Christoph Klarer has gone out on loan for the remainder of the season to further his experience and give him competitive game time.

Christoph Klarer has joined Austrian side SKN St Pölten on loan for the remainder of the season.

The 19-year-old centre back has moved back to to Austria for the remainder of the season and will be looking to get the experience behind him during the rest of this season that will enable him to make a push for a first team place next season, he joined Saints from Rapid Wien's academy in July 2016 shortly after turning 16 and has made steady progress since

Klarer, who recently signed a new contract until 2021 at St Mary’s and is a regular for Southampton’s Under-23s team, links up with St Pölten, who are ninth in the Austrian Bundesliga and hopefully will get the chance to toughen up and show what he can do in a adult league.

Photo: Action Images

underweststand added 12:40 - Jan 7 I've watched a lot of U23 games as he has developed (having arrived as a 16 year old). He is a big lad but a move upto the first team squad isn't on the cards for a while yet. Rather like Alfie Jones (Currently onl oan at GHillingham) he is a standout player at that level but will need to "man-up" if he is to be a viable CB option in the future. It's toughest for young players who are goalies, or centre-back as we saw that both Gazzaniga and Gunn are typical of young talents who find the step-up to the Prem more challenging than they could imagine. ( Jack Stephens has finally come good but it has taken a long time). We can hope Christoph gets some good experience on his loan time.

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