Saints are about to make a £10 million bid for a striker from Besiktas according to the Turkish sporting press, but they could have competition from Tottenham Hotspur.

With a week to go before the end of the Premier League season the rumour mill is already turning, the latest one concerning Saints is suggesting that the club are about to launch bid for Cenk Tosun of Beiktas.

Several Turkish media outlets are carrying the story that a Saints club official is due to travel to Istanbul to meet counterparts from Beiktas and open the bidding with £10 million on the table.

According to Turkish sports paper Fotomac, Saints have already held talks with the players agent and are now going to talk to the club, presumably with Tosun interested with a move to St Mary's.

Tosun has hit 21 goals for the Turkish club this season, but although he is a Turkish International he was born in Germany and started his career with Eintracht Frankfurt, however he has been in Turkey since his late teens and with Besiktas for the last 3 years forging a reputation that has earned him 18 caps for Turkey.

He will turn 26 next month and seems to be the type of player Saints look for with that blend of experience but not quite reached full potential yet.

Tottenham are rumoured to be interested, but how much of that is agent talk or a throwback to Paul Mitchell is yet to be revealed.

Certainly with Saints rumoured to be looking at Strikers it would suggest that there could be a clear out next season with at least two from Long, Rodriguez & Austin likely to depart to make way for new blood.

Photo: Action Images

derbydog added 22:42 - May 14 Why replace proven goal scorers with this one? Problem might be with the supply. Tadic JWP Davis Boufal not delivering. one up front tactics would make it difficult for anyone...
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VancouverSaint added 23:36 - May 14 Bring in Sam Gallagher for a big guy to layoff to Gabbi.....need to sort defence and mid-field first.
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IanRC added 08:30 - May 15 Agree with the posters would be disappointed to lose Long or Jay.
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Bettwsresident added 09:02 - May 15 Charlie Austin's red and white, red and white....can we really do better? In Austin and Gabby we have 2 finishers, and Jay rod and Shane offer a different option, Gallager does offer the option of a second striker that can act as a fulcrum in attacks (he is no Pelle though). Long has a rubbish conversion rate and would be the one that might go, if only to stop the stupid " bring Long on" tactic when we are behind that never ever works. The time to bring Shane on is when we are in front!

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Bettwsresident added 09:04 - May 15 If Austin and Gabby stay fit both are 15-20 goal a season players. We really don't need another striker to rot on the bench. There are more fundamental issues.
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highfield49 added 09:08 - May 15 As much as I appreciate Long´s energy his contribution is too erratic and I think it´s time for him to move on. I´d also get Tadic off the wage bill and look to Boufal to step up next season after his rather steep learning curve this year. Never heard of Tosun and know very little about the Turkish league but the stats indicate that he knows how to score goals. With the ups and downs of this season it would be all too easy to want lots of new players but that obviously can´t happen. With perhaps two or three players leaving and quality replacements coming in next seasons results can be much more consistent. Sadly I don´t think players like Gallagher have a future at the top level.

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SaintBrock added 12:35 - May 16 I hope we don't have to sell players to raise cash before we can buy but with no new investment looking likely from the Chinese where is the cash supposed to come from to pay for any new arrivals. If that is the case then I'd rather we stick with what we have. Trouble is we have only three or four players who would attract decent fees and they are the four we must not lose. Getting rid of Long, Rodrigues & Austin would only pull in £20/25m tops even if we could find buyers and there are doubts about that. Having said that we do need to prune the deadwood and bring in one or two new faces who have no baggage from this season and can freshen up the challenge for places. Clearly we need at least an AMF and CB as our priorities. The problem with off-loading Tadic as some on here advocate is who could we possibly afford who would do any better. He is a talent player and as such is not always able to deliver but what's new about that, Hazard went the whole of last season looking like a clown.

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