Free-agent goalkeeper Mateusz Lis is set to sign a five-year contract at Southampton but will spend next season on loan away from the Premier League outfit, as reported by Sport.
If we’d you, yes, you Saints supporters, that a Poland-born shot-stopper would be on the verge of securing a move to the South Coast this week, you’d have been forgiven for assuming we were talking about Bartlomiej Dragowski.
Dragowski, after all, is reportedly set to become Ralph Hasenhuttl’s new number one at St Mary’s.
But while negotiations with the Fiorentina benchwarmer do appear to be entering an advanced stage, it seems Mateusz Lis will pip Dragowski to the title of Southampton’s first summer signing.
The first of many, too, if reports are to believed.
Southampton to sign goalkeeper Matheusz Lis
25-year-old Lis, former Poland U21 international, is a free-agent. He departed Turkish outfit Altay after they were relegated from the Super Lig at the end of April.
“Despite all our well-intentioned offers in the (contract negotiations), Mateusz Lis and his agent chose to terminate the contract,” reads a statement on behalf of Altay, published by BeIN Sports.
Lis won’t have to wait long for a fresh start and a new challenge, however, Sport claiming that the former Wisla Krakow and Lech Poznan man will join Southampton on a deal until the 2027.
The report adds that he will spend the 2022/23 season out on loan, however, and that may be the result of work-permit issues brought about by the post-Brexit era. Lis, after all, does not have a single international cap for the senior Polish national team.
Southampton made bringing in a new goalkeeper or two a top priority all the way back at the close of the 2021 transfer window. Fraser Forster’s impending move to Tottenham Hotspur will exacerbate the need for reinforcements.
Alex McCarthy has signed a new deal but 40-year-old Willy Caballero could also go.
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