Big-money outcasts Guido Carillo and Sofiane Boufal appear to be finished in the Premier League…with Southampton, anyway.
Back in January, Southampton smashed their transfer record to land Monaco striker Guido Carillo in a £19 million deal. It did not exactly work out.
The 27-year-old target man arrived at St Mary’s boasting a very impressive goal-scoring record in France. He averaged a goal every 104 minutes for Monaco in Ligue 1 in the first half of the 2017/18 season.
But while Southampton did rally to secure their Premier League status under Mark Hughes, Carillo’s impact was practically non-existent. He made just five league starts, seven appearances overall, and failed to score a single goal.
The Argentine played just seven minutes of football, too, after Hughes replaced Mauricio Pellegrino in March, all coming in the Welshman’s first game in charge – the 3-0 away defeat to West Ham United.
Clearly, Carillo does not appear to be part of the former Blackburn and Manchester City boss’s plans on the South Coast. And reports in the Mirror (2 June, page 48) claim that Carillo has been told that he has no future at Southampton after being axed from the pre-season tour of China along with fellow outcast Sofiane Boufal.
Carillo and Boufal are the two most expensive signings in Southampton’s history. But the Saints have learned that money is not everything.
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