A couple of weeks ago Saints were being touted as favourites to land Theo Walcott from Arsenal, now that plan looks scuppered.
Saints were hoping to unveil Theo Walcott early in the transfer window, but for one reason or another that did not happen, although they were close to the signing two weeks ago, the players agent seemingly wanted to wait and see if he could get his client a better offer.
That proved to be the case and Everton came into the equation and were willing to pay Walcott somewhere in the region of £110,000 a week if you believe most media reports, that is certainly way above the value of a player who has never quite established himself at Arsenal and this season has dropped right out of the equation struggling to get even games from the bench in the Premier League.
Saints although they were willing to make Walcott their highest paid player were not willing to pay him that much and most Saints fans would probably agree that this would be over priced.
So now the club have to turn to their plan B and the reality is that this is something they have been planning for, they have always had several other targets and although Walcott was their primary aim, perhaps mainly for the fact they felt that they needed to make a statement to the fans, the other options on the list could turn out to be better choices given Walcott's record of late.
But plan B needs to be sooner than later, this weekend could well se the club drop into the bottom three and with games looming against fellow strugglers Brighton and West Brom, Saints need new blood into the squad well before these games.