Southampton: The Saints must keep hold of Maya Yoshida

Today reports have emerged suggesting that Maya Yoshida has agreed to a deal in principle to move to Saudi Arabia this summer.

The rumours seem to be only be Twitter whispers at this point in time, but it begs the question as to whether the Saints should allow the centre-back to move on.

Yoshida has been in and out of the first-team over the past season or two having never really held down a first team place. However, he has been loyal and for the most part, dependable when called upon.

With that in mind selling Yoshida this summer would be a foolish by the board. At 29 the defender is far from in his twilight years as a footballer and he doesn’t come across as someone led by money – meaning the deal doesn’t make much sense.

If the Saints are to go down, they will almost certainly lose Wesley Hoedt meaning they would need an experienced head at the back to partner either Stephens or Jan Bednarek at the heart of defence. Yoshida is that man.

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Assuming they manage to stay up, the club could still use Yoshi’s maturity at the back as despite being south of 30 he is still the club’s most senior centre-back. Even though Jan Bednarek has enjoyed an impressive month or so since getting his chance, the club need that experience.

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Despite never really being a fully-fledged starter, Yoshida has over 120 Premier League appearances under his belt, something which is invaluable at this level – whilst they could easily replace him with a seasoned defender, the most any centre-back would have with Southampton would be Stephens who has tallied up just over 30 league appearances.

Furthermore Yoshida is relatively versatile and most importantly a fan-favourite. The board have a lot of questions to answer after this season, with poor summer recruitment and a catastrophic managerial appointment to blame for this campaign’s shortcomings.

If the board are to then go and sell one of the club’s most loyal and longest-serving players they may alienate what support they do have left.

Granted, a lot of this rumoured move – which may be nothing but speculation – could be down to the Japanese international himself and after near six of service they may not want to stand in his way.

Let’s just hope it isn’t a repeat of the Jose Fonte situation where the board weren’t willing to offer a long-standing player the contract they deserved just because of their age.