Beek at Feyenoord is clearly a player Koeman brought to the table.

Now it seems Saints and Spurs are going head to head to sign Van Beek and thats bad news for Saints who wont want to get involved in a bidding war that will push the price up.

Of course Mitchell is well within his rights to use his knowledge, but it just leaves a bad taste in the mouth that Spurs have once again used Saints to try and build the foundations that they have not been bothered about building themselves over the past years.

Saints will have the advantage over Spurs in the fact that Van Beek has worked with Koeman and will know about the man and hopefully that will count for something if we should want to go for him.

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