Fraser Forster's appearance for Saints in the behind closed doors friendly against Queens Park Rangers has led to social media going mad about just what that means in terms of the Saints goalkeeping pecking order.
There was a rare sighting of Fraser Forster this week, the Goalkeeper has become the forgotten man since being dropped in December 2017 for Alex McCarthy with the arrival of Angus Gunn last summer pushing him further down the pecking order.
But his appearance in the friendly against QPR has prompted much speculation on social media .
The problem is these days there are many websites dedicated to Saints that do little other than take a headline and then make the story up from tweets. This gives no indication of whether the tweets quoted are the majority view or otherwise.
Forster's appearance thus quoted one tweeter as saying that he had seen on social media that Forster was about to be reinstated as number 1 keeper at St Mary's although about the only evidence that was being offered was that Forster's picture suddenly seemed to be appearing a lot more in the press.
One such tweet read:
"I think Forster will be first choice from now on. A lot of things on social media are suggesting so."
Another:
"Forster has been in a lot of photos of late."
There was speculation of this kind a couple of months ago when Angus Gunn was first brought into the team for a Premier league game, however Ralph Hasenhuttl was quick to dispel those rumours and nothing since has suggested any substance.
But that is the nature of so called news stories these days, looking through the list of Saints related stories on line in the last 24 hours, there are a growing number of sites who do nothing other than rehash twitter quotes and turn them into headlines.
In fact the Forster story has a lot more substance to it than many, at least it offers the evidence that Forster is appearing in a lot more photo's lately, whilst other stories are little more than a printed tweet from someone suggesting a player for the club whom they have seen score a goal on Sky news and this being twisted to a headline that the club are looking at the player.
Back last summer I commented that Saints would find it hard to get Forster off the books due to his wage, I also said that I thought that Saints hadn't spent £12 million on Angus Gunn in order to leave him on the bench for long, that signing Gunn was a clear indication that they did not see Alex McCarthy as the long term keeper.
I still maintain this, I would not be surprised to see McCarthy leave the club in the summer as they look to trim the squad and also not only bring in transfer money but free up wages for new arrivals.
That being the case I think Saints will snap the hands off of any offer they receive approaching £10 million.
They will then have Gunn & Forster as first and second choice backed up by Harry Lewis and will feel that this is a strong option and given the situation the right one for the club.