According to reports in Belgium Saints have ended their interest in a central defender from Inter Milan who spent last season on loan at Standard Liege.

Rumours in the media started a week or so ago claiming that Southampton and Wolverhampton Wanderers are ‘lurking’ to sign Zinho Vanheusden.

The 6ft 2 central defender who will turn 20 at the weekend has spent the last 6 months on loan at Standard Liege from Inter Milan with an option to extend that deal for the coming season.

Vanheusden had started his career at Standard Liege but had joined the Inter Milan youth academy in 2015, but was then loaned back to the Belgian side in the January transfer window.

Standard Liege are keen to excerise that option but apparently Saints and Wolves had been monitoring his progress carefully and were interested in a permanent deal.

Today's edition of Belgian newspaper Het Belang van Limburg claims the Saints have already held discussions to sign the 19-year-old.

But now it seems that Saints are about to pull out and pursue another target.

It could be that Saints feel that the defender is just a little too inexperienced for what they need at the moment and that in Christoph Klarer they have a player of similar age in their own ranks who could make the breakthrough this season.

But Saints are still ooking for a central defender but it seems just one with more proven experience.

Photo: Action Images

redwight added 11:55 - Jun 26 Bit odd this. His lack of experience can't be something which has only just been realised.
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SaintBrock added 20:38 - Jun 26 Well he's only 19 and we have a few rookies still to fully prove themselves who are older than that. I agree with Nick, Klarer looks to have some potential as well but neither will solve the existential crises at CB that needs fixing urgently. How about a cheeky bid for John Stones whose days at a top team seem to be numbered after his recent public howlers.
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underweststand added 11:44 - Jun 27 Saint Brock- Would you prefer Stones making such errors wearing a Saints shirt? The market is overflowing with teenage talents with £50 million price tags, or players like Harry Maguire whose transfer fee (seemingly) goes up in tens of million every week. That's mainly because England are short of class defenders at the moment and so almost everyone who qualifies has had a bit of game time and a subsequent top end price tag. Years ago it was goal keepers.. now there are 5-6 names being bandied around and yet none of them are totally convincing IMHO. The problem is that few of these " young foreign targets" have ever been to England, let alone played at Prem. level. After the signings of Hoedt and Vestergaard we must surely learn that ..."not everything is as good as it seems on the label". Many players are good because they are "the right player in the right team", there are dozens of square pegs in every club who just can't fit into thier new club formation. The rapid turnover of management doesn't help either.. the Koeman- Puel - Pellegrino - Hughes sequence brought new tactics / formations with every change, and if Ralph is pursuing his 4-2-2-2 strategy (if that was correct) ...then there may be a few more of the present playing staff joining; Boufal, Carrillo and Co. out on loan in the near future.

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