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Hojberg & Saints Said To Have Agreed Terms With Everton

The Daily Echo is reporting that they are led to believe that Saints have accepted a bid from Everton and that Pierre Emile Hojbjerg has visited the Everton training base and agreed terms, ironically just as I suggested earlier in the summer that his agent was using tales of Spurs interest as bait.

A few months ago I said that I suspected that the Pierre Emile Hojbjerg situation this summer was very similar to that of Jose Fonte in 2016, the players agent a friend of Jose Mourinho, used that friendship to suggest that both players are on the radar of Mourinho, Man Utd for Fonte and Spurs for Hojbjerg.

But I couldn't believe that Spurs actually considered that Hojbjerg was their number one target and that suggested to me that the players agent was using them as bait to lure another fish, a club that in it's quest to be seen as a big club was willing to pay over the odds .
This now seems to be the case with Everton suddenly coming to the fore in the deal and are now said to have agreed a £25 million fee with Saints for the midfielder.

Most Saints fans would see that as good business, opinion on the Dane is divided, most are in the middle ground and see him as a competent Premier League player but nothing more, a sizeable minority feel he is not even that.

The strange thing is that the player himself has talked big about wanting to play for a big club in the Champions League and competing for honours and there is a big chance that Everton could actually finish below Saints in this season table.

Four years ago the Toffee's arguably started a downturn in Saints fortunes by luring Ronald Koeman away from St Mary's by making him one of the highest paid football managers in the World and talked about overtaking Liverpool as the top club on Merseyside, truth is that the period since then has seen that divide widen and indeed Everton have fared little better than Saints since, if fact some would say worse given our appearance in a major cup final.

So if Hojbjerg is leaving for Everton then his ambitions are little to do with wanting to play in the Champions League and more about financial matters.

£25 million would be seen as a good fee for Saints and many would say that in Oriel Romeu we have a player who is as good as Hojbjerg, the departure of the Dane could persuade Romeu to sign a new deal.

The good news is that if this news is correct we have done the deal early, we have him off the books and we have money to spend in the transfer window, this could well trigger a few incoming transfers including Mohammed Salisu from Real Vallodollid.

I wish Pierre Emile Hojnjerg well, no one can doubt his commitment over the past four years, he has proved a decent signing if not an inspired one, but truth is he has not become the player we all hoped he would be.

We now need to take the money and move on, spent well £25 million could well turn us into a top 10 side next season.

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