With Taylor Harwood-Bellis nailed o to join Aston Villa barring something drastic happening, Southampton are being linked with a plethora of central defenders and the latest is a youngster from Forest.

This one may have a bit more substance than some of the other rumours that have abounded in the last few days, as it is The Daily Echo revealing it.

The player in question is 20 year old Zach Abbott, a right footed central defender with just 11 first team appearances to his name, only 3 of them in the Premier League.

The The Daily Echo say that it is initially a season long loan with an option to buy at the end of it.

Clearly they are being briefed by the club as they go on to say:

"Abbott is viewed as a Taylor Harwood-Bellis replacement, with the 24 year old Saints vice-captain set to make a £30million transfer to Aston Villa.

"Saints had targeted other options in Europe, including Viking's Henrik Falchener and Elche's David Affengruber, but deals at this stage are 'unlikely'.

"And the club are cautious about overspending on targets they did not consider as top choices as they move down their potential transfer shortlist.

"Abbott is viewed as a player with similar pedigree to Harwood-Bellis before he made his Championship-winning loan to Burnley at 20 in 2022.

So it seems that the club are using Echo reporter Alfie House to smooth the ground for the fact that we will have lost two central defenders in THB & Joshua Quarshie and Abbott Keven Schlotterbeck is the man to replace the former and Abbott replacing the latter.

This is different from the news coming out a few days ago that said that Schlotterbeck was the replacement for Quarshie and the club would look to bring in someone with a bit of experience as the 2nd central defensive signing.

Truth is we are making a signing that is unknown, the PR from Alfie House quotes about a similar pedigree to Taylor Harwood-Bellis when he joined Burnley in 2022 at just 20, but fails to point out that at that time THB had already had 3 loan spells and played 19 games for Blackburn in the Championship, 16 games for Anderlecht in the Jupilo Pro League plus 3 games in Europe and a further 22 games for Stoke City in the Championship.

When he joined Burnley he had racked up over 70 games of first team football including 8 for Manchester City in various cup competitions.

It will be a big disappointment if we don't bring in proven experience in the next 24 hours or so, but it does mean we will still have 4 options in the centre of defence and although they are bar Abbott, proven players, there is still going to be a big hole where Taylor Harwood-Bellis stoo last season

All Photos Via Reuters