Southampton enjoy quiet, yet successful deadline day
By Chris Hughes
The 2017/18 summer transfer window has officially shut, after a nervy final day for the Southampton supporters.
The war of words between Southampton and Liverpool’s respective Twitter fanbase’s has reached it’s climax since the turn of the week, following revelations that the same car that escorted Mohammed Salah to Melwood had picked up someone from a private plane that had flown in from Bournemouth.
It meant that going into the final day of the window there was tension in the air, as despite the confidence that Virgil van Dijk would stay beyond the deadline there was always a niggling worry that he might’ve been on that plane.
Any worries were calmed when it was reported that he attended training like normal, followed by the constant updates that no formal bid had been made by Liverpool, Chelsea, or anyone else for that matter.
It seems like the board were finally going to stick to their word – after years of departures something was different this time around. The tides had changed.
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And to their word, when the clock struck 11 PM, van Dijk was still a Southampton player. It remains unclear as to whether or not he’ll be reintegrated into the first team. However the fact that the board actually kept to their word could be a sign of things changing at Southampton.
Besides keeping hold of Virgil there wasn’t a huge amount of business to report – early in the day the Saints were linked with loaning out back-up left-back Matt Targett to fellow Premier League side Newcastle United. However, a move never materialised.
The only other rumour to surface and get reported was that the Saints had had an approach for Jamie Robson rejected. The 19-year-old Dundee United left-back would obviously have been a like-for-like replacement for Targett.