Former CEO admits Southampton tried to sign £15m and £56m Premier League duo

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Southampton tried and failed to sign Marc Cucurella and Timothy Castagne with the full-back duo now playing Premier League football at Chelsea and Fulham, according to former Saints CEO Martin Semmens. 

When Southampton lost both Cedric Soares and Ryan Bertrand in quick succession during the Ralph Hasenhuttl era, the task fell onto Semmens to bring a couple of replacements to St Mary’s.

And, if it wasn’t for those pesky Financial Fair Play concerns, Marc Cucurella and Timothy Castagne could have arrived on the South Coast before putting pen to paper with Brighton and Hove Albion and Leicester City instead. 

Semmens, speaking to talkSPORT, admitted that Southampton approached Getafe about the all-action, poodle-haired Cucurella. Castagne, then of Atalanta, was another name on their radar at the time. 

Southampton once wanted £56m Chelsea man

“I was desperately keen to go out and buy some (full-backs),” Semmens recalls (23 January, 12.30pm). “I remember the list. It was Cucurella, who went to Brighton, and Castagne, who went to Leicester. They (Getafe and Atalanta) just laughed at us because of the money we had.” 

Cucurella blossomed into one of the Premier League’s finest left-backs before securing what has turned out to be a rather ill-advised £56 million move to Chelsea. Castagne, meanwhile, has offered a £15 million top-flight lifeline by Fulham following Leicester’s relegation last season. 

Southampton did, however, enjoy plenty of success with the eventual signing of Tino Livramento, one of Europe’s most exciting young full-backs now at Newcastle and ready to step into Kieran Trippier’s shoes should the veteran join Harry Kane and Eric Dier at Bayern Munich. 

‘We ended up buying Tino Livramento’

“We ended up buying Tino Livramento and Thierry Small, from Everton. And it kind of worked out for us,” adds Semmens. “But if we had bought those players (Cucurella and Castagne), maybe it would have worked out better for us because they went onto big things and got sold.

“But we just didn’t have the money to do it. We had the finances to do it, but we were not able to do it within the rules (FFP).”

Southampton could be going up against Cucurella and Castagne in the Premier League next season, one point off second-place Ipswich Town and extending their unbeaten run to a record 21 games.