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St Mary's Return Mooted For Ex Saint

With a quiet fortnight in the Premier League for the International break, the transfer rumours are flying around again, the latest sees Saints linked with a move for an ex player.

Saints are being linked with Alex Oxlade Chamberlain who left St Mary's for Arsenal in the summer of 2011 after his Father acting as his agent allegedly fell out with then Chairman Nicola Cortese.

Since then AOC has had a mixed time at the Emirates, at St Mary's in his one full season in 2010/11 after making his debut and one other appearance off the bench in 09/10, he started 27 games for Saints plus another 7 off the bench.

In his almost five season at Arsenal he has barely started 20 more than that total for the Gunners having played 49 from the start plus another 51 appearances off the bench and it is this lack of game time especially as first choice that means that he could leave Arsenal in the summer.

This has also seen his hopes of going to the European Championships plummet and he is far from certain to make Roy Hodgson's squad as his career is starting to look a mirror image of Theo Walcott who ten years after leaving Saints has still yet to truly realise his potential.

Saints will face competition of they do try to re sign Oxlade Chamberlain, Liverpool and Manchester City are also linked.

Although City on paper would seem his best bet he may feel that it would be just jumping out of the fire and into the frying pan, his chances of game time would be even less than at the Emirates.

Liverpool would of course be a very good bet for him and he would fit their style of play, however it could swing in Saints favour if they qualified for Europe next season and Liverpool did not.

Again this is yet another rumour that is doing the rounds in a quiet week for domestic football, but it does empathise where Saints stand in the footballing world these days when we compare who we would have been linked with just a couple of years ago.

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