The silliest part of the year in football is January when agent's try to sell their clients to the highest bidder and the panic buying starts in earnest, here is the first rumour of the silly season.

According to the rumours in Spain Bayer Leverkusen are set to start a bidding war with AC Milan and Southampton to land Barcelona centre-back Jean Todibo in the January transfer window.

Reports claim that Barcelona are looking to sell Todibo to raise funds, as they need to avoid running into financial problems. Barcelona splashed out in the summer as they signed Antoine Griezmann from Atletico Madrid for a fee well in excess of €100m.

Todibo joined Barcelona for a fee rising to €3m from Toulouse in January this year, but the defender has not been able to nail down a regular place in their side, indeed he has played only twice in La Liga for a total of 77 minutes. so it is not surprising given that he has not been a regular and there is the small fact he is still only 19.

So on the face of it is he the signing that Saints really need to be making, they need experience and someone with a pedigree rather than a youngster who so far has a grand total of 1, 161 minutes of first team experience spread between Toulouse and Barcelona.

That is under 12 full games in total and although he may well be a talent waiting to blossom, we need someone who has the track record.

A year ago Barca got him for a cheap price and if they are not asking too much then he would be worth a punt, but only if we are also spending out on another more experienced man to play alongside him.

It stinks of the payers agent trying to generate interest and a Premier League club being linked will help push up his price and therefore the agent's cut in the deal.

On paper it sounds good at the right price, but we need someone to organise the defence and steer our youngsters in the right direction and he doesn't seem to be the right man for that.

Photo: Action Images

Colburn added 00:41 - Dec 11 We've got 7 weeks of this madness of being linked to every player in Europe out of favour with their current club.. I would rather we looked at defenders in the Championship. Norwich aside, most who have made the switch this summer have done well, they will already know the English game so wont need a season to adjust. We need cover at full back positions as much as anything. About time the club address the deficiencies.

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SaintNick added 09:37 - Dec 11 Getting Championship players will be a risk, we need those with experience
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wibbersda added 10:46 - Dec 14 We already have Championship quality defenders. You must be a noob on this site Colburn.
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KriSaint added 23:09 - Dec 14 There are definetely CBs in the Championship that are far better than any of ours...
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