Southampton: Saints one of nine clubs chasing transfer for Arsenal striker

Southampton are said to be one of nine clubs across Europe who are tracking the situation of young Arsenal striker Folarin Balogun.

According to the Beautiful Game Podcast, Saints and Brighton are two teams from England who are keen on signing the 19-year-old.

They join Stuttgart, Werder Bremen and Eintracht Frankfurt from Germany, AC Milan and Roma from Italy and PSV and AZ Alkmaar in showing an interest in Balogun.

Looking at the youngster’s scoring record, it easy to see why he is attracting so many admiring looks from across the continent.

Across 70 games collectively for Arsenal’s Under-23s and Under-18s, Balogun has scored no less than 50 goals and had 62 goal involvements overall.

News of the race to sign the player who grew up in New York City has come about with him looking set to reject the chance to sign a new contract at the Emirates. His current deal runs until next summer but he could well move on before that to try and break into senior football.

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Arsenal will, of course, be keen to keep Balogun in North London.

They are benefiting from a strong group of young players coming through into their first-team at the moment and making good progress under bright manager Mikel Arteta. Bukayo Saka, Ainsley Maitland-Niles and Eddie Nketiah are just a few to make an impact so far.

Saints are making a concerted effort to improve the overall quality of the talent that comes through their own youth ranks and they have upped their youth recruitment movement in recent years.

Young players with great potential have been brought in to join other members of the Under-23s and Under-18s squads with the hope that they will go on to become first-team regulars in the future.

The likes of Alex Jankewitz, Pascal Kpohomouh and Benni Smales-Braithwaite have all been brought in from other youth academies in the recent past, although Balogun would surely be close to being part of the first-team if he were to join.