With Sunday’s Championship play-off final against Leeds United looming on the horizon, transfer talk can wait for Southampton fans.
The first priority, before focus turns to the summer, is wholly on ensuring that Premier League football will be returning to St Mary’s in 2024/25.
And the omens are on Southampton’s side, too. Leeds United’s play-off record is enough to make even the most confident man in West Yorkshire suffer a few sleepless nights. Leeds have never emerged victorious in the play-offs before, the most recent of those five failed attempts seeing Marcelo Bielsa’s side collapse like a house of cards against Derby County five years ago.
Southampton, meanwhile, have beaten Leeds twice this season already. And pretty handily too. The Saints triumphed 2-1 at Elland Road on the final day, and hammered Daniel Farke’s team 3-1 on the South Coast.
So, while Leeds may have finished above Southampton in the table, fate may have other ideas at Wembley.
Southampton face Leeds United in Championship play-off final
Still, while the transfer market can wait until Saints fans discover which division they will be gracing next term, we wouldn’t be purveyors of news if we did not report what Trabzonspor president Ertugrul Dogan said this week about their attempts to bring an end to Paul Onuanchu‘s disastrous Southampton career.
An £18 million signing from Genk in January 2023, Onuachu never scored a single Saints goal before being shipped out on loan to Turkey. The 6ft 7ins Nigeria international has, however, rediscovered some of the form that made him the best goalscorer in Belgium not so long ago, with Trabzonspor now hoping to tie up a permanent deal.
Doing so, however, may be easier said than done.
“It is not currently possible for Trabzonspor to pay a transfer fee of nearly 15 million euros, which is the club’s expectation for Paul Onuachu,” sighs Dogan, telling Sporx that Southampton appear reluctant to budge from their almost-£13 million valuation.
Trabzonspor cannot afford striker deal
The president adds that Trabzonspor are now hoping to extend Onuachu’s loan, having been priced out of a full-time switch. That approach looks likely to fail, however, Dogan having already said that Southampton ‘want to sell’.
“We have conveyed our offer regarding the loan option,” Dogan explains. “We are waiting for an answer.”
Speaking a few months ago, Onuachu did not rule out a return to Southampton, feeling he has unfinished business in the Premier League.
The decision, however, rests largely with Russell Martin. And a 6ft 7ins giant of a targetman does not really feel like the most natural fit for Martin’s patient, possession and sometimes plodding approach.
Onuachu has 16 goals in 25 Trabzonspor games so far. The future of Carlos Alcarez, who also joined Southampton in that ill-fated January splurge 17 months ago, is uncertain too with Juventus yet to commit themselves to a full-time deal for the Argentine midfielder.
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