With Adam Lallana's future at Liverpool far from certain after the signing of Danny Ings and the promise of more to follow, could a return to St Mary's be on the cards.
The departure of Adam Lallana to Liverpool hurt Saints fans far more than any of the other departures last summer, the reason for that was that he was the one that was the most vital to the way that Saints played.
However his time at Liverpool was not great last season, it was not helped by an injury in pre season followed by several others during the course of the regular season, however his failure to make a big impression, one that Liverpool fans might have expected given the year he had just had for Saints and his big fee was as much the fault of Brendan Rodgers and his inability to know his best formation and indeed best players in that line up, as it was Lallana's.
Now with the signing of Danny Ing's & James Milner Lallana's chances of a place in the starting line up have diminished further and even if Raheem Sterling should depart, it would still leave him far from an automatic choice.
In the centre of the park it seems James Milner and Jordan Henderson will be guaranteed a start and behind them Rodgers will need a defensive midfielder, either Emre can, Lucas Leiva or a new signing.
With Ing's and Sturridge set to be two of a striking three front that will leave Lallana scrambling for a game out wide, if Sterling stays that will be made even harder, but even if Sterling should depart then he still has to overcome Phillipe Coutinho who on current form will be slotted in somewhere
This isn't even taking into account that Rodger's himself doesn't seem to have much of a clue as to what is his best line up, is it 4-3-3 or is it a diamond formation or even a 4-3-2-1 ?
Lallana's game isn't suited to playing in a deeper midfield role, so he can only work within the front three of a 4-3-3 shape or the attacking midfield three in a 4-2-3-1 shape.
Whichever way though it is hard to see where Lallana will slot in given his spot in the Anfield pecking order and with more signings in the pipeline it seems that he will be far from a guaranteed place in the starting line up and will be used mainly as an option off the bench with a few games in the cup competitions being his main starting opportunities.
So there are two questions here, the first is whether Adam will be happy with this role and the impact it could have on his England career and secondly will Liverpool be happy to have spend £23 million or so on the player for this to be his role at the club.
So in the coming weeks both club and player will be analysing the situation and asking themselves whether now is the time to cut their losses.
If that is the case then in reality there are only two options for Lallana, the first is the hope that perhaps his old boss at St Mary's Mauricio Pochettino might be interested in taking him to Spurs. The second is a return to St Mary's.
But would this be acceptable to Lallana himself or Saints supporters, the player may feel that he would like another season at Anfield in the hope that he will recapture his form and get more game time, he may feel that its admitting failure to return to St Mary's with his tail between his legs so to speak.
Then there are the Saints fans, they felt there was a bad taste left in the mouth with the circumstances regarding Lallana's departure, would they be prepared to accept him back ?
My view is that there was more to the situation last summer than meets the eye, yes Lallana could have behaved in a better way, but then again the Club caught up in a situation they were ill prepared for given the boardroom upheaval several month's earlier were caught on the hop and there are things that they would have done differently now.
A year ago if the situation had been managed better by both parties then the bitter taste would have been avoided, Adam Lallana had been a great servant to Saints in many respects he deserved his move more than anyone else who left, he had paid his dues, he had remained loyal in the bad times of 2009, it wa sad more than anything else that it ended as it did.
If Saints had the opportunity to get him back at St Mary's as long as the price was right, then I for one would be in favour of it.
I have no insider knowledge on this, this article is merely a comment after reading stories elsewhere that Lallana may struggle to get a game at Anfield next season and contemplating that his options to move may be limited and that being the case we should never say never.