Saints are being linked with Tottenham Hotspur midfielder Harry Winks, but is there any real foundation in these claims or is it just his agent trying to stimulate interest in his client and push up his potential salary ?
A few years ago when he broke into the Spurs team as a regular winning England caps along the way, Harry Winks was valued at somewhere around £35 million.
But since then his stock has dropped as he found himself a peripheral player in the first team, ironically after the arrival of Pierre Emile Hojbjerg from Southampton in the summer transfer window of 2020.
Suddenly he went from a 24 year old with the world at his feat to two years later a player approaching 27 and in limbo.
His Spurs career is only 75 starts plus another 55 games as sub, a small total for a player of his age.
Last season he started just 9 games in the league for Spurs the same total as the previous season, in the same period Hojbjerg started all but two of the 76 he could have played.
The pecking order at the Tottenham Hotspur stadium had changed and so had Winks career and he like Dele Alli has gone from a golden boy of Spurs and England, to players who are not fulfilling their potential.
Winks is rumoured to be joining Alli at Everton who are the favourites to sign him, but now it seems Saints have emerged as rivals for his signature, at least according to the rumour mill.
Winks value has dropped drastically and according to transfermarkt it is as low as £14 million and although Spurs are keen to cash in with only two years left on his contract they will be pushing for more than that, hence perhaps why suddenly the name of Southampton FC comes into the picture.
Do Saints need another central midfielder ? That is the question, last season we had James Ward Prowse, Oriol Romeu and Ibrahima Diallo doing most of the duties in the centre of the park, they could be supplemented by Will Smallbone and also Moi Elyounoussi & Stuart Armstrong if needed.
All those players look likely to be in the squad next season, although Will Smallbone could be put out on loan.
But in addition to those we have signed two more central midfielders in Romeo Lavia & Joe Aribo, meaning that as we speak we have 5 experienced specialist players in the centre plus the aforementioned three.
So where would Winks fit in to a Saints midfield, last season Ralph Hasenhuttl in the main stuck to just two central players, although his two new signings suggest a change of formation next year and three being employed.
Saints have been linked with Winks before both in this window and in previous ones and perhaps a few weeks ago it was a signing that would have been needed, but the arrival of Lavia and Aribo means that we seem to have struck the balance needed.
So I am not sure about this transfer now, if we got Winks then it would mean that we would need to sell in midfield and would we want to do that.
I would be surprised if we signed Winks, I think that this is a case of firstly his agent trying to find him a better club than Everton, the Toffees cannot sign any players without permission from the authorities after breaching financial fair play rules, with a new stadium being built and major sponsor deals lost because of sanctioned Russian backers, they are in financial turmoil.
Although they have £60 million from the sale of Richarlison to Spurs, they are under pressure to use some of that to reduce debt and to fund losses for the coming season, so far they have made just one signing out of contract James Tarkowski on a free from Burnley, they are trying to sign Armando Broja and Harry Winks who between them would cost a big chunk of that £60 million.
I am not sure they have the clout to do that, they are obviously going to try and big things up for their fans, but truth is they are in crisis and from that perspective not attractive to a player to join them, especially if another relegation battle looms and without Richalison's goals being replaced that is on the cards.
This smells of Winks not really fancying Everton and his agent trying to tout him around to other clubs.