According to the Daily Echo Saints have agreed a fee with Tottenham Hotspur for the sale of Victor Wanyama.
Some Saints fans will be disappointed that the agreed fee seems to be around £11 million, this is less than Saints paid for the Kenyan 3 years ago when he arrived from Celtic.
But with there only being a year left on Wanyama's contract Saints had little choice other than to cash in now at a fee far less than he would have been worth with 2 or even 3 years to go on his deal.
But I would firstly contend that the drop in fee has been worthwhile given the fact that Saints finished sixth and once again qualified for the Europa League, I would rather have had this than have sold him for the £20 million he would have fetched had we sold him last August.
With each Premier League place being worth around £1.3 million it could be said that Wanyama was the difference between finishing 8th and 6th so that's £2.5 million of the deficit covered, not to mention the extra revenue for being in the Europa League.
So overall when we look at Wanyama's fee we have to consider the value we got out of him that is not so transparent, sometimes it is not just about money.
Plus there is a case for the fact that Saints could have taken part in a bit of horse trading with Spurs over the deal, if as it seems he goes before the end of the month he will forego a sizeable bonus and this could have formed part of the fee, also we have to pay Celtic 15% presuambly if we received more back than we paid for him, so we could be making a saving on this as well.
One thing is for sure though, we have got our value for money out of the three years he has spent at the club, it is just a shame that the shenanigans of last summer have soured his memory for most Saints supporters.
For as much as some of the key games he played were the difference between where we finished and perhaps 8th, the games he missed through sulking and suspension were the difference between perhaps getting a few more points and perhaps finishing 4th, certainly it would not have been beyond the realms of possibility to overhaul Manchester City, when Wanyama was sent offat Norwich City that cost us dearly in a game we were well in control of and a win there would have put us level.
Wanyama will be missed in the Saints squad, but not as much as he should have been, the fact is that most of the games he was suspended for we coped just as well without him, wins at Swansea and Stoke for instance and we will cope when he has gone.