Saints Chasing Manchester City Winger

Saints are being reported as trying to make a loan signing from Manchester City, but is there any substance in the rumours.

Saints target is supposedly 20 year old winger Patrick Roberts who has spent the last season and a half on loan at Celtic.

Last season he started 20 SPL games with a further 12 off the bench scoring 9 times following 9 (2) appearances in the first part of his loan the previous season and 6 goals.

However it is hard to judge his standard given that Celtic have had no competition since Rangers demise and relegation a few years ago and last term won 34 and drew 4 of their 38 games, it is hardly a tough enviroment to assess a player.

For City Roberts has played just once, four minutes as sub two years ago and his career seems to be at a crossroads and perhaps not been the success he had hoped since joining City from Fulham in the summer of 2015 for £12 million after making only 2 starts for the London club plus 17 as sub, a couple of those in the Premier League where his debut was ironically coming on as a second half sub in Fulham's 5-0 defeat at Manchester City.

Celtic are again keen to take him on loan, but City ould prefer him to be at a premier League club in England where they can better assess his progress and whether he has the potential to break into their squad at some stage.

From a Saints viewpoint it is hard to see why they would be interested, mainly because they have a plethora of options in wide position, Nathan Redmond, Dusan Tadic, Sofiane Boufal, Josh Sims and even the option of using Sam McQueen or Shane Long in such a role.

So perhaps this rumour is more about where City, the player himself and indeed his agent would prefer him to go, rather than a real desire from Saints to sign him.

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