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Pelle More Likely To Leave Than Shane Long
Monday, 18th Jan 2016 18:53

Although Shane Long has been the subject of speculation this week that Liverpool may be bidding for his services, he isn't the most likely striker to leave either now or in the summer.

Jeremy Wilson of the Daily Telegraph is a former Daily Echo journalist and as such has always retained close links to Southampton Football Club from his time down here, so when he writes about the club it is always well written and well informed and you can be sure that he has done his homework.

So when he suggests in his latest piece that Graziano Pelle is more likely to leave the club than Shane Long, you can be sure that if not exactly betraying confidences then he will be as close to and know more than most of his colleagues in the national press.

Wilson feels that although Pelle will stay in this window its more likely he will will go in the summer after the arrival of Charlie Austin, than Shane Long. Although Pelle is the leading scorer for Saints, Wilson suggests that the club are concerned that he hasn't scored since November and that Austin will be more a direct replacement for Pelle than for Long

Ronald Koeman feels that Long offers the team different options than any of the other strikers at the club and therefore to keep that variety it is more likely that it will be Pelle that will make way for Austin in the long term, given that the Italian will turn 31 in the summer and therefore with Austin in the bag Saints may cash in whilst he still has a reasonable value.

That is why contract talks for Pelle are on hold for the time being and are likely to stay like that till the summer.

But Pelle should not be written off for this season, he still remains a threat and up till November was in excellent form, his failure to score during what is a six game run in the Premier league is just as much to do with the teams failure as a whole to create chances. Saints now have some real firepower going into the final third of the season, it could be an exciting time.

However Wilson is at pains to suggest that no one including Pelle will be leaving during January.

A well written piece from Jeremy Wilson and certainly the news that Southampton fans want to here, that Saints are in charge of the situation and that they are under no pressure to sell anyone

Photo: Action Images



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1970 added 19:11 - Jan 18
That's great news and even better if we keep all of them just to mix up our attack a bit, lets face it if we are going to be an established top ten side and have aspirations of breaking into the top six then keeping Pelle, Long and Austin is a must, it would be great to have those choices, personally I think Juanmi will benefit from having Austin up top, also J-Rod and Long and Mane behind pelle combinations should give us a chance to have a decent go in Europe.
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BoondockSaint added 19:22 - Jan 18
Re: the Shane Long rumours, Here's a headline from the Sky site: "Paul Ince believes Liverpool will become 'a Premier League force' if they buy a striker who can score 20 goals a season"

Gee, really? Next week, he crosses out Liverpool and writes in Manchester United, week after that, Aston Villa.....


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ThereIn76 added 22:10 - Jan 18
I think Pelle will get a move back to Italy in the summer. Hopefully he'll do well in Euro 2016 which will inflate his price. If we get our money back it'll be an excellent deal.

I do wonder whether we'll ever see J-Rod back at his best. It seems to be one setback after another for the poor lad.
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SaintBrock added 12:07 - Jan 19
Everyone will go in the end and only we fans will be here to remember back when. For now nobody is going anywhere least of all Graziano & Shane.

Jay's situation is worrying to say the least and does not look good at all, his name is hardly mentioned now and he is rarely seen in photo shoots. In these circumstances only a madman would part with a striker and my bet is Graziano will be offered a new contract in the summer probably for one year but even possibly for two or three (depending upon Jay's recovery or not by then).
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